The urban legend that I believed

Is this US 20 dollar legend famous? In this Japanese page, the OSAMA trick is added.About the bill, this post is interesting too. The pyramid and eyes mark is said to be a mark of Freemasons, right? It appears on the Japanese 1000 yen too. Look at the 1000 yen: the guy's eye in front and the top of Mt.Fuji in back look like the mark. Wow! Do Freemasons control the world? :-)

I wrote about urban legends in this post. I did not touch the Sagawa Track but I was scared about the "Kuchisake Onna" when I was a kid, and I thought the cat in the microwave oven was a true story. I found an interesting post. This is "the ranking of the urban legends which I believed." Since they are all legends, they are all false information.

No1 In Aokigahara, aka the sea of Trees・in the Mt Fuji area, compasses can't work at all. Actually the Wiki page has the topic. (I believed this was true.)
No2 The pay for a part time job of "washing dead bodies in the hospital" is pretty good. Since we have strict laws, it is impossible to have such a part time job. ( I believed this was true.)
No3 Because of more relaxed education policies in Japan, the circle ratio is taught as 3, not 3.14. (I believed this too. I thought I read it in the news.)
No4 When a photo is taken of three people, the middle person will die prematurely. (Nope. I have never cared about this.)
No5 When you are interrogated by the police, the lunch menu is Katsudon. (Nope, this will be a joke brought on by overexposure of someone to television. However, the Katsudon page in Wikipedia writes about this legend and denies it clearly.)

Here are other funny legends:
No7 If you hiccup 100 times in a row, you will die. (Nope. That American girl was okay)
No8 To pay his debt, someone had to ride a tuna boat (Uh, too real.) No16 Someone saw a human-faced Dog. (We have Jinmen Gyo, so this may happen in that way.)
No21 If you put a CD in the freezer, it will improve the sound quality. (Hmm, I may trust this type of rumorer.)

And I found this post. Around 20 years ago, there were two legendary persons in the Shinjuku area. One was a Rainbowman. He was a newspaper delivery guy wearing a rainbow color big wig. Another one was a standing lady with a panel that said, "Please buy my poem." The rainbow man is still working there without a wig. And poet lady disappeared after a while. But this post says she appears again and he says her appearance has NOT changed at all. Hmm, is this her daughter or what?

Comments

[bar1scoprio]

"Kagome Kagome" is a song about murder-
"Hana Ichimonme" is a song about slavery-

Actually... there are several English nursery rhymes thought to be in a similar vein-

"London Bridges" is at times, though to be a song about human sacrifice. (Burying someone inside the base of a bridge to appease a water spirit.)

"Ring around the Rosie" is said to be a song about the bubonic plague.

Of course, with a little research, most of these are proven to be false. There's even a nifty myth-debunking site, snopes.com

[Mari]

Hi there
There are many silly urban legend, but maybe we have more than we recognized. We may not realized it is just legend.

[Izum.]

Mari-san,

I remember seeing an aging man (not sure, maybe in his 40s, 50s) who wears the Miki Mouse type of costume going around in an shopping area of Japan.

Not sure where, but I only saw it on TV and it was at a shop area. ^^"

[pauliez]

i had painted this on wednesday... then reading your blog was just tooo weird.

http://www.zillustration.com/painting11.html

z

[Ken Y-N]

Hi Mari,

I translated that survey earlier in the week, if anyone wants to see the full English version!

http://whatjapanthinks.com/2007/08/07/urban-legends-japanese-suspect-might-actually-be-true/

[Juan]

Great post, Mari. I read your blog every day, even though this is the first time I leave a comment. Thanks for your insights!!