Kwaidan: Horror values in the East

On reading Kwaidan a few things struck as very odd. It wasn't the fact that this story used ghosts of the most unusual kinds but how they acted. It made me extremely curious as to why these spirits might act so differently between Eastern and Western culture. Not only this but also how karma worked in this stories. The power of karma was exhibited extremely differently than one might see in Western culture. For instance in the story of the blind musician one notices a few peculiar things. The ghosts are not directly menacing. They do not commit intentional acts of violence during the story (although it is mentioned that they have in the past). In short their main act in the story is having the blind musician play for them. They do not harm him, and even promise him reward, although it is hinted that this might be a dangerous trick. In the end the ghost sent to fetch the musician does rip his ears off. But he does not do so wantonly or in direct act of punishment. He simply cannot see the musician. He can only see his ears. He wants to bring the ears back as a sign of good faith to his master that the musician was not there and that he was unable to fetch him because of this reason. He has no idea he rips of the ears of the blind musician. So why does he do it then? It is because the protection turning the musician invisible was not applied to his ears. This is another very interesting part of the story. In western horror this mistake would’ve been made to someone who deserved it. The laziness or stupidity of this mistake would’ve been applied to someone who warranted this level of stupidity. Or it might have been done maliciously. But it would never have been just a simple mistake. In the Kwaidan it is though. The blind musician who has done no wrong and has only made error because of his obvious disability is punished even more for no apparent reason. It is just because. This is not the only time mistakes like this appear in these stories. For example the man who married the spirit of winter also suffers such an occurrence. The spirit of winter, or ghost, tells him if he ever tells anyone of how they met that she would kill him. Later on in the story he unknowingly marries the spirit. Even later on in their relationship he tells of how he met a spirit in his past. The wife than breaks into a rage and tells him that he broke his promise and that she will let him live to take care of her kids. If he fails to do so, than she will kill him. This sort of occurrence would never happen in Western stories. He didn’t do anything wrong. In Western stories I might actually argue that this confession might have been rewarded.