Lecturer: Robert Neff
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2020. 07:30-09:00PM

** The lecture will be held online only. The in-person lecture has been cancelled. 

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Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89021852230?pwd=V1lNeEtxOVBCbEU3NDhoSUFraExqZz09
Meeting ID: 890 2185 2230
Passcode: 628341

** Registration in not required.
The lecture is free to RAS members of all Branches. Non-members are kindly asked to donate W10,000 or $10 via Paypal or bank transfer.
– Paypal: https://paypal.me/RASKorea
– Bank transfer:  Shinhan Bank (신한은행), Account # 100-026-383501 (RAS-KB)

Korea: The most haunted place on Earth

In the 1890s, George Heber Jones, an American missionary, declared Korea to be the most haunted place on the earth and poignantly described the spiritual world that oppressed and surrounded the average Korean: “In Korean belief, earth, air, and sea are people by demons. They haunt every umbrageous tree, shady ravine, spring and mountain crest. On green hill slopes, in peaceful agricultural valleys, in grassy dells, on wooded uplands, by lake and stream, by road and river, in north, south, east, and west they abound, making malignant sport out of human destinies.”

However, as time passed and Korea – as well as the rest of the world – became more enlightened with science, this belief in ghosts has become viewed as nothing more than superstitious nonsense from the past. Yet, according to some, ghosts and spirits are still very much around us. Lonely soldiers, vigilant in the darkness for possible infiltrations, sometimes see flitting apparitions out of the corner of their eyes – dead comrades, forgotten enemies or jilted lovers. They follow us through the streets as we dash between cars in a mistaken belief that we can lose them and ride our buses sometimes warning us of impending doom or accompanying us to meet it. They hail and ride in taxis and are invisible in our rear-view mirrors. Even in the air we are not free from their cold touch or the realization that the seats next to us are not empty but are filled with dead passengers. As we ride our bikes along the Han River we hear them howl with rage over their early deaths and for our inability to find their earthly remains.

Join us for an evening of modern ghost stories and urban legends that Robert Neff has acquired over his many years in Korea. Many of them were gleaned from newspaper accounts, interviews, conversations with friends – aided with a drink or two – and those presented as facts from a “friend’s friend’s mother who heard it from her sister that….” At the end of the evening, only you can decide whether or not they are fact or fiction.

Robert Neff has authored or co-authored several books including: Brief Encounters, Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and The Lives of Westerners in Joseon and also writes a weekly column for Korea Times.