Do you know the story of Toire no Hanako-san, or Miss Hanako of the Toilet?
It’s a Japanese urban legend that can be found at most every elementary school here, and it goes like this: if you go to the fourth stall of a specified girl’s bathroom, usually on the third floor of the school, knock three times and call out “Hanako-san, are you there?” then you’ll hear her reply, “Hai” (yes). Open the stall and you’ll see a shimmering figure of a girl with bobbed hair with a red skirt on standing there. It’s the ghost of Hanako, a girl who committed suicide after being bullied by her classmates, who is said to haunt the girl’s bathroom looking for revenge.
Or in an older version, Hanako is a girl who was playing hide-and-seek in the school bathroom during the war and was killed in an American air raid because she couldn’t hear the air raid siren.
Hanako-san is part of a pantheon of “school ghost” stories that are well known in Japan, like Kuchisake Onna or Split-Faced Woman, a female ghost who asks you if she’s beautiful before trying to devour you, and Teke-Teke, the upper torso of a female who claws her way around Japan searching for her lower half, which was severed in a train accident in Hokkaido.
Anyone hearing this story will supposedly see Teke-Teke’s lower half walking aimlessly around the countryside within three days. Let us know if you see anything!
Interesting. I never really thought as to whether Japan school children had their own bathroom ghosts, but I suppose everyone does. My friends used to scare themselves silly trying to summon Bloody Mary or the Candyman in a variety of different bathrooms. I was always too terrified to take part. Funny though, none of the bathroom ghosts of my American childhood were ever connected to the school in any way, like former students or anything. Just random traveling spirits who like to appear in mirrors and bathrooms everywhere.
I watched the movie ” The Ring ” both Japanese original and the American remake. I found the American one was much scary than the Japanese one. I think the Japanese ghost story is mostly not so straightforward like the Western one. I once watched the ” 13th Friday ” and it was so scary that I couldn’t watch the series anymore.
Yes, I figured Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter had to be part of some larger British bathroom ghost genre. Which the Japanese may have adopted, since just about everything in Japan seems to flow from Britain first.
“since just about everything in Japan seems to flow from Britain first.”
???
Really? Care to elaborate a bit?
oh whizzo!..is this a quiz?
1. Trains
2. Parlimentary Democrassy
3. Pushbikes
4. Margaret Thatchur
5 …a nice cuppa tea!
6. Gardening
7. Royal Scandals
8. Japarazzi
9. a quiet walk in the park and feeding the Dux
10…a nice kip-on-Sundae.
how’d I do?
(trying hard)
remora
or have they learnt to battle on (as the Brits have) in the face of insurmountable government apathy and lack of vision and grasping at any minor daily joy..and gritting their gums in quiet desperation and hoping that it-will-all-work-out-in-the end?.
flow from Britain?
Well God help Japan.
Goodness me. I’m suddenly quite depressed.
remora,
You really think the Japanese acquired tea from the British? And gardening? And a quiet walk in the park?
You must be joking.
Japanese were doing these things when Brits were still sleeping on piles of leaves and refusing to bathe for “health reasons.”
well cheer up skip! we are in Japan - I live by a beautiful lake & you live in what looks a very nice part of Western Kyushu..i’ve got the telly warmed up and ready for tonites/morning game…my boss is on hold..
It beats swining and groaning about getting the washing dry - dunnit?.
http://www.kevinpietersen.com/
rem
“You must be joking”?
I declare that I have never-ever made a hummerous comment on JAPUNDIT…honest
and hay? wots wrong with kipping down on a “pile of leaves” and smeering woad-on-me-face (as all True Picts do)
*and as for a Bath?…please I’m British*
(*!*)
remora
Hey jimichan. Welcome to japundit, Let me explain the unwritten rules fairly quickly.
1 Remora posts a lot of fluff
2 Remora posts a lot of fluff
3 Remora posts a lot of fluff
For the oficial rules, I believe there is a posting guideline somewhere.
