TOP 5 CREEPY KOREAN URBAN LEGENDS

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Happy Halloween, everyone!
In celebration of Halloween tomorrow, we decided to share five creepy Korean urban legends. Make sure to have your lights on because a few of these will make your skin crawl.

The Toilet Ghost

toiletghost

For some reason, bathrooms are often backdrops to terror in horror movies. There is one common legend in Korea about a ghost that lives inside toilets, more commonly squat toilets. The ghost is said to emerge by sticking its hand out of the bowl while you are squatting and ask you to choose between two toilet papers: red or blue. If you choose red, the ghost will cut you open and leave your body in a pool of blood. If you choose blue, the ghost will suffocate you, leaving your body blue. Apparently, if you try to escape, the bathroom door will lock by itself and you will be forced to choose between the two terrible death sentences.

Black Market Taxi Drivers 

taxiPhoto courtesy of Kotaku

This particular urban legend gained popularity last year after a screenshot of a Kakao Talk conversation circulated around the Web. Numerous websites and social media platforms began spreading a rumor about phony cab drivers sedating unsuspecting passengers, taking their kidney and dumping their bodies in abandoned fields. In other variations of this story, the passengers are drugged with anesthetic hidden in the taxis’ door handles. According to Korean media outlet CNBC, the rumor originated in Gwangju, and the city’s police investigated taxi companies, only to find nothing.

Jayuro Ghost

jayuroPhoto courtesy of spiraphobia.tumblr.com

Located north of Seoul, there is a strip of highway that bridges Goyang to Paju called Jayurowhich is notorious for its frequent fogs that cause numerous car accidents every year. However, some locals believe there is a supernatural cause behind the accidents. Many drivers have claimed seeing a young woman, who at first appears to be wearing sunglasses, on the side of the highway at night. It’s only on closer inspection that the drivers realize that she isn’t wearing sunglasses at all. Instead, her eyes are gouged out and hollow.

Cosmetic Sesame

깨순이1Photo courtesy of Korea Bridge

Beauty is something that almost everyone in society strives for, but this old legend tells the story of a girl obsessed with it. One day, the girl learns from a friend that soaking oneself in bath water mixed with sesame seeds is good for one’s skin and can prevent wrinkles. Excited, the girl runs home and tries this beauty recipe immediately. A few hours pass, but she doesn’t emerge from the bathroom. Curious, the girl’s mother knocks on the door.

“Just a minute!” the girl replies, but the door remains shut. Exasperated, the mother then forces open the door and sees something frightening: her daughter frantically picking out sesame skins that lodged themselves into her pores with a tooth pick.

 

The Elevator Murderer

tumblr_inline_mgyyr3obo81r1v6twPhoto courtesy of spiraphobia.tumblr.com

This modern legend tells the story of a murderer who waits for victims by elevators. It goes something like this: You decide to ride an elevator going up. Just as the doors are about to close, a man will board the car with you. He’ll wait for you to push the button of your floor number before he selects the floor right below yours. When the elevator reaches his floor, the man will take one step off the car. As the doors begin to close, he’ll turn around and whip out a knife. He’ll give you a sinister grin and say, “See you on the next floor.” You’ll then see him dash up the stairs before the doors close, sealing your fate. When the doors open on the next floor, you’ll find him waiting for you, ready to slash you.

Source: http://iamkoream.com/top-5-creepy-korean-urban-legends/ by REERA YOO

Korea Fact No.18: Korea loves SPAM

South Korea has become the largest consumer of Spam outside the United States, according to the local producer. 


By CHOE SANG-HUN January 26, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — As the Lunar New Year holiday approaches, Seoul’s increasingly well-heeled residents are scouring store shelves for tastefully wrapped boxes of culinary specialties. Among their favorite choices: imported wines, choice cuts of beef, rare herbal teas. And Spam.

Yes, Spam. In the United States, the gelatinous meat product in the familiar blue and yellow cans has held a place as thrifty pantry staple, culinary joke and kitschy fare for hipsters without ever losing its low-rent reputation. But in economically vibrant South Korea, the pink bricks of pork shoulder and ham have taken on a bit of glamour as they have worked their way into people’s affections.

One of the SPAM knockoffs that flooded the market.

“Here, Spam is a classy gift you can give to people you care about during the holiday,” said Im So-ra, a saleswoman at the high-end Lotte Department Store in downtown Seoul who proudly displayed stylish boxes with cans of Spam nestled inside. More …

The complete article about Korea and Spam
“In South Korea, Spam Is the Stuff Gifts Are Made Of”, by CHOE SANG-HUN January 26, 2014, NY Times.com
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/world/asia/in-south-korea-spam-is-the-stuff-gifts-are-made-of.html?_r=0&referrer


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Korea Fact No. 17: The world largest IKEA store will be in Korea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The world’s largest furniture store chain IKEA will set up a huge store in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province in 2014. IKEA Korea won a bidding by the Korea Land & Housing Corporation for a 78,198 sq. m plot for W234.6 billion (US$1=W1,159) on Tuesday.
Unlike in most Western countries, where IKEA is cheap because customers have to pick up their goods and assemble them themselves, the store here will provide delivery and assembly services through a subcontractor, a spokesman said.


“The Gwangmyeong store is expected to open in 2014, but we’re also looking for another candidate site in the Seoul metropolitan area, so the first IKEA store in Korea may open somewhere else,” he added.

 

The Swedish company will set out to build the store and open it by the end of 2014. As the US$36-billion behemoth moves into the market, Korea’s furniture retailers are already fretting that they would soon be wiped out by the super-efficient retailer.

