When I watch YouTube in Japanese, I sometimes get the urge to translate it into English and introduce it to someone. In this series of articles, I would like to introduce you to something that Japanese people enjoy on a daily basis, and that you would not have had the chance (or need) to encounter without my introduction.

Things You Never Knew：Kaidan

Japan has had a story format called "kaidan (怪談)" since ancient times, which literally means "horror stories". Incidentally, Jeff the Killer, Slenderman, the Russian Sleep Experiment, and the SCP series are also popular in Japan, and these kinds of stories now form a category called "Western kaidan". As you may have guessed, kaidan and urban legends are often confused, and there is currently no clear distinction. However, I think that since the word "kaidan" is now used to describe "horror stories" in general, urban legends can be considered a genre of kaidan or horror stories in this sense.

In Japan, it is customary in August to get together with several friends and perform kaidan in a dark room. I actually have some original kaidan for this event, but I won't cover them in this article. Instead, in this article, I would like to introduce kaidan that were told in the Japanese TV show "松本人志のぞっとする話 (Hitoshi Matsumoto and Horrifying Stories)". This is a show in which a famous comedian, Hitoshi Matsumoto, and other comedians get together and perform kaidan that they have experienced.

This time I would like to translate and introduce my favorite kaidan performed by comedians. But since I'm not a native English speaker, please let me know if there's anything to correct.

“UFO” by Miyasako

That night, Miyasako had a drink with his friends at a bar in Shibuya. In the seat next to them, two men were drunk and talking happily. The two had a boss-subordinate relationship, and an older man who seemed to be the boss spoke to Miyasako. After talking for a while, it turned out that both men were pilots. So Miyasako asked the question he always wanted to ask when he met a pilot: "I am not sure if I can ask you this, but have you ever seen a UFO during a flight?" Then the two pilots suddenly fell silent. After a while, the older pilot said, "Of course, I have." A young pilot tried desperately to stop him, but the older pilot said, "I'm retiring today, so there is no problem telling the truth."

According to him, every time a pilot renews his license, he is asked, "Have you seen anything strange during your flights?" and if the pilot answers truthfully, he is considered insane and forced to quit his job.

"What do you mean by 'truthfully'?" Miyasako asked.

"Miyasako, there is no pilot who has never seen a UFO," he said. "I can't count how many times I've seen them."

Since they were both drunk, Miyasako could not deny the possibility that they were joking, but Miyasako could not believe that they were lying.

Later, when Miyasako told this story to a friend whose father was a pilot, he said, "I know this story. It is taboo for pilots. A pilot who was a colleague of my father once found a huge flying object on the route. He thought that not only his plane but also other planes using that route would be damaged, so he reported it to the control tower, but later he resigned as a pilot."

"The Girl on a Swing" by Haranishi

When Haranishi was a junior high school student, he didn't like to study before exams, so he would sneak out in the middle of the night and sit on a bench on a small hill nearby and talk. That night, Haranishi and his friend K came to the hill as usual, but another friend B didn't come. Haranishi said, "B is late. Let's go get him," and they went to B's house. At the bottom of the hill was a park and a vending machine. When Haranishi looked into the park after passing the vending machine, he saw a girl in a white dress playing alone on a swing.

"Didn’t you see a girl?" asked Haranishi.

"What are you talking about?" said K.

“There was a girl on the swing in the park," said Haranishi. "Let's go back to see it."

As Haranishi said, K looked into the park from the back of the vending machine and suddenly screamed. K and Haranishi ran to the bench on the hill.

"Did you see her?" asked Haranishi.

"Yes, she was playing on the swing," said K.

After a while B came.

"Hey, didn't you see the girl in the park?" asked Haranishi.

"No, I didn't see anything," B replied.

"We both saw the girl. Let's look at her again," Haranishi said.

The three of them went to the vending machine.

"Let's all three look at her at the same time," Haranishi said. "1, 2, 3..."

Surprised to see the girl again, the three ran up the hill as fast as they could.

"There was a girl," said Haranishi.

"She was on the swing with her head down!" said K.

"No," said B.

"No? We did see her on the swing," said Haranishi.

"No, the girl was smiling at me," said B.

A few days later, B was hit by a truck and died.

"Kaidan" by Ueda

Ueda was having a party with his friends. Then someone suggested telling kaidan one by one. However, Ueda didn't know much about kaidan, so he decided to improvise a story. It was a story about a self-immolation in a parking lot near the house, and night after night the ghost of a woman who committed suicide appears. His friends were unexpectedly interested in the story and got excited saying, "It's a scary story!" and "The parking lot is near my house!"

