Story

“Anatomy practical exams, from my experience, have two parts: identifying samples on a microscope and general gross anatomy. The identifying sample part was set up to have multiple microscopes around the anatomy lab. Students would have to identify what was under the microscope and also be able to answer related questions. The gross anatomy exam just had pieces of organs fresh from a cadaver on display and students also had to answer questions on that.

There was a tradition in my university of people fearing to enter the anatomy room the night before the exam. The story was that few years’ prior, a nearly failing student decided to sneak into the anatomy room on the night before. He was expecting both the microscope test and gross anatomy test to be set up. However, none of the tests were set up, and all there was in the room was a cadaver in the middle of the room. The student, out of desperation, decides to stay the night in the anatomy lab and study the cadaver in preparation of the upcoming test. The student studied but could not resist his sleep late at night. So he turned off the lights of the lab. He decides to sit on a chair and rest his head on an empty table to sleep. During his sleep, the student felt something cold brushing slowly against his arm, which caused him to wake up. When he turned on the lights to see the room, the cadaver was missing from the middle of the room. The student left the campus instantly and could not make the anatomy exam out of fear.

Whenever there was an anatomy exam near, all the students would talk about the living anatomy room cadaver and the variants they heard. Even our anatomy professor told us to stay out of the anatomy room the day before the exam.”

Context

I collected this piece from my mother, who attended and trained to become a doctor at Hallym University in Chucheon, South Korea. This story is significant to my mother as she says it is one of the few memories she has about the culture and tradition of her university life. Being on a path to become a surgeon, my mother says she did not have ample time to thoroughly experience the diverse regional culture that her universiry experience provided.

Analysis

This is an urban legend has the moral to not cheat. Had the student not attempted to cheat, the whole ‘supernatural’ experience could have been prevented. Additionally, this leads to other students deterring away from cheating.

Story

Tsuru Nyōbō is a Japanese folk legend about a man who helps a crane.

“There once lived a young man in Japan. One day, a crane plummets to his feet from the air and the man sees that the crane has been shot down by an arrow. He helped the crow heal and regain flying by treating the wound. The young man let the crane go, warning it of hunters, then the crane flew around the man’s head three times to thank him before taking off.

When the young man got home at night, there was a beautiful woman waiting for him, who stated that she was now his wife. When the man tells the woman that he cannot support her due to his wealth status, the woman stated that she has plenty of rice and started cooking dinner. The rice sack never depleted, and the two started to live together.

One day the woman asked the man for a weaving room. Once completed, she warned the man to never look inside the room and went into the room for seven days. She came out with a very beautiful weaved cloth. Then she told the man go sell it at the market at a high price, which he did.

The man became curious of the wife’s weaving skills, especially because she had no thread. When he looked inside the room ignoring his wife’s warnings, he saw a crane pulling its feathers off to weave into cloth. The crane realized the man was peeking, identified itself as the crane that the man saved, and the crane decided to become the wife of the man to repay him for the debt of its life. However, because the man now knew of the crane’s true form, the crane could no longer stay with him. It threw the cloth it just finished weaving to the man as something to remember [the crane] by and abandons him.”

Context

I collected this from my Japanese friend that I befriended during my times studying abroad in Shanghai, China. She says that Tsuru Nyōbō significant to her because when she first heard of the story during her childhood, she was amazed by the selflessness of the crane and its loyalty to repay debt.

Analysis

The moral of Tsuru Nyōbō is to not break promises that we made. Although the man is a kind and caring man for taking care of the crane, he made the mistake of breaking the promise that he made to his wife, which led to losing all the benefits of the crane and additionally losing a loved one.

The numbers three and seven can be seen in this story. The crane swirls three times above the young man’s head to communicate its thanks to the man. The wife was in the weaving room for seven days. The presence of these numbers are significant as they play a role in shaping our cosmological view. When children are subjected to folkloric stories with specific numbers being very prevalent, e.g. three, they grow up believing that there are ‘natural’ qualities beyond its value and significant just as a number.