One of the first Urban Legends videos we did was Korean Urban Legends - in many ways, it
spawned the whole series.
Its let us cover a whole bunch of different countries so I thought, why don't we return
to Korea and take a look at some more.
I know some of you say that Korea has the scariest stories by far, let's look at some
more and see how many others agree - my name is Danny Burke, this is the Top 10 Korean
Urban Legends - Part 2
Starting off at number 10 we have One Two One Two.
The story goes like this.
One night, a Korean girl named Sun-Hi was at school.
It was late and she was studying in the library with a group of other students from her class.
All the lights were on, but the rest of the school was in darkness.
After a while, Sun-Hi went to use the toilet.
She told her friends and then headed down the dark hallway to the bathroom.
A few minutes passed and then in the library, the other students began to hear a faint tapping
noise.
It was quiet at first but got louder.
It seemed to be coming from the window.
When they looked out, there, standing in the darkness, was a pale woman.
She pressed her face against the window but kept her eyes shut.
One of her long, crooked fingers was tapping on the window.
Then, one of the students gasped in horror - the woman wasn't closing her eyes - she
didn't have any eyes at all - there were just dark holes where her eyes should have been.
Then, she raised her fist and smashed the glass.
All the lights went out.
In the bathroom, Sun-Hi was about to wash her hands when she was plunged into darkness.
There was silence.
She was too far from the classroom to hear the screams as the woman slaughtered the other
students.
She stepped back into the library and stopped dead in her tracks.
The bodies of the other students were everywhere.
Shaking with fear, her mind raced as she tried to figure out what happened.
Then, she heard footsteps coming from down the hallway.
Sun-Hi dropped to the ground to play dead.
She heard something enter the room.
It made a rustling sound as it moved.
Then, there was a whisper -One, two, one, two, one, two- … Sun-Hi kept her eyes closed
and prayed.
-One, two, one, two, one, two- …. She felt the presence draw nearer and heard the voice
getting louder -One, two, one, two, one, two- … as it came beside her, the counting stopped.
Sun-Hi remained paralyzed with fear.
There was absolute silence.
After several minutes of this, Sun-Hi thought the woman had gone.
She slowly opened her eyes.
The woman was crouching directly over her, staring into her eyes.
She had one pale, bony finger pointing straight at Sun-His face.
-one, two!- she said, before plucking her eyeballs out with her fingers ...
Yeah, we started off pretty intense there didn't we, let's keep it going as we move
on to our number 9 which is The Cuckoo Man.
This urban legend began to spread around Korea a few years ago.
There were rumors in schools about a crazy man who was terrorizing students: the Cuckoo
Man.
They say he would lurk in alleys and dark streets, lying in wait for his next victim.
One story involved a group of schoolgirls passing by.
They heard a voice saying -Cuckoo, cuckoo- … when they turned around to look at him,
the Cuckoo man would savagely attack them.
Some say he used a baseball bat, others say his weapon of choice was an Axe.
Either way, reports of this happening became more frequent.
One of them involved 20 to 30 schoolgirls walking down a street when the Cuckoo Man
jumped them and start hitting them with a baseball bat, one by one.
He only stopped when the police arrived, at which point he fled into the night.
Some say there is one way to stop the Cuckoo Man from attacking you.
If you're walking down a street and hear a strange voice behind you saying -Cuckoo, cuckoo-
… you must also reply with -Cuckoo, cuckoo- and then for your life.
Moving on to number 8 now we have the MP3 Kidnappings.
This Urban Legend appeared around 2010 and has been spreading in some form or another
ever since.
People say that kidnappers in Korea have had much easier jobs ever since people started
listening to music on their headphones.
It was around 2010 when listening to music like this became very widespread in South
Korea - and that's about when the reports of kidnapping happened.
People say that kidnappers were driving around dark streets, waiting to spot someone with
headphones blasting music in their ears.
Then, when the innocent person is distracted, they are bundled into the back of a car and
taken away.
The phenomenon began spreading across the whole country and was even talked about online.
Many blogs and forums told the story of a female middle school student who was walking
around one night, headphones blaring.
She was kidnapped by 3 or 4 criminals who wrapped tape around her mouth and assaulted
her.
They then returned her to the spot where they found her.
Although these may just seem like stories, it has resulted in some South Koreans developing
a real superstition about listening to loud music alone - especially when walking along
dark and creepy streets …
Next up at number 7, we have The Handsome Man.
The story goes like this.
19-year-old Karuko lived on the 14th floor of her apartment building.
One night she was coming home late from university and took the elevator up to her floor.
She was alone but a moment before the doors closed, a handsome man stepped into the elevator
with her.
He smiled and stood quite close to her.
They chatted for a while and the man said he lived on the 13th floor.
When they reached that, he got out and turned to face her.
His smile turned to an evil one.
He tilted his head and said -I'll see you upstairs- … then, he pulled out a knife
and laughed maniacally as he ran up the staircase.
Before Karuko could do anything, the elevator doors closed.
She tried to stop the elevator by hitting every button she could, but nothing worked.
When she got to her floor, the doors opened and there he was.
She was never heard from again.
Some people in Korea believe this is the reason why elevators now have a stop button - and
they'll be happy to tell you Karukos story to show you why.
Moving on to number 6 now we have The Sesame Seeds.
The story goes like this.
