Author Archives: Angela Lee

Gumiho

The Informant:

He is in his early 50s and works as an engineer. Born in Incheon, South Korea, he immigrated to the United States after he married my mother in 1991. He heard the story of the gumiho when he was in high school from his friends.

The Story:

구미호는 여우야. 꼬리가 아홉개있는 여우.

미 는 꼬리라는 의미고, 구 는 아홉이고, 호는 여우같다.

구미호는 어느날 자기를 사랑하는 총각을 만나면 여자로 변신을해. 그리고 여자로 그 남자한테가서 꼬시 는 거야. 납자가 사랑을헤서 반하고 구미호는 자기 집으로 대려가. 거기서 맛있는 음식을주고 따뜻한 이불을깔고 술 도줘. 그 총각이 잠을들면 그의 심장을 뜯어 먹어서 이젠 평생 사람으로 살수 있는거야. 

구미호는 사람은 아니고 귀신이지. 그리고 꼬리는 항상보여. 여우든 여자든 꼬리는 항상 나타나. 그래서 어떤 모습이든 숨기려고해 아니면 잡히니까.

The gumiho is a fox with nine-tails. Mi means tail, Gu means nine, and Ho to be sly like a fox.

It only approaches bachelors and tries to seduce them. When the gumiho meets a man who truly loves her, the gumiho transforms into the figure of a woman. The man falls for her beauty and she leads him to her lair, at which she prepares a warm bed, nice food, and serves alcohol. When the man falls asleep, she then rips out his heart and eats it. She does this to become permanently human.

The gumiho is a form of ghost. It can either be in fox or human form. Whichever form it appears in, the tails are always visible and so it tries to hide it.

The Analysis:

The gumiho tale is often told to young, unmarried men – bachelors – in Korea. From my insight, it is told as a warning to men to be wary of women in general. She may appear to be perfect and pretty, but inside they are all foxes, sly with unknown intentions. This is the first story in which I have heard the gumiho eating a man’s heart, not liver. This signifies that she takes over his life, as he dies but it lives on as a human woman.

The Killing Doll

The Killing Doll

The Informant:

My friend, was born in South Korea. She came the States at a young age, before beginning elementary school. She told this story near a campfire that my friends and I held before spring break.

The Story:

I heard this when I was in elementary school, in the third grade I think. A family friend told me this story, she was a couple years older, in middle school as I recall.

“When I was younger, my family was taking care of a friend’s dog. A day before the dog came, my sister and I visited a garage sale down the street. My sister decided to purchase a doll. It looked like a regular doll except for the fact that it had four fingers straight and the thumb was curled toward the palm. We didn’t think much of the strange hands and brought the doll back home. The next day my whole family decided to go out and locked the dog in the room, and it happened to be in the room with the doll, so that it would not tear up the house. When the entire family came back the dog wasn’t breathing so we took him to the vet and it was pronounced dead. It was only later when we came back home that we realized the doll only had three fingers outstretched.

We had a weird feeling about the doll so the next day we decided to return it.”

The Analysis:

I questioned her about this story because I personally heard a similar one in my childhood. The story centers on the strange doll and implies that it somehow kills a living force a night after someone or something is spent in the same room as it. How the death occurs remains unknown.

Sleep Paralysis and Devils

Sleep Paralysis

The Informant:

My friend, was born in Diamond Bar, CA. He is the son of a pastor whose church is in Diamond Bar. He lives with his parents and three younger siblings, a sister and two brothers. His father is Chinese and his mother is Korean.

The Story:

The first time that this happened to me was when I was either a sophomore or a junior in high school. I was lying on my bed, obviously in the middle of my sleep, when all of a sudden I realized I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move my body, I couldn’t scream, there was no air in my lungs. I tried to scream but couldn’t and I started to freak out. All of a sudden… I felt super cold, from top, my head, down, to my feet. I don’t remember if I was outside the blankets or inside but regardless I felt the wind. Suddenly I felt a heavy weight on my chest, as if something was sitting on it, and a shadow on top of me. I don’t really remember what happened after that. All of these instances blur together after a while. This was the first time it happened. After that it happened on a weekly basis for at least a year. There are times when I know it’s coming. You just feel like you’re getting really tired, or sometimes you can just sense something is off, as if there’s something in your room with you. I’ve never seen anything in my room though, and it always happens at night. There’s nothing I could do except wait for it to pass… and I’m always alone when this happens.

