Kaidan (怪談) (sometimes transliterated kwaidan) is a Japanese word consisting of two kanji: 怪 (kai) meaning “strange, mysterious, rare or bewitching apparition" and 談 (dan) meaning “talk” or “recited narrative.”
In its broadest sense, kaidan refers to any ghost story or horror story, but it has an old-fashioned ring to it that carries the connotation of Edo period Japanese folktales. The term is no longer as widely used in Japanese as it once was: Japanese horror books and films such as Ju-on and Ring would more likely be labeled by the katakana horā (ホラー, "horror") or the standard Japanese kowai hanashi (怖い話, "scary story"). Kaidan is only used if the author/director wishes to specifically bring an old-fashioned air into the story.
Kaidan entered the vernacular during the Edo period, when a game called Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai became popular. This game led to a demand for ghost stories and folktales to be gathered from all parts of Japan and China.
Kwaidan (怪談, Kaidan, literally "ghost stories") is a 1964 Japanese anthology horror film directed by Masaki Kobayashi. It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales, mainly Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, for which it is named. The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories. Kwaidan is an archaic transliteration of Kaidan, meaning "ghost story". It won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
"The Black Hair" (黒髪, Kurokami) was adapted from "The Reconciliation", which appeared in Hearn's collection Shadowings (1900). An impoverished swordsman living in Kyoto divorces his wife, a weaver, for a woman of a wealthy family to attain greater social status. He takes his new wife to his new position as a district governor. However, the swordsman's second marriage proves to be unhappy. With his second wife being callous and shallow, the swordsman regrets leaving his more devoted and patient ex-wife.
Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (怪談, Kaidan, also Kwaidan (archaic)), often shortened to Kwaidan, is a book by Lafcadio Hearn that features several Japanese ghost stories and a brief non-fiction study on insects. It was later used as the basis for a movie called Kwaidan by Masaki Kobayashi in 1964.
Kaidan is Japanese for "ghost story".
Hearn declares in his introduction to the first edition of the book, which he wrote on January 20, 1904, shortly before his death, that most of these stories were translated from old Japanese texts. He also states that one of the stories — Yuki-onna — was told to him by a farmer in Musashi Province, and his was apparently the first record of it, both by his own account and according to the research of modern folklorists. Riki-Baka is based on a personal experience of Hearn's. While he does not declare it in his introduction, Hi-Mawari — among the final narratives in the volume – seems to be a recollection of an experience in his childhood (it is, setting itself apart from almost all the others, written in the first person and set in rural Wales).
Here I stand a broken man
Broken dreams slipped trough my hands
What once was is now gone
I can't go on, I am done
Last call
Last change to make things right
Pick up the pieces and mend my life
But how can I heal a broken trust
It feels so hard, it rips my guts
Asahi News | 04 Nov 2021