Main Piece: “ If you go into the girl’s bathroom on the third floor of the building, and walk to the third stall,  knock 3 times and call her name a little girl in a red skirt will be there named Hanako-san. She will have a bloody hand and grab you, or be a animal that eats you. I was so scared going to the bathroom when I was in middle school in Japan, it was a game that a lot of girls would play but it really made me scared as a kid. I don’t know why it was so popular to be honest.”

Background Information: The informant learned this story in Japan through her friends in middle school when she was about eleven. The informant says that this is a very popular story and game in Japan among girls. She hasn’t played it since or heard it since being the United States.

Context: In a coffee shop in San Diego

Thoughts: This story seems very similar to Bloody Mary and has a lot of parallels. First, the number three is in both of the stories. Second, blood is in both stories and the “scary” being is a female. I wonder if this story has the same meaning as Bloody Mary, that it symbolizes the transition of girls becoming women and going through their period. It is interesting how this story, even though it is in Japan, is similar to an American story.