In the Ami-dong Tombstone Culture Village, the first thing you notice is the lettering beneath the stairs.

I arrived in Ami-dong before the sun went down.

I undid one button on my shirt and held a convenience-store canned coffee in my hand. I was not wearing my jacket. With it draped over my arm, I paused for a moment at the entrance to the alley.

Biseok Culture Village, Ami-dong, Seo-gu, Busan.

Here, there is an image that comes before anyone says, “I saw a ghost.”

There are gravestone letters beneath the stairs.
There are tombstones embedded under walls.
Explanations say that the retaining walls beneath some houses were originally stones from graves.
People who take photos zoom in from the ground first.

The reason this place is called frightening is simple.
It is not that a village appeared after the graves disappeared. It is that the village continued with parts of those graves built into its houses and stairs.

The scenes repeated in blogs and field-trip videos are almost the same.
People walk through the alley, then stop when they notice letters underfoot.
They photograph stones inside walls that look like Japanese-style gravestones.
They look through narrow windows, then quickly pull their heads back.
Even in daylight, they shine flashlights into the cracks between stones beneath the stairs.

Befo