MANILA, Philippines — For most of the world, Halloween is the time to scare each other with ghost stories but for Japan, there’s no better time to send chills down your spine than hot summer days.
Although equipped with an arsenal of tools, not to mention modern conveniences, to drive away the heat, the Japanese are onto something in turning to ghost stories to keep cool.
Getting cold shivers and goosebumps when scared is a vestige of evolution in humans.
Goosebumps are a way for the body to keep warm, especially for furry creatures, as it insulates heat. Fear became linked to cold weather later on when this mechanism to deal with the chill became useful for defense, science and technology magazine Popular Science explained. Goosebumps cause the hair to stand up which makes a prey look bigger and more intimidating to attackers.
Another explanation why we feel cold is because when you’re scared or anxious your brain goes into “fight or flight” mode and tells your body to undergo vasoconstriction which reduces blood flow to your skin, fingers and toes and redirects them to large muscles that will help you get ready for action. This restriction is why you feel like your blood is running cold.
Last week, the Philippines’ state weather bureau announced the onset of the cooler “amihan” season. Despite this, however, the hot weather still persists.
Here are four, an unlucky number in Japan as it sounds the same as their word for death (shi), places in Kyushu that could give you shivers.
Gunkanjima
Hashima Island in Nagasaki prefecture is called Gunkanjima which means battleship island because of its silhouette. Once a thriving coal mining hotspot, its population density even exceeding Tokyo’s by nine times in 1959, the artificial island was abandoned in 1974 when petroleum replaced coal as energy source.
Now the ghost island is a crumbling shadow of its past. Possessions left behind by workers and their families that used to reside there remain untouched giving an eerie atmosphere.
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The island, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, was the model for “Dead City” in the 2012 James Bond movie “Skyfall” while the 2015 film “Attack on Titan” was filmed there.