Witches, Ghosts, Goblins

October 27, 1994 At first I wondered why people living here talk about ghosts a lot in this season. We, Japanese, talk about ghost stories most in summer, especially the summer night. Japanese summer is very hot and humid, so we feel cool after talking about ghost stories to each other. Most Japanese ghost stories are related to a strong grudge. So there are no jokes and no cute parts unlike in this country. Japanese ghosts are not scary in visualization. Actually, the stories make us fear. Typical Japanese ghosts are women who have long hair. They don't have legs, but they wear white Japanese clothes. They have triangle cloth around their heads. (I don't know why.) They don't say anything. They just appear. So people who see them try to understand their grudges themselves. I don't know many stories. When I was a child, I didn't join my friends when they started to tell the ghost stories. But I would listen to a ghost story in a class at least once a year. Actually, teachers liked it. Every time I heard the scary stories, I could not sleep at night. Now I understand Halloween brings us these stories in this season. But the ghosts in this country are not scary. They seem to talk a lot. And sometimes they are cute and funny. They are different from my image of the "ghosts."

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