City Myths

My favorite show these days is Urban Legends Revealed on Discovery Channel. The show, hosted by Natasha Henstridge (the sexy alien from Species), features four or five popular urban legends, and then takes them apart, finding out their origins, influences, variations and validity. These urban myths are those creepy and often macabre stories you heard from someone's friend's sister's cousin's roommate, seemingly true but... not. So far, the myths featured include the Vanishing Hitchhiker (which seems to be reflected in the local white lady stories and ghosts in general), the corpse of a scuba diver found atop a tree in a forest fire, corpses under hotel beds, alligators in the sewers and cooking babies among others.
Urban Legends Revealed is yet another creepy show that reinforces my belief that we love being scared or creeped out. It also made me think about local urban myths.

How about the story of a woman who got some jewelry stolen, and later was forced to swallow the jewelry by the thief who found out that the jewelry was fake? Well, apparently this myth has been updated, replacing the jewelry with a cellphone. Hmm.

How about the scary story of AIDs patients sticking people in theaters with a needle or toothpick dipped in HIV-positive blood?

Or the myth that looking into a mirror with a candle at midnight and saying an incantation will reveal to you either your true love or a demon?

The Philippines is still very much steeped in mysticism, supernatural beliefs and yep, a lot of urban legends. Hearsay, ignorance and fear of the unknown drives these myths, so it's safe to say that they'll be around long, long after all of us alive today are gone.
Urban Legends Revealed is shown on Discovery Channel on Tuesdays at 11 PM, with replays over the weekends. Check it out for some spooky, informative fun.