Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Have you ever seen a ghost? Do you believe in ghosts?

I believed ghosts existed until my early 20’s. I don’t anymore. They might exist or they might not. I really have no idea.

As I mentioned, I used to believe in them. I was frightened by ghost stories when I was a kid. My experience living in New Jersey changed my mind. Living in a different culture from my own altered my point of view.  

How do you feel when you see a cemetery or a grave? To me, the atmosphere of a Japanese cemetery inspires fear in my mind because in Japanese culture it is said that the souls of dead people gather at graves.

In the U.S, I have the exact opposite feeling when I see a cemetery. There was a cemetery near my apartment when I lived in New Jersey. I drove by the cemetery on the way to work. When I saw it the first time, I felt it was pretty beautiful, with green grass and white gravestones. I liked that place and often took a walk to the cemetery on the weekends. I didn’t feel any fear from the cemetery. While I was walking, I used to think about how I would feel if I met a ghost. My English skills then were worse than now. I was wondering whether a ghost showed up, I would be able to understand what he/she wanted to say. I thought that I might not be able to communicate with non-Japanese speaking ghosts and would not be frightened by them. I also thought about what kind of language they would speak because they would not be human.

While I was taking a stroll at the cemetery, I also thought that zombies might not speak Japanese. Since I don’t believe that a dead person can come back to life, zombies don’t make sense to me. I feel weird when I watch zombie movies, in particular when zombies bite humans, and they become zombies. The reason is simple. Cremation is the common way of burial in Japan and burying in the ground is basically prohibited. We don’t have a tradition of burying dead bodies in the ground. Therefore, I would say only a few Japanese speaking zombies exist in the world. Each culture has a different understanding of death.

After I went back to Japan, I went to my family’s cemetery. I didn’t feel any fear anymore. I thought that if I took my American friends there, they would feel it was a cool place.

I figured out that my fear of ghosts was from my Japanese cultural background. When I go to a place which is said to be haunted, I always wonder how those who have a different cultural background feel about the place.

This is one example of how living in a different culture totally changed my perceptions.