Do You Know Miss Hanako of the Toilet?
Do you know the story of Toire no Hanako-san, or Miss Hanako of the Toilet? It's a Japanese urban legend that can be found at most every elementary school here, and it goes like this: if you go to the fourth stall of a specified girl's bathroom, usually on the third floor of the school, knock three times and call out "Hanako-san, are you there?" then you'll hear her reply, "Hai" (yes). Open the stall and you'll see a shimmering figure of a girl with bobbed hair with a red skirt on standing there. It's the ghost of Hanako, a girl who committed suicide after being bullied by her classmates (ijime), who is said to haunt the girl's bathroom looking for revenge. Or in an older version, Hanako is a girl who was playing hide-and-seek in the school bathroom during the war and was killed in an American air raid because she couldn't hear the air raid siren. Hanako-san is part of a pantheon of "school ghost" stories that are well known in Japan, like Kuchisake Onna or Split-Faced Woman, a female ghost who asks you if she's beautiful before trying to devour you, and Teke-Teke, the upper torso of a female who claws her way around Japan searching for her lower half, which was severed in a train accident in Hokkaido. Anyone hearing this story will supposedly see Teke-Teke's lower half walking aimlessly around the countryside within three days. Let us know if you see anything!





5 Comments:
I think the Miss Hanako of the Toilet legend is so cool!It reminds me of my second grade son's story of a "haunted bathroom" at his school that none of the children will use unless absoulutely necessary.As I recall,there were at least a couple of "scary bathroom" stories at my elementary school as well.Keep up the good work.
Joe.
9:44 PM
Interesting. I wonder if some of it is stories jumping over the sea, or if kids everywhere are inventing it themselves.
10:59 PM
How is it you survive meeting Kuchisake Onna? I can't remember what you're supposed to say to her! :P
5:13 AM
Bathrooms at my elementary school were scary because the other kids would crowd around you and make fun of you if you "did your business." A ghost would've been preferable.
But I love the Miss Hanako story. Some of my junior high students here told me that one last year around Halloween. And they couldn't remember what to say to Kuchisake Onna, either!
Teke-Teke is awesome. In my hometown in the U.S. we had one of the many "headless breakman" urban legends. I always wanted to see him. Now I'm thinking about taking a trip to Hokkaido to look around near the train tracks...
9:44 AM
Can you tell where the first picture of Hanako-san comes from?
This artist is really great - I'd love to see more...
7:39 PM
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