IKEA’s Gwangmyeong location near the KTX station will be built in a 78,198-square-meter site with a total floor area of 25,759 square meters. Established in 1943 by a 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad who is now one of the richest people in the world, IKEA has today 338 stores across 40 countries worldwide. By targeting young families based on the strength of low prices and smart design, the company has grown into the world’s largest furniture seller.

Major homegrown furniture brands such as Hansaem and Livart are saying they would respond to the attack of IKEA with a differentiation strategy, including the reliance on online sale. Still, there is little defense against the low-cost retailer whose average selling price is 20 to 30 percent lower than Korean competitors.

Source: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr
http://english.chosun.com/
http://www.koreaittimes.com/

Korea Fact No.16: The Moon Rabbit

You know the man in the moon, but did you ever heard about the Moon rabbit?

The Moon rabbit in folklore is a rabbit that lives on the moon, based on pareidolia that identifies the markings of the moon as a rabbit. The story exists in many cultures, particularly in Aztec mythology and East Asian folklore, where it is seen pounding in a mortar and pestle. In Chinese folklore, it is often portrayed as a companion of the moon goddess Chang’e, constantly pounding the elixir of life for her; but in Japanese and Korean versions, it is just pounding the ingredients for rice cake.

An early mention that there is a rabbit on the moon appears in the Chu Ci, a Western Han anthology of Chinese poems from the Warring States period, which notes that along with a toad, there is a rabbit on the moon who constantly pounds herbs for the immortals. This notion is supported by later texts, including the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era encyclopedia of the Song Dynasty. Han Dynasty poets call the rabbit on the moon the “Jade Rabbit” (玉兔) or the “Gold Rabbit” (金兔), and these phrases were often used in place of the word for the moon. A famous poet of the Tang Dynasty period, Li Bai, relates how: “The rabbit in the moon pounds the medicine in vain” in his poem “The Old Dust.”

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit

Korea Fact No.15: Koreans Are the Most Widely Dispersed People In the World.

A recent study showed that Koreans are the most widespread diaspora in the world as of 2011, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported.

Korea had over 7.26 million people settled in 175 countries across the globe, according to the Overseas Korean Foundation. While China had a significantly larger diaspora, 45.4 million people, they were spread across just 130 countries.

The release of the study coincided with the 110th anniversary of the first batch of Koreans immigrating to the United States.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the past four decades, the number of people emigrating overseas from Korea has increased by almost 10 times. In 1972, only 728,000 people had left Korea to settle in another country, but by 2011 the number jumped to 7.3 million people.

China has been the most popular destination for Koreans looking to leave the motherland and the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates that 2.7 million Koreans live in China. The second most popular country for Koreans is the United States with 2.18 million people.

It has been 150 years since the first group of Korean emigrants crossed into Russia and settled there. The group consisted of 13 farming families from the northernmost border of Korea around Kyonghung County in North Hamgyong Province.

Read the whole article at
Author: Young Rae Kim

 

Korea Fact No.14: Korea, worlds second hard working nation.

The map shows the countries that work hard and the ones where they like to relax
The more red or orange a country is, the harder it works. So, countries like South Korea and Mexico get the work-ethic prize.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-countries-that-work-hard-2013-9#ixzz2fz7AH760
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-countries-that-work-hard-2013-9

Korea Fact No.13: Soju ranked #1 in world sale records of diluted alcohol in 2002.

Korean Soju Advertisement Collection

Soju (Hangul 소주; Hanja 燒酒) is a distilled beverage native to Korea. Jinro and Lotte soju are the first and third top selling alcohol brands in the world.[1] Its taste is comparable to vodka, though often slightly sweeter due to sugars added in the manufacturing process. It is usually consumed neat.

Most brands of soju are made in South Korea. It is traditionally made from rice, wheat, barley, but modern producers of soju use supplements or even replace rice with other starches, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, or tapioca.

Soju is clear and colorless. Its alcohol content varies from about 16.7%, to about 45% alcohol by volume (ABV) for traditional Andong soju,[2] with 20% ABV being most common. However, by usingfreeze distillation,[3] ABV can be increased to desired percentage. There are two different ways to produce Soju; Classic way of distilled Soju that use single distillation method and modern way of dilutedSoju that use chain distillation method.[4] Distilled Soju usually have higher ABV of 30~35% than diluted Soju with ABV of 21~30%. As distilled Soju tend to have higher ABV, it has stronger smell than diluted Soju. It is widely consumed, in part, because of its relatively low price in Korea. A typical 375mL bottle of soju costs the consumer 1,000 to 3,000 South Korean Won in South Korea (roughly $1 to $3 Canada Dollars). In Canada, it costs substantially more – $5.50 ~ $6.25 (depends on brand) [5] as tariff and profitability add onto its original cost price. Now Soju is exporting to 80 countries and in top market share of diluted alcohol market.

Source: Wikipedia

 

Korea Fakten: Nr.12 – Meist frequentierte Flugverbingung


Die weltweit meist frequentierte Flugverbindung 2012 mit ueber 10 Millionen Passagieren, war die von Seoul nach Jeju-Do.
Jedu-do ist eine Insel vulkanischen Ursprunges im Sueden Sued-Koreas. Sie ist gleichzeitig mit ihrem tropischen Klima die groesste Insel Koreas und hat mit dem Vulkan Halla-San auch die hoechste Erhebung Sued Koreas.

Die Insel ist seit langem das beliebteste Urlaubsziel Koreas.