Korean Ghost Stories

Welcome to Fair Friday! Since it’s the wonderful month of October I wanted to start off with a few spooky stories. Here are 2 of my favorite Korean ghost stories.

The Blackboard

This is the story of a high school teacher who was known for being strict and somewhat cruel to his students. Whenever a student miss-behaved he would force them to stay after school and study in the library until very late in the night. He never stayed in the building, but each of his students had his cell phone number so each evening they would have to check in with him. When they called they would have to tell him their student number from class so he would know who it was to make sure they were studying.

One night he received one of the regular phone calls from students.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Teacher. This is number 31.”

There were only 30 students in his class and he tried to tell the caller this but they had already hung up before he could say anything. Thinking it was a prank call he became angry. The next day in class he threatened all of his students.

“Who prank called me last night?” He yelled angrily.

The students were all quiet and looking around to see who was foolish enough to prank call this teacher. Everyone knew he was very strict and mean so no one went against him.

“If you don’t come forward then everyone in the class is going to get a beating and detention.”

Since none of the students fessed up the teacher beat everyone and gave them all detention.

Later that night his phone rang again at exactly the same time, 9:31. It was the same voice.

“Hello, Teacher. This is number 31.”

Again, he tried to ask the girl for her name but she had already hung up the phone.

The next day, he threatened his students again but no one came forward and admitted anything.

The calls continued every night at exactly the same time, 9:31. The teacher felt as though he was losing his mind. One night, he was finally able to say something,

“Who are you?”

The girl replied, “I’m in your class, Teacher. You know me.”

“My class only has 30 students. Stop lying to me!” He shouted.

The girl replied, “I’m always watching you in class, Teacher, but I can never see your face. You always have your back turned to me. Why? I want to see your face, Teacher.” Then, she hung up. From then on the teacher stopped forcing his students to stay back late after school and he no longer made them call him. He even went so far as to change his cell phone number several times, but the calls continued. Eventually, he couldn’t take it anymore so he decided to retire.

Several months later, the school decided that they wanted to renovate the building. While they were renovating the teacher’s former classroom they removed the blackboard and found the body of a young girl.

One, two

In South Korea, many students will stay late at school in order to study. They have a lot of pressure on them to perform well in school so this is very common. In recent years, studying after 10pm at school and other places has been banned because students couldn’t focus well in school. However, that’s not the only reason it was banned…

One night, a high school student named, Sun-Hi was studying late at the school library with her classmates. Because it was so late most of the lights in the building were off, except for in the library. After a while, she wanted to go to the bathroom, so she told her friends that she would go to the bathroom and be right back. She walked down the dark hallway towards the bathroom but because there were many people in the library she didn’t feel scared.

After a few minutes had passed some of the students heard a faint tapping noise. They started to look around and noticed that it was coming from the window. They saw a pale hand tapping on the window and a woman’s face pressed against the glass with her eyes tightly shut. Everyone thought it was strange that this woman was standing outside of a school library window tapping on the window. Maybe she was disturbed, homeless, or maybe she needed help. No one knew, but after a few moments several students let out horrific screams. They noticed that the woman did not have her eyes closed but she had no eyes. All that was there in her face were two dark holes for eyes. Suddenly, the woman balled her hand into a fist and plunged it through the window shattering the glass. Then, all the lights went out.

Meanwhile, Sun-Hi was still in the bathroom unaware of what was happening in the library. Even though the lights had gone out she still went about washing her hands. Everything was silent and she couldn’t hear the screams coming from the library. She finished washing her hands and started walking back to the library, but then she stopped. She could see the dead bodies of her fellow classmates thrown around the room. Some of them were laying across desks, filing cabinets, hanging on the chairs, thrown against the floor. Her mind was trying to understand what she saw amid the carnage until she heard footsteps coming down the hallway. Thinking quickly she lay down on the floor next to the body of one of her classmates. She did not move and she listened as she heard someone quietly creeping into the library. She kept her eyes closed and pretended to be dead and listened to the sounds of someone moving around the room. Fearing what could happen to her she lay as still as possible and did not make a sound. Then, she heard a voice whispering,

“One, two… one, two… one, two …”

She became curious about what she heard and opened her eyes slightly to take a peek. There, standing in the middle of the room she saw a pale woman in a flowing, white dress. She quickly closed her eyes and willed herself not to scream. She heard the ghost coming closer and closer whispering under her breath,

“One, two… one, two… one, two …”

She kept her eyes closed and prayed that the ghost would leave. Again she heard,

“One, two… one, two… one, two …”

The ghost was coming closer and closer, but she forced herself to lie as still as possible. She held her breath, then she heard the counting stop. She stayed motionless and strained her ears to listen to any noise. There was no sound in the library and all was eerily quiet. After several minutes she slowly opened her eyes to see a long bony finger pointing at her.

“One, two!” said the ghost, as it plucked out her eyes.