Origin: Japan
The White String is a strange urban legend about ear piercing.
During the 1980s, this legend was popular in Japan and a lot of kids were afraid to get their ears pierced because they believed the legend was true.
A young girl desperately wanted to get her ears pierced. Her parents said she was too young, but she pleaded with them, saying that all the other girls in her class had pierced ears. Eventually, her parents relented and agreed to let her do it. They gave her some money and told her to go to the local mall and get her ears pierced in a jewelry store.
Instead, the girl decided to keep the money and do the piercing herself. She got her best friend to help her do it. They heated up a large needle and stuck it through both of the girl's earlobes. It was quite painful but in the end, her ears were pierced and she was delighted to be able to wear earrings.
However, a few days later, the girl was in school when she began to feel a pain in her left ear. Her earlobe was extremely itchy. During break time she went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Her earlobe was red and inflamed. She began scratching at it.
When she looked closely, she saw what looked like the end of a piece of white string sticking out of the hole in her earlobe. Thinking it was very strange, she started picking and pulling at it. After a few minutes, there was a long piece of white string hanging out of her pierced earlobe. There didn't seem to be any end to it.
Finally, she got a pair of scissors and cut the string.
Suddenly, everything went black. She couldn't see anything.
She was rushed to the emergency room of the local hospital where the doctor examined her. When she told the doctor what had happened, he was shocked.
"I'm sorry, you will be blind for the rest of your life," he said. "That wasn't white string. That was your optic nerve."