Korean Superstitions – AND YOU WILL DIE

There once was a time when I remember being told that if I was a good little kid, a fat man in a bright red suit would slide down our chimney sometime in the evening, and leave me a surprise under the Christmas tree. While I’m sure the idea of an essentially reverse-burglar in the middle of the night should delight any child, I have to say that it did quite the opposite for me. I was filled with dread and fear. It was not the fat man himself that frightened me, but rather what my mother told me would happen were I NOT good enough. Can you guess what it was?

If you guessed that I’d get a lump of coal, you would be WRONG.

My mother told me that the ghost that lives on our roof would come and eat me in my sleep. And I don’t mean semi-transparent, sissy ass American ghost that lives in your den. I mean full out fucking Asian ghosts that will EAT YOU IN YOUR SLEEP IN CASE I DID NOT MENTION THAT PART.

Childhood was a magical time.

While the “ghost eating me in my sleep” was an outright lie fabricated by my parents to keep me from doing anything bad, there are a few more superstitions JUST AS RIDICULOUS that my family (and a lot of other Koreans) honestly seem to believe, and which have shaped me into the walking traumatized person I am today.

1. Fan Death: Sleep with the fan on and DIE.
This one is pretty popular on the internet, so I imagine most of you have heard of it. The basic idea is that sleeping in a closed room with the fan on is like taking an expressway to your untimely demise. I have heard this over and over again, from the moment I was old enough to know what a fan was. Even just this month, as the weather warmed up, my mother called me SPECIFICALLY for this: “It’s getting pretty hot. You should go buy a fan for your room. BUT REMEMBER, don’t sleep with the fan on. Ok?” I promised I wouldn’t, and three days later found that the weather, even at night, was unbearable. So I turned the fan on, and tried to sleep.

Between the image of Sadako coming off of my roof to tear my limbs off for lying to my mother, and the idea of my imminent death due to the mysterious properties of the fan being on, I ended up shutting the thing off. Even knowing that it wasn’t true, I couldn’t do it. 20 years and the idea stuck. I’ve managed to overcome it to a certain extent in the past few weeks, but I still wake up some mornings going “Am I alive? I am? Whew. Good.”

2. Red Ink: Sign your name in red ink and DIE.
According to my grandmother, who may or may not be correct, this originates from the days when people would sign their goodbye letters in blood. Again, I’m not sure if this is historically accurate, but that’s what she believes, and whether that’s true or not, the fear of red ink is still there. According to her, nobles who were planning on killing themselves or were ill, and knew they were dying, would cut their fingers and write their last letters in blood. The other answer I’ve heard is that Korean Buddhists write names in red ink only when someone is dying or has died. Either way, writing yours (or anyone else’s) name in red ink is bad, and you shouldn’t do it.

3. Don’t Whistle at Night: If you do, you’ll call a ghost to your home and…well, you might DIE.
See a pattern? Basically whistling in the night is said to call spirits to your home, who may or may not kill you. They might just haunt you, and you know, kill you later when you fuck up and Santa crosses you off of his good list. Some people say that it isn’t ghosts or spirits, but rather robbers that are called in the night. Or snakes. Either way, your ass is SOL. Sorry.

4. Cutting your nails at night will bring ghosts (who might cause you to DIE).
Who will then proceed to use the nail clipping to turn into a person that looks JUST LIKE YOU. Go look in the mirror. Yeesh. No one wants that for sure.

5. Sitting on cold surfaces will make women infertile. (I’m sure one way or another, you’ll also DIE)
I have no idea what’s up with this one, but apparently cold and flat surfaces will make you incapable of having babies. That’s right, the cold will reach right up and scramble everything around. If you happen to be female, and have a habit of finding blocks of ice to sit on, it’s time to start planning to adopt.

6. Sleep Paralysis: Not rational at all, IT’S A FUCKING GHOST (who wants you to DIE)
It’s always a ghost. This one isn’t just Korean though, it’s known as “The Old Hag Syndrome” in the Western World. Although, if someone says “Man, that girl suffers from the old hag syndrome”, it sounds more like you’re using a fancy way of calling her a bitch. Basically, there’s a ghost that wants to eat your soul, and it’s sitting on top of you. Staring at you. Laughing. Not cool. Pssh, who cares about long winded biological explanations when you can have GHOSTS?

Good news: If it doesn’t happen by the time you’re 19, apparently it never will (doubt it).
Bad news: If it does happen before you’re 19, it’ll keep happening forever, and you will never sleep again.

7. More Ghosts (And you DYING)
Apparently they’re everywhere. There are about 2384094809368 different ways to call ghosts to come fuck your shit up, and that basically means you’ve probably screwed yourself over in at least one way by now. These are just some of the more common ones.

If you hang your hands or feet off the side of the bed, someone MIGHT come to chop them off. If you’re lucky. Otherwise, the ghost under the bed is going to grab you and suck you under.

If you sleep with a chair by your bed, you’re inviting someone to come watch you sleep. Whether this is the aforementioned ghost, or your creepy stalker, I have no idea.

If you sleep on a large bed, and only sleep on one side, you’re inviting someone to sleep on the other side. If you sleep on your back, the ghost that happens to be on your ceiling will stare down at you, just waiting for you to open your eyes.

Lastly, if you have long hair and you sleep with it down…well, apparently there’s a ghost for that too. She’ll sit and count all of the individual hairs, and if she finishes before you wake up, YOU DIE.

8. Dreams (OF DEATH)
If you thought you had gotten away from the ghosts already, you are SORELY MISTAKEN. But first, if you dream of a pig, you will have good luck. If you dream of a dog, apparently you’ll have bad luck.

If you dream of something bad happening, don’t mention it before noon, because then it’ll really happen. Yep, that’s right, when you saw your brother-in-law get trampled by a herd of GIANT GEESE in the city, if you are the kind of bastard that doesn’t follow superstition and you tell someone before noon, consider your brother-in-law Geesed, you heartless jerk.

Aaaaand, back to the ghosts: if you dream of a person who is already dead, do not answer any questions and do not let them “take” you anywhere. Why not, you ask? Silly rabbit, IT’S BECAUSE YOU’LL FUCKING DIE, THAT’S WHY.

(But apparently, if YOU die in the dream, it means good luck for your real life. Huh. Go figure.)

So that was my childhood. And looking back on all of these now, I feel pretty good. Not only because I actually managed to make it out alive, but rather because they’re hilarious and make for a great story in the backroom at work. And these are only from Korea. They don’t even BEGIN to cover the superstitions that coworkers have told me from around the rest of Asia.

Still, about a week ago, I managed to catch what has to be the worst flu I’ve had in a long while. I was telling my Korean coworker about this yesterday, and she looked sort of deep in thought for a moment, and then she asked me just one bone chilling question:

“Well, did you sleep with the fan on?”

God dammit. Yes. Yes I did.

Related Article: More Superstitions – Asian General (Part 1).