The genre of scary story in Russian and Chinese national worldview

The article is devoted to research of national worldview in Russian and Chinese scary stories, determination of their national and cultural features, revealing both cultures’ resemblance and distinction. The materials for the research are scary stories «Red hand. Black sheet. Green fingers» by E.N. Uspenskij, and the texts available on both Russian and Chinese popular internet resources. The article authors review the semantics of death as the central theme of scary stories, and also motives attended by this theme - a dream, doubling, and a path motive. They also analyze the color and number symbolism of Chinese scary stories. The national worldview formed by ethnos (Russian or Chinese), language and culture interactions and then imprinted at scary stories, can be a source of data for linguistic and cultural research.