I went to Fuji and Tokyo last week alone. As soon as I came back, my wife started to talk about many things that happened in my absent days. She said that she went to the barber for her dyeing her hair. The beauty artist said to my wife that one man have won a lottery. He got 1 billion yen by Lot6 lottery and have built a new gorgeous house . They got excited over talking about spending money if they win the lottery.
That is the third times in 6 years I heated that story after my coming back to Shikoku. He won the lottery ,got much money and built a new house. They are same stories. But the prize money has been increasing, as 10 million yen 6 yers ago, 50 million yen last year and finally 1 billion yen last week by gotten the carry over money.
This story is one of urban legends. There are many stories like this. In 40 years ago, the company I was working had produced the electronic oven. The members of the oven designing division said , In USA the electric company was sued by the customer who put the cat in it and the cat died ,so paid big money. This is the beginning incident of adding the sentence“Don’t put in animals.”in the oven manual.
Another famous story is about the rich part time job workers who work in hospitals of universities. They work in the dead peoples pool in hospital. Their work was to sink the body when it float from the pool by using the long bar. This story is from the novel which is written by the Japanese Nobel prize writer Oe Kenzaburo.
In 20 years ago, the car number list diffused in my office. The criminal group of auto mobil accident fakers have been appeared in Fuji city.The paper says “Be careful showering below car numbers.” This kind paper appears many times in spite of denying by the police officer .
They are famous urban legends. Many urban legends are harmless, include a little bit fact, sometime have the punch line. That’s why there are many urban legends all over the world.
My wife had believed those urban legends before I explained .Especially she have been believing the part time job in dead human pool of hospital. Because she heard that story in the class of high school 40 years ago. The teacher told that story as his own experience.