Team spirit: Meet the crew haunting Korean Folk Village

YONGIN, Gyeonggi Province — “Want to be mine?” called out a virgin ghost in a flowing white hanbok, looking for a man after 500 years of being single.

Her long black hair blew in the autumn breeze as she moved through the crowd, waving her long white fingernails and slipping between couples whenever she spotted one. Her pale face and blackened eyes turned toward passing men, waiting for a chance to make her move.

Behind the ghostly makeup was Kang Yoon-jung, a 22-year-old university student and one of 12 performers in the Korean Folk Village’s “ghost crew,” a cast of supernatural characters drawn from Korean folklore.

“I play a traditional virgin ghost as someone who has never dated in her life,” Kang, a cultural contents major at Konkuk University, told The Korea Herald.

For Kang, who has been playing the character for three months, the role is part theater, part improvisation. There are basic lines and scenarios, but much of what happens depends on whoever happens to cross her path.

When she spots a couple, she may wedge herself between them, grab the boyfriend and run off.

With children, she changes tactics. With their parents’ permission, she may pretend to threaten to take a crying child away or scold siblings who are fighting.

“A lot of parents actually ask me to do it because they think their kids’ reactions are cute,” she said. “I just make sure I don’t scare them too much and adjust depending on their age and personality.”

Her character is part of “Gwisinsaba Ghost Play,” the theme park’s signature fall festival, which has brought a Joseon-era twist to the Western tradition of Halloween since 2023.

The name blends "gwisin," meaning “ghost” in Korean, with '"saba," a Buddhist term for the earthly world, playfully evoking a world of ghosts.

The result is less a haunted house than a roaming theater troupe, with performers in elaborate makeup and costumes portraying virgin ghosts, Korean-style grim reapers and the mythical nine-tailed fox, or gumiho, interacting directly with visitors.

Han Min-keun, 31, plays a 400-year-old grim reaper. But rather than silently escorting visitors to the afterlife, he carries a microphone and sings to them.

When he spots a group of middle-aged women, he may call them “young girls” and launch into a song of their choice.

“He’s basically a busking grim reaper,” Han said.

Dressed in a black durumagi and gat, with half his face painted ghostly white and his eyes ringed in black, Han roamed the grounds with a microphone in hand, ready to take his next song request.

While grim reapers traditionally guide the dead to the afterlife, Han’s version has come among the living simply to entertain.

"Yeomra, the king of the underworld, told me I’m not here to take people away. I’m here to make sure they have fun. So I sing and dance, and I change things up depending on who I’m with, whether it’s middle-aged visitors, couples or whoever happens to come by," he said.

The ghost crew’s day begins at 11 a.m., and their first stop is the makeup room.

Inside, racks are filled with costumes and tables cluttered with makeup and accessories. Professional makeup artists spend about 20 to 30 minutes transforming each performer into their character.

By noon, the crew is out on the grounds, moving among visitors for the next six hours and pulling them into spontaneous exchanges, from jokes and photo poses to playful chases.

For most of the crew, performing was nothing new when they joined the village.

Before donning the grim reaper’s black robes at the village, Han spent several years singing at theme parks.

"The Korean Folk Village is a place where you can really experience Korea’s culture and traditions, so as a Korean, I’d always wanted to play a character here, and with ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ bringing more attention to grim reapers, it’s been especially rewarding to play one," he said.

Bae Se-yeon, 28, who studied video production in college, is now in her third year playing the gumiho at the village.

"I enjoyed working behind the camera, but I also loved being in front of it, acting and dancing. I started out as a performer at Everland and have been working in theme park entertainment ever since," she said.

"The most rewarding part is when people who saw me when I first started three years ago keep coming back to see me."

These performers are recruited through open calls held three or four times a year, with applicants going through a resume screening and interview.

The ghost crew is only part of a larger cast of character performers at the village.

Others take on Joseon-era roles such as magistrates, constables, clerks, beggars, gisaeng, tavern keepers, merchants and shamans. While they do not currently engage in the same kind of spontaneous street interactions as the ghost crew, they take part in street and courtyard performances across the village.

"We look for people who have a natural flair and charm as performers, but it’s also important that they are outgoing and eager to engage with visitors," an official said.

"They typically start out on contracts and can become permanent employees after a certain period and an internal evaluation. Unless they choose to leave, we try to keep them with us and give them opportunities to take on a variety of characters."

Since opening in 1974 through a government initiative backed by private investment, the Korean Folk Village has sought to preserve ways of life that were rapidly fading as Korea modernized.

The sprawling theme park in Yongin recreates a Joseon-era village, with traditional homes lining dirt paths, leafy trees and fields, alongside folk performances and hands-on activities such as horseback riding.

Long popular with international visitors because of its other use as a filming location for Korean period dramas, the park has in recent years emerged as an unlikely hotspot for horror fans.

One of its signature horror programs is "salguiok," an immersive outdoor attraction that sends visitors along a 400-meter trail where salgui, or evil spirits, lurk along the way.

The roughly 15-minute course winds through blood-stained paths and macabre scenes depicting spirits setting traps to hunt their victims, before descending into an underground maze where visitors must open doors to find their way forward.

Given its intensity, the attraction is limited to visitors aged 13 and older, while older adults, pregnant visitors and people with heart conditions are advised not to participate.

Amid the scares, the ghost crew strikes a balance between fear and fun.

"We wanted them to still feel like ghosts, but not simply be scary. The idea was to create friendly ghosts who could have fun with visitors and feel as though they were part of the same world," a KFV official said.

The ghost crew has recently gained a growing following online, fueled in part by behind-the-scenes posts on the village’s Instagram account.

One short-form video showing several crew members before and after getting into ghost makeup has garnered more than 4 million views.

"Younger viewers loved a video of me scolding a child and started calling me the ‘dark Oh Eun-young,’” Kang said, referring to the well-known parenting expert.

"With Reels featuring different characters going viral, it feels like the village is enjoying a new heyday. It’s no longer just families coming here. We’re seeing more young people, including couples in their 20s and 30s. We’re all trying to give visitors a taste of horror and fun with a distinctly Korean flavor."