Kuchisaka Onna And The Surgical Mask
Surgical masks are most often worn by health professionals, but in several Asian countries they are worn simply as a way of protecting oneself from the smog, a common problem in that part of the world. Asians also wear surgical masks when sick in order to not infect anyone else. Interestingly, such a simple everyday thing is involved in one of the most uncanny of popular legends in Japan.
Kuchisake Onna, or “slit-mouthed woman” in Japanese, was originally a extremely beautiful woman whose jealous husband cut her mouth from ear to ear, taunting, “Who will think you are beautiful now!” Ever since then, on foggy nights, she can be seen roaming around in a surgical mask. When she encounters someone, usually youth, she will shyly inquire whether the individual thinks she is beautiful.
If the response is yes, Onna will take off her surgical mask and ask, “How about now?” Different versions of the legend give various outcomes if the answer remains affirmative, all bad: she will either cut the person from ear to ear to resemble herself or kill the person – or both – or, inexplicably, give a large blood-soaked ruby and walk away.
Different versions of this tale offer for the same general set of options even if the original answer had been negative – mutilation or murder. Basically, meeting Kuchisake Onna is bad luck. However, much more modern versions these days advise that responding “You’re average” or “So-so” or even asking her what she thinks of one’s own beauty will turn the tables on her and confuse her, providing an opportunity to escape.
And, in one of those only-in-Japan kind of things, there’s even the tactic of basically informing her that you must be on your way, so as to embarrass her for forgetting her manners and making her excuse herself from your presence!