The Analysis:

This is a different occurrence of the scissor lock that my other friend experienced. We talked about this in his room, and a couple other friends were present. As he continued to tell his story, our other friends slowly became quiet, and then silent. The way Trevor spoke was genuine and even though such an occurrence would be questionable, there was no doubt in his voice that this was true. In Trevor’s instance, this happens on a semi-regular basis, with the last one occurring a couple months ago. Before that, it happened once a week or once every other week. There is no basis for why he goes through the scissor lock so often, but his actions showed that he doesn’t get used to it, even though it’s happened numerous times. It is creepy that this has happened so many times that they all seem to blur into one for him. One aspect that was interesting is that he is a pastor’s kid. This was one difference I noticed between him and my other informant on this same topic – it is probable that his stronger faith or adherence to Christianity has an affect on these continual occurrences. Whether it is due to faith or not, I wondered if it was the devil’s doing, and led me to question the existence of the devil and it’s many forms.

 

Researchers have attempted to examine the causes of the scissor lock, dubbing it generally as sleep paralysis: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ADREM.0000005896.68083.ae

A different version of sleep paralysis from someone not religious can be found at: http://kerryonian.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/the-experience/

Scissor Lock

Scissor lock

The Informant:

My friend, was born in Los Angeles, CA. He is an only child and stayed in Southern California his whole life. He came over to my room one day and I randomly asked him if he had any good stories. I asked him specifically if he ever heard about the scissor lock and he told me:

The Story:

You’re asleep. You wake up in the middle of the night and you’re in your room. You see a figure in a corner – a grandma. She’s a Korean grandma wearing traditional clothing, not the nice kind of the type that commoners and poor people wear, with gray hair. She’s sitting on a chair, moaning and weeping. You want to get up and talk to her but you can’t. All you can do is move your eyes. You look to the right and it’s a blank wall. You look back at the grandma and she’s gone. Suddenly you feel a presence at the base of your head. You want to look up but you can’t – you’re petrified. You want to do something but you can’t because you’re stuck. You can’t move. Then I started saying prayers and singing praise songs and everything went away.  You wake up with your arms crossed and hands on your shoulders, like a scissor.

 This never happened to me, thankfully, but I know people who have experienced it.

The Analysis:

The scissor lock is an occurrence that I first came across two years ago. When I asked my friend to tell me this story, it was late at night around 11pm. The room was very bright and the story did not seem scary at the time. The scissor lock appears to be a common occurrence among Koreans, Korean Christians especially. This version included specifically seeing a grandma clothed in old, dirty clothes. It is not known whether this is a general case of a specific case for just my friend. The name scissor lock appears to come from the position in which one wakes up in, with your arms crossed diagonally across the body.

Good Sir, Bad Sir

흥부놀부 (Heung-bu Nol-bu) – Good Sir, Bad Sir

The Informant:

Sung is in his early 50s and works as an engineer. Born in Incheon, South Korea, he immigrated to the United States after he married in 1990. He heard the story of Heung-bu and Nol-bu when he was in the first or second grade in elementary school.

The Story:

흥은 붕해 뜻이야 – 잘 된다는것이야. 놀은 잘 못 된다는거야 (노는 사람들을 놀부라고 부를듯이).

