Once again it is time for my annual Halloween post. This year I decided to write about Korean ghosts and how they were sometimes used to influence society or to disguise transgressions against social norms.
We often read that we foreigners are maligned by the press and viewed in negative ways by the general Korean population. Whether that is true or mere exaggeration is a matter of opinion, but a little over a hundred years ago one of the scarier ghost in Seoul appears to have been a white Westerner.
“A strange creature appearing at the old sites of the Namso and Sukchong gates, which had not been used for hundreds of years. The ghost, it was said, had a white face, yellow hair, blue eyes, and blood-red lips, and cried in a child’s voice. Its appearance was obviously that of a Westerner, and many people immediately connected it with the idea that Westerners, kidnapped children, killed them, and made a power from their bodies that was used for photographic film.”
The rest of the article - including haunted Korean palaces, haunted houses destroying the house market, and Korean women raped by ghost and then giving birth to “ghost children” can be read here.
Happy Halloween
9 Comments
But what is their connection to fan death? Surely these spirits are involved…
Christianity would be so much cooler if Jesus’s title was “Jesus the Holy Ghost Child.”
I blame global warming.
#3: Heh. Everything wrong in the world can be blamed on three things: Israel, George Bush and/or Global Worming.
The schoolyard epithet “ghost,” referring to half-Caucasian half-Korean kids, now makes sense. Thanks, Mr. Neff.
Something I found on the net:
“According to the Gallup poll, one in ten Americans believed in ghosts in 1978. In 1990, one in four did. Today, one in ten people say they have seen or been in the presence of a ghost!”
Wonder what the ratio is now?
I never thought I would get laid trick or treating. And to think all I wanted was some candy~!
How much of that is true? I’m not familiar with Korean history all too much, but from what I can tell from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....n_monarchs , Gwanghaigun’s successor didn’t get usurped by a “Three Days King.” And the thing about the voodoo concubine, is that real?
If I had to pick a place that is haunted, in Seoul, I would pick 창덕궁 since it has a melancholy vibe to it. I prefer not to go there because of that.
Oh but Shaku, you did get your candy…it came with her in the form of sloppy seconds. No need to thank me though, everyone gets my love~!
BTW mate, who’s the bug-eyed fellow in your pic?