When Ueda walked home alone after the party, he saw a woman walking by wearing a miniskirt even though it was winter. She approached Ueda and said, "Excuse me, I am lost. Could you tell me the way to XX?" Ueda realized that it was the place where the parking lot appeared in the kaidan he had created. Although he was suspicious, Ueda told her the way, and she thanked Ueda and left. After taking a few steps, she suddenly turned and said, "I'm glad you know me. "

"The Nephew" by Yoshii

This is the story of how Yoshii lost his mother five years ago.

Yoshii lost his father before his mother died, and he and his mother took the nephew to visit his father's grave. Then he suddenly pointed to Yoshii's mother and said, "Grandma is going to die!" Yoshii asked him why, and he said, "Grandma will die because there is a black figure behind her." Of course, neither Yoshii nor Yoshii's mother could see such a person. The nephew said, "When Grandpa died, there was a black figure behind him, so Grandma will die too."

Three months later, Yoshii's mother fell ill and was taken to the hospital, where it was discovered that she had terminal cancer and only had a few months to live. Yoshii's mother was admitted to the hospital that day.

Her room was on the third floor, the top floor of the hospital. One day, when Yoshii and the nephew went to visit her, he ran around the second floor even though he knew her hospital room was on the third floor. The nephew said, "The black figure behind Grandma is on the second floor today, so maybe Grandma is here too." Finally, he entered room 204, but it was empty and no one was there. In fact, Yoshii’s mother was on the third floor as usual that day. Yoshii talked to his mother about the mysterious behavior that day, but could not find the exact reason.

A few days later, in the middle of the night, he received a call from the hospital saying that Yoshii's mother was in critical condition. Yoshii immediately rushed to the hospital, and as he was about to go up to the third floor where his mother was, a nurse stopped him and said, "Her room has changed. I'll take you to the room." The room she led Yoshii to was room 204. Yoshii called out to his mother, but she did not answer. Her heart rate continued to drop and Yoshii thought she would die soon. Then Yoshii's mother suddenly woke up, and asked "Who?"

"Mother, I am your son." Yoshii said.

"No," she said. "Who are the black figures in this room?"

Yoshii's mother died after saying these words.

"Newspaper Delivery" by Ayabe

Ayabe had a part-time job delivering newspapers. Among the houses that subscribed to the newspapers, there was an old house on the corner. The front door of the house was made of frosted glass, and the inside of the house was not visible. The front door had a mailbox, and all the mail came right into the house. He put a newspaper in that house's mailbox every day, and every time he returned after delivering it to another house, that house's newspaper disappeared.

There was only one old woman who lived alone in that house. One day, when Ayabe went to her house to collect the subscription fee, the old woman said, "Thank you for always delivering the newspaper to my bedside." Of course, Ayabe never entered the house, so he thought she was mistaken.

Another day, when he put the newspaper in the old lady's house, Ayabe decided to see what was happening to the newspaper. It turned out that the newspaper was being slowly pulled by someone in the house. But the frosted glass didn't show the figure of the person pulling the newspaper. Ayabe thought it was strange and pulled the newspaper that was being sucked into the house. Then the power to pull the newspaper became stronger. Ayabe pulled the newspaper back with more force, and the mysterious power to pull the newspaper inside became stronger. For a while, Ayabe was pulling the newspaper, but suddenly a figure that looked like a French doll appeared in the frosted glass of her entrance.

He didn't know if the doll pulled the newspaper, or if someone pulling the newspaper slammed the puppet against the door, but after that he quit the job.

"The Friend's House" by Yoshii

One day, Yoshii had a party with five friends. The house of the friend who hosted the party was a small and shabby apartment, and he had to use a public toilet just outside the apartment.

Yoshii and his friends gathered at the house and had a party until the early morning. Before going to bed, Yoshii went to the front door to go to the bathroom and found the front door open and a strange man in a yellow hoodie standing there. When the man found Yoshii, he shouted, "Good morning! " Yoshii replied, "Good morning." Then the man left. After a while, Yoshii remembered that his friend had an office near his apartment and thought he might be an employee there.

After a while, one of Yoshii's friends left the apartment to go to the bathroom, and when he came back from the bathroom, he said, "Hey, there was a man who jumped in front of the entrance and said 'Good morning' to me! Who was that?!" Yoshii told him about the man, and it turned out to be the same man he had seen. None of them knew the man, but that day they came to the conclusion that he might be a newcomer to the nearby office.