흥부 하고 놀부는 형재야. 근데 놀부가 형이야. 잘 살아, 부자집. 흥부는 가난한 집이야. 형이 동생을 잘 못 챙긴거지.한국에서는 첫재만 재산을주는거지. 흥부는 둘째니까 많이 못 받은거지. 어느날 흥부는 놀부한테 밥을 달라고 했는데, 놀부의 부인이 식은 밥을

준거지. 제비 (새) 가 날라와서 집을 만들었지, 놀부 집 밑에.옛날에 집 바로밑에 처마가있었어. 근데 제비가 떨어져서 다리가 부러졌어. 그래서 흥부가 다리를 고쳤어. 고마운 마음을 제비가 어떤  씨를 가져왔어. 흥부가 그걸 심었었지. 그 후에 박을 쓸려고했는데 도깨비가 튀어 나온가요. 그 도깨비가 물어본거야 “너는 뭘 갓고 싶으니?” 흥부가 밥 달라고해서 밥을 줬어. 돈도 달라고해서 돈도주고, 옷도주고, 집도주고. 흥부가 잘된거야, 그래서 그 형이 배가 아픈거지. 놀부가 일부로 처마를 떨어뜨려서 다리를 또 부라뜨리고 제비가 이번엔 놀부한테 씨를 가져온거야. 그래서 똑같이 씨를 심어서 이번에도 도깨비가 나타났어. 똑같은 질문을하는대 놀부가 “난 돈이 많이 있지만 흥부보다 더 많이 갓고싶으다! 돈 더 줘!” 라고 했다. 결국 나쁜 마음을 가진 놀부에게 돈을 다 잃었고 가난해졌다. 잘 살던 놀부는 평범한 인생을 살고 없었던 흥부는 좋은 인생을 살게됬다.

 

Heung is a word that means good luck. Nol means bad luck. In light of this tale, people who simply play and don’t work are called “Nol-bu”.

Heung and Nol are brothers. Nol is the firstborn and Heung is the second child. Nol is rich and wealthy while Heung leads a life of poverty. In these olden times, the father passes on most of the inheritance only to the firstborn son and the second son is lucky to have received anything. One day, Heung goes to his brother’s house and asks for rice to eat. Nol’s wife gives him cold and old rice. These old houses there are eaves built under the roofs. A swallow comes and builds his nest there. The swallow fell and broke its leg. Heung came across it and fixed its broken leg. Out of thanks, the swallow returned to Heung and gave him a seed. Heung planted the seed and one day using a gourd to water it, a dokgyebi (Korean bogey) springs out. It asks Heung “what do you want?” and he answers that he is hungry and wants rice. The dokgyebi gives him rice. Heung says he wants money and he is given money. Heung says he wants clothes, a house, and it is all granted to him. The brother sees this and his stomach hurts out of envy. Nol purposely drops the eave so the swallow breaks its leg again. This time Nol fixes the leg and the swallow once again returns and gives Nol a seed. Nol plants it and waits for the dokgyebi to appear. It does. It asks Nol “what is it that you want?” and Nol answers “I have a lot of money but I want more than Heung. Give me money!” In the end, the dokgyebi sees his evil heart and Nol is stripped of his money and wealth. The brother who once was rich is now poor and the brother who once was poor is now rich.

The Analysis:

이 의미는 남들이 잘되는걸 따라가려면 잘 안 된다는거야. 있는걸 있을대 만족해라. 욕심 내면서 살면 망한다. 착하게 살아라.

그리고 사람들이 없는대로 복만받으면 “흥부심뽀다”라고 얘기해.

돈이있고 남을 안 도와주면서 살면 “놀부심뽀다”라고 하지.

The meaning behind this story is that you should not live trying to chase after those who are better off than yourself. In doing so, you will simply lose what you already have. Treasure what you are given and be content. By becoming greedy, you will only end up losing what you already have and can end up in a worse state than where you initially stood.

 

My dad told me this story after I talked to him about my aspirations for the future. In light of my future, he meant to tell me not to put too much on my plate. In becoming greedy not only for money but also in my activities, I can end up burning out or losing more than what I think I can gain. He also meant this story to be a reassurance that all will be well. Instead of becoming lost in the competition against others for a job or for a better future, it’s always best to focus on my life and myself.