There have been several accounts of ghost sightings and hauntings throughout Korea, especially from the late 19th century onward. The sightings have been so frequent that one visiting American missionary called Korea “the most haunted place on Earth.”
1. What ghosts sightings have there been throughout Korea's history?
2. What special hauntings are reported to have been seen in Seoul?
3. What were the Korean goblins said to have been like?
4. There were sightings of Korean-looking ghosts. Were there sightings of foreign ghosts?
5. Were foreigners also said to have been haunted by these ghosts while in Korea?
6. What was the perception of some of the expatriates living in Korea in terms of the ghost and goblin reports?
7. Do some of these ghost sightings and hauntings persist today?
1. GHOSTS OF KOREA
There were several reports of ghosts and hauntings during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These reports came from Koreans as well as foreign expatriates and visitors. And they news was from high society and average citizens.
Korean palaces were supposedly haunted. Queen Min, for instance, refused to stay at one palace because at night she would hear what she were the voices of her murdered friends. She said she was unable to sleep through their wailing as they cried, “Why was I killed? Why was I killed?” Others testified to the palace haunting, and tales multiplied about ghosts and demons congregating their and engaging in orgies.
As testimony to the strength of these ghost sightings, one of them was reported in a Korean newspaper. In 1918, there was a report of an old woman who was going around the countryside looking for children. She would not appear until the evening, and when she encountered the young boys and girls, she would ask to lick their hands as a way to foretell their futures. After she licked their hands, the children would die on the spot. As a precaution, families took to locking their gates at sunset to keep the children from getting out and to keep her from getting in. The people said this old woman also took the form of a nine-tailed fox.
These ghost sightings and hauntings were occurring during the time of the late Joseon dynasty, and several of the sightings occurred in Seoul. For example, the Jongno area was host to several reports of ghosts, and the people of Seoul made sense of the fact because it was the former area in which criminals were marched on their way to execution.
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| A Korean goblin mascot |
Seoul's hauntings were not only limited to this area. Ordinary citizens reported that abandoned homes were haunted. These homes were often abandoned because of murders and lynchings that occurred during time of social unrest.
Hauntings occurred also at a well near Cheongye Stream and the Jeongdeong area. In this area, women did not want to go out of night for fear of coming into contact with headless ghosts who had been executed some time past. These headless ghosts like to hang out near wells at night in desire of a drink of water that they could not get.
Independence Arch in Seoul was another place avoided because of ghosts and goblins (tokgabi). The goblins were said to be able to take many forms and shapes. Often it was that the goblins began as ordinary household objects that could transform into ghouls human blood touched them. In the lore, more often than not it was a woman's menstrual blood that would come into contact with these objects, obviously suggesting an atavistic fear or disgust of the menstrual cycle.
3. THE GOBLINS' LIFE
The goblins that were seen were not only caused by women's menses. There are also tales that the goblins could be seen around sites where executions took place, or on battle-sites, or places where murders or death were said to have occurred.
They did not only move alone. They would sometimes travel in packs and move throughout a neighborhood or village, scaring off the residents.
It was unlikely to hear that the goblins would try to harm or kill someone and more likely to hear that they were conducting elaborate pranks. What the goblins often did was cut off Korean men's topknot. The Korean topknot (or sangto) was a source of great pride to men and a symbol of manhood. The goblins (or tokgabi) reportedly would cut these topknots off and throw them down on the ground. Some say the reason men wore silver pins in their topknots was because the goblins were afraid of silver.
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| K-Drama depiction of a Korean man with the traditional topknot |
Sometimes the goblins did not engage in pranks and sometimes in the business of possession. In modern-day Incheon (Jemulpo) there was a report from the foreign missionary, Reverend George Heber Jones, that a Korean girl became possessed by three goblins. An exorcism was conducted, and it was supposed to have been the case that these goblins in particular were not former household objects but women, one who had died by fire, another by water. The other spirit was an executed man.
As a precaution of these goblins, whenever the goblins were reported to be in the area, Korean households, especially throughout Seoul, hung large sheets of red cloth over their doors and windows as barriers to these spirits. The folk wisdom was that the goblins would fight for only four days to get in and then after that it was not necessary to keep up the red cloths. Supposedly, the Korean tokgabi (goblins) hated the color red.