With regards to the refusing to bathe thing, when living in London I was taught a piece of british womanly wisdom: “The best place to hide money from a man is underneath the soap.” Yup, to the true british male, Bath is a town and the name of a strange ritual enacted by women.
But I cannot jibe the brits without also jibing the japs. One must share in equal measure… sooooo one thing I find amusing from japanese when talking about how civilized they have always been, is the fact that the Jomon period extended into the 3rd century AD - meaning that the ‘japanese’ didn’t leave the stone age until 1700 years ago. Also the genotype of the jomon-jin differs greatly from that of modern japanese which resembles the korean more than the jomon-jin.
I’d forgotten all about the Bloody Mary story. Doesn’t the Kuchisake Onna gets made into a movie every once in a while? I think I saw there was a remake coming out soon (or already out?).
“a Medievel people living in Contemporary times” Donald Ritchie described them as Rune.
There is an infectious earthiness to these people, a natural sensibility.
As for Fluff? maybe you would prefer some long-winded coma-inducing polemic of a comment which is more about the quantity of words rather than the quality of content.
There is no shortage of that here - I can assure you.
Plain and Extremely Simple..that’s me.
rem.
oh yes and before I forget - Japanese drive on the civilised side of the road - which really must grate on the nerves of any newly-arrived American or West European.
Britain’s lasting legacy to Japan.
beep!beep!
remora
I don’t mind fluff at all rem, not one bit, just stating facts.
Roger Wilco Rune - more Fluff coming up.
rem.
much obliged my purveyor of light entertainment in the japundit commentary track
JP
If you remember Hosten Bosh (<-sure I spelled it wrong) was an amusement park that was like a small Holland. After work all the Dutch employees would go drink in a bar in Haiki, Nagasaki ken. It was a small town south of Sasebo, Nagasaki ken. All this happened in Kyushu. Well, story goes, I went to the bar one night. Well a few times and the owner was from the Netherlands. His name was Casey. He loved to tell stories and this one ghost story was very shocking. He wanted to share with us that he is indeed a true believer.
He was walking on the beach near Karatsu Castle. Like all of his stories, Casey was drunk out of his mind. He explained that he was down at the beach drinking with his wife and decided to head on back to the car. His wife followed, but Casey was walking fast and his wife lost view of him. Casey then said that he passed out in the woods while heading to the car. He said he fell down and then rolled over on his back. He then was kicked hard in his side and then opened his eyes thinking that his wife had kicked his ribcage. He was a little irritated by it too, but it was not his wife at all he explained. He said it was a full dressed Samurai yelling at him to get up and insulting him. He the closed his eyes to hope it was a bad dream. He reopened his eyes to see nothing. He said he was scared and the called out for his wife. She finally showed up and Casey explained she did not believe him. She was frightened and said that nobody is around here. Casey asked her if she kicked him and she said something like no I could not find you because I got lost.
Well, I must say Casey told that story over a bar and my friend and I had a few too many when we heard this story. It is a ghost story I wanted to share. He said his ribs were hurting for some time. Strange point he was trying to make was that he believe that ghost in Japan are life like. In other words you can’t tell they are a ghost because they take on a physical appearance.
If you’re looking for some scary stuff in Japan then locate a cliff where couples use to kill themselves vs. husbands being drafted to fight in WWII. I will save that story for another posting because another friend had a flat and ended up next to such a scary place. He was not drunk then nor was he drunk when he told the story…. L8r
Kegon Falls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC9mqzJ5BLs
a few days after my Father past away - I stood on that viewing platform.
REMORA
I didn’t think Japanese ghosts had feet. How could one kick you?
I remember Haus Ten Bosch. (Spelling in romaji is problematic. Should it be Bosu, because that’s the way they pronounced it?) I spend most of my time in the Tokyo area, but I really like Kyushu!
Ghosts, and stories about them, seem omnipresent in Japan. I have very long hair, and even though it’s not black, my wife FREAKS when I put it over my face. I do a pretty good mukade-onna type crawl too, but I really can’t do these things. I mean, she REALLY FREAKS!