Children growing up in Korea are exposed to numerous urban legends that often fan fear and anxiety -- unfounded fears, in the eyes of adults.

Set against the backdrop of modernized cities, the urban legends typically involve nighttime happenings at rather ordinary, everyday places -- schools, elevators, bus stops, bathrooms, and so forth -- creating irrational fears of everyday activities.

In those stories, a ghost happens to arise from right next to the bed or under the desk and tries to suffocate its victims; an elevator stops at all floors and though no one gets in, a red light suddenly indicates that the elevator is full; a woman with a slit mouth chases people and slits their mouths; a doll kills a boy while his mother is at work.

Though adapted to Korean settings, those grotesque figures and bizarre stories are have mostly been introduced here from Japan since the Japanese colonial era, according to a paper by Kim Jeong-suk, a research professor at Dankook University.

As the modernization of Korea occurred during Japan’s colonial rule, Japan’s urban legends featuring atrocious stories and fear of cities have instilled the sense of fear in Korean children.


They have replaced the rather harmless traditional Korean ghosts with merciless and cruel figures, Kim wrote in his 2013 paper, “A Study on the Path of Elementary School Students Forming a View of Goblins and Ghosts -- With a focus on the changes to the traditional view of ghosts and the influence of Japanese ghost stories.”

“Red Mask,” one of the most famous urban legends that originated in Japan in the late 1970s, has been circulating widely among Korean children since the 1990s.

The story features a girl with a slit-mouth wearing a red mask, who asks people whether she looks pretty or not and kills them by slitting their mouths.

Interestingly, tips on how to escape from the slit-mouth girl went viral as well. The antics included giving her a bunch of yeot, or Korean taffy, saying “pomade” or running into a store that sells pomade, and telling her your blood type is B negative.

Behind such urban legends lie the fear of a random attack by unidentified people when alone, which happens quite frequently in Korea, explained Kim.

Since Korean students stay late at school and cram schools, fear of figures like the red mask girl prevails among those who need to return home by themselves in the dark, Kim said.


By Jung Eun-jin (jej2403@heraldcorp.com)