One day, a girl was worried about her skin getting old and wrinkled.
She was obsessed with improving the look of her skin.
At first, she used normal products but then felt she needed more than that and started
to explore stranger techniques.
One day, a friend of a friend told her that if you put sesame seeds in your bath, they
will help your skin stay youthful and glowing.
The girl had heard a lot of techniques but not this one.
Perhaps this was the secret method that would satisfy her forever.
She rushed home and ran a bath.
After pouring in a huge bag of sesame seeds, she jumped in the bath - where she stayed
for hours.
Her family told her to get out of the bathroom but the girl refused, she wanted more time
for it to work.
Her mother grew suspicious and kicked the door down.
To her horror, she found the girl in a shocking state.
Every last seed had attached itself to her pores and wrinkles and send roots down into
her skin.
Her daughter had a calm but crazed look in her eyes.
She was trying to remove the seeds one by one with a toothpick, but all that came out
was her trickling blood, splashing onto the bathroom floor …
Next up at number 5 we The Eyeless Woman.
This urban legend comes from north of Seoul.
There you can find a strip of highway that connects Goyang to Paju.
Its called Jayuro, and it's a road that's notorious for the heavy fog that's been blamed
for a number of horrific car accidents.
At least, that's what the officials say.
Many locals believe there is a supernatural cause behind the accidents.
Many drivers have claimed to have seen a young woman, wearing sunglasses, stood on the side
of the highway at night.
It's only when they get close that the drivers realize there are no sunglasses, instead,
her eyes are actually gouged out and hollow.
The shock of seeing her sends drivers careering off the road and to their untimely deaths
...
Moving on to number 4 we have The Cockroaches.
This South Korean Urban legend will freak out anyone with a fear of creepy crawlies.
The story goes like this, one day, a girls stomach started to hurt really bad.
She didn't see any reason for this and so went straight to the hospital.
The doctors took an X-ray which appeared to show what they called -foreign elements- inside
her.
They took some more detailed X rays and discovered that what they were actually looking at was
cockroaches inside her.
Somehow, a cockroaches eggs had ended up inside her where they had hatched into fully grown
cockroaches.
They showed no signs of wanting to leave and had to be removed through surgery.
Many people now check their clothes twice for cockroach eggs, unless they want the story
to come true for them too.
Next up at number 3, we have The Dead Dream.
According to some people, there have been reports in Korea of dead family members appearing
in peoples dreams.
One such story involved that of a man who dreamt his grandmother was beckoning him over
while she was waist deep in water.
He wanted to go to her in the dream, after all, he missed her and it was still his Grandma,
even if she was being creepy.
Something didn't feel right though, he felt in danger even though it was just a dream.
The next day he told his wife about the dream and her eyes widened.
His wife explained what the dream meant.
She said if you go into the arms of a dead person in a dream, especially if they're in
the water, it was a sure sign that your soul was going to be stolen.
The husband said he kept having the same dream, night after night - but each time, he could
feel himself getting pulled closer and closer to her, he was only just managing to wake
up in time.
Then one day, they realized that they had kept one of the possessions in the house by
accident instead of leaving her to rest with it.
The family believed this is what tied her spirit to the house still - after they paid
their respects once more, the men dreams stopped - at least for now …
Next up at number 2, we have Fan Death.
There is a well known urban legend in Korean culture that fans not only cool people down,
they can also kill them.
They are said to do this in a number of different ways.
One way is hypothermia.
A person metabolism slows down at night and becomes more sensitive to heat.
Some people believe this makes them more prone to hypothermia and that essentially, a fan
really can freeze your death.
Then, there's is the slightly more creepy reason - Asphyxiation.
Some believe that fans will suck up oxygen and blow carbon dioxide towards the sleeping
person.
This will slowly kill the person in their sleep.
It seems that this urban legend is very prevalent.
In 2006, a South Korean government group warned of asphyxiation from electric fans and said
they can kill people, especially elderly patients or those with breathing problems.
And finally, at number 1, we have The Cockroach Face.
Yes, were returning to cockroaches now for our final story.
It goes a bit like this: a guy had some bad acne on his face.
He was desperate to cure it, perhaps a little too desperate.
He told his friends he would do anything to get rid of the unsightly scars the spots had
left on his face.
They told him to go see a local shaman who apparently had a very special method for treating
acne.
He didn't ask any questions like I said, he would do anything for a cure.
The shaman sat him down and quickly told him what to do.
He told him to find a cockroach before going to bed.
He would have to put it next to his pillow just before going to sleep.
Sleeping with this cockroach by his face would make his scars go away.
The guy didn't ask any questions and went home right away.
He found a cockroach, left it right by his pillow and tried to get to sleep.
The next morning, he woke up, looked in the mirror and was amazed to see that it had worked
- his scars were all gone!
But then, on closer inspection, he sees that the scar holes are not gone - they are simply
filled - filled with dozens of tiny, oozing, cockroach eggs.
I hope you haven't eaten recently because I feel a bit sick …
The good news is, that's the end of the video so you can go and recover if that last one
was a bit too gross.
The bad news is, well, yeah, its the end of the video.
Where is the Urban Legends ship going to stop next in the world?
You guys have the wheel - I'm just a passenger - thanks for watching guys, I'm Danny Burke
and Ill see you all in the next video!