The next night, Yoshii's friend called him and told him to turn on the TV and watch the news. When Yoshii turned on the TV, the newscaster was talking about something that happened outside the apartment where he had a party yesterday. The headline said, "A slasher appeared in the shopping district. Many people were injured." The screen cut to an interview with their eyewitness who said, "A man in a yellow hoodie was screaming and stabbing people." The screen cut back to the newscaster saying, "Police also say the suspect said, 'I stabbed them because they all ignored my greeting.'"

"The Girlfriend Who Can See Ghosts" by Hamaguchi

Hamaguchi's girlfriend can see ghosts. She lived in Hamaguchi's house. That day, Hamaguchi had to go to work early in the morning and left her alone in his house. When he came home, she looked at Hamaguchi's face in horror and asked, "Hamaguchi? The real Hamaguchi?" and when she found out that he was real, she suddenly started to cry. Hamaguchi asked her why, and she told him what had happened to her that day.

When Hamaguchi left home that day, she was suddenly struck with paralysis while sleeping in bed. Then someone came into the room and said, "I'm home!" He looked like Hamaguchi and had a similar voice, but she felt that he had no soul. She continued to ignore the voice, and eventually it disappeared. When she went to sleep, she was paralyzed again. Then something resembling Hamaguchi came back into the room and said, "Wake up! I’m home! Wake up!" But his voice became muffled and distorted. She continued to ignore the voice, and suddenly an unfamiliar voice said, "Oh, you noticed," and disappeared.

"Taiwan Trip" by Watanabe

Watanabe's mother is Taiwanese, and Watanabe traveled to Taiwan often from an early age. Whenever she visited Taiwan, she stayed with her mother's sister. The house was on the fifth floor of an apartment building, and many of Watanabe's mother's relatives lived on other floors, and they would have a party somewhere every day. That day, Watanabe, her mother, and her younger and older sisters were there.

Around midnight, her mother's sister said, "I have to work tomorrow, so I'll go home first," and went back to her room on the fifth floor. Early in the morning, when the party was over and Watanabe returned to her sister's room on the fifth floor, the door was locked with a chain from the inside and wouldn't open. Her mother thought it was strange and broke down the door and went in to find her sister in her underwear, tied up with a rope.

Her mother quickly untied the sister and asked her what had happened. She said she had been robbed. When Watanabe turned on the light in the room, the whole room was a mess and there was a knife on the floor. Cell phones were not common in Taiwan at that time, and the landline had been disconnected, so Watanabe ran to call relatives in the neighborhood for help.

On the way, Watanabe met a man. Watanabe tried desperately to explain the situation, but she didn't speak Taiwanese. He asked her again and again, but in the end he probably said something like, "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying and I can't help you. Sorry," and walked away.

Watanabe went to her relative's house, explained the situation, and asked him to come to her mother's sister's room. Several people had gathered in the room and saw what had been stolen. When her mother asked her sister, "What did the thief look like?" she replied, "A fat man in a blue checkered shirt suddenly entered my room." Hearing this, Watanabe turned pale because the man she had just spoken to was also fat and wore a blue checkered shirt.

"The Grandmother" by Nakanishi

Nakanishi's grandmother often asked him, "Have you ever seen a ghost? " The reason she asked such a question was because many in Nakanishi's family could see a ghost. In fact, Nakanishi's grandmother could also see a ghost, and it is said that she experienced spiritual phenomena on several occasions. Nakanishi's grandmother told him a story about Nakanishi's father.

A long time ago, when Nakanishi’s father was a young child, Nakanishi's grandmother took him to a sento (public bathhouse; people used public bathhouses because there were no bathroom in many houses in Japan). On their way home, Nakanishi's grandmother felt a chill and stopped. The place where she stopped was the entrance to a path with fields on either side. Looking ahead, she saw several old women working in the fields in the dark. Her grandmother thought it was something they shouldn't see, and she thought they should stay off the path. But she didn't want to frighten her little son, so she said, "Let's go home another way." Then he pointed to the field and asked, "What are they doing?" The grandmother was surprised and said, "Can you see that? Listen, they are ghosts. We should ignore them when they talk to us." His father said, "Okay, Mom," pointing to their grandmother's side. "Should I ignore this person?"

This is the end of the kaidan stories I have selected. Thank you for reading to the end.

Kaidan is a work that has meaning only when told by a skilled storyteller, so I think there are many parts that I could not convey the charm of kaidan in my translation, but I hope this article is interesting from a folklore point of view.

Please point out any grammatical errors in my English. Also, I would appreciate it if you would tell me about Kaidan that you know.