4. FOREIGN GHOSTS
Other strange sightings that have occurred have been of foreign ghosts. The late Joseon dynasty, for example, is full of reports of a Japanese ghost called “Yobosang” who would prey on Korean women. To avoid the Yobosang, Korean women took to carrying red pepper in their clothing as an early form of pepper spray to sling at the Yobosang should they see him. Also the Yobosang was said to have hated the spicy taste of peppers.
Another Japanese haunting was reported in the Jeondeong area of Seoul. During the Japanese invasion in the late 16th century, the Japanese were said to have planted a large elm tree. The place around the tree was haunted, people said. A stormed knocked the tree down in 1885. But no one replanted the tree or gathered wood in that area, for fear of the haunting. It was not until the missionary Henry G. Appenzeller that anything was done with the land. He bought the land cheaply, and then built a school for Korean children there.
With the Japanese ghosts, it seems easy to see where the fear might have originated. Also with the Western-looking ghosts. One Western-looking ghost reportedly had blond hair, blue eyes, and deep red lips. He appeared before people as a crying child, but this was just his rouse to get Korean children to inquire about his position so that he could kill them and gain their power.
This Western ghost hung around North Gate and Gwanghui Gate in Seoul. The fear of the foreign ghost was part of a larger fear of Western foreigners. For instance, in the summer of 1888, there were rumors throughout Seoul that foreigners were kidnapping Korean children and eating them. Some stories said children's body parts were being used for medical experiments.
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| A depiction of a Korean ghost |
The ghost hauntings cut both ways. Several foreigners reported incidents as well. For instance, many Western people who were living in Seoul stayed in the homes of former Korean officials, who were killed during a period of social strife that occurred in 1882. The reason the Western foreigners were able to stay there so cheaply was because of these reported hauntings, where the previous occupants were to have been seen. Outside of the homes, the current seat of the American ambassador is supposed to still be haunted to this day.
A late story of the haunting of foreigners in Korea comes from 1921. A popular Japanese restaurant near Nagwon and Insadong was in the area of Tagpol Park, and it was an instrumental gathering spot during the 1 March 1919 Mansei demonstrations. It was also the site of many ghostly occurrences.
One account had it that Japanese officials were sitting in the restaurant with Korean collaborators one day in 1921 when blood began falling from the ceiling on to the patrons. Police came in to inspect the source of the blood flow but were unable to. The fall of blood persisted for the better part of a year, and eventually drove away all the customers. The owner of the restaurant was said to have gone mad and then spent the rest of her free time wandering the streets.
6. “THE MOST HAUNTED PLACE ON EARTH”
The American missionary George Heber Jones was troubled by the ghost sightings while living in Korea. And it was egged on by what he was seeing and hearing from ordinary Korean people. He said that Korean people reported hauntings in every part of homes, in trees, in ancient sites, which he said kept people in a perpetual state of fear requiring countless acts of amends for wrongs that were done to persons, living or past. And when these expiations were not done, the people were subject to retributions from ghosts and goblins. George Heber Jones seemed to have inherited the paranoia himself, saying that ghosts, goblins, and demons were in the sky, the earth, the waters, and hiding in little seen sites, in lakes, streams, roads and rivers, and in all directions. He said there must be billions of ghosts in Korea. He called Korea “the most haunted place on Earth.”
7. GHOSTS TODAY
As late as the 1960s, there were reports of ghosts and haunts in Korea. The 1960s was special because of a slew of unwed mothers having children. They reported that they had not slept with anyone and must have been raped by ghost in their sleep.
Another phenomenon in the 60s was people reporting personal ghost hauntings. They said they had to get the ghosts away by scaring it away, putting themselves in harm's way. Even if this meant jumping in front of a car, if it get rid of the ghost, then people would do it. Other hauntings still persist down to today. A Korean airline was believed to be haunted. In that plane, there was a suicide in the bathroom. The dead passenger was said to still haunt the plane and make problems for the flight.
Other recent reports have been about the National Assembly building haunted by palace women buried on the grounds. The large U.S. military base in Seoul, too, is supposed to be haunted by Japanese ghosts. And then there are children's refrigerators, whom their mothers say are haunted by ghosts.
[NOTE: To be revised later]
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