Hopping corpse
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In popular Chinese mythology, hopping corpses (Traditional Chinese: 僵屍 or 殭屍; Simplified Chinese: 僵尸; pinyin: jiāngshī; literally "stiff corpse"), sometimes called Chinese vampires by Westerners, are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence (qì) from their victims. jiāngshī is pronounced geungsi in Cantonese. They are said to be created when a person's soul (魄 pò) fails to leave the deceased's body. The influence of Western vampire stories brought the blood-sucking aspect to the Chinese myth in modern times. In fact, Dracula is translated to Chinese as "blood-sucking jiāngshī" where the thirst of blood is explicitly emphasized because it is not a traditional trait of a jiāngshī.
It came from the mythical folklore practice of "Traveling a Corpse over a Thousand Li" (千里行屍), where traveling companion or family members who could not afford wagons or have very little money would hire Tao priests to transport corpses of their friends/family members who died far away from home over long distances by teaching them to hop on their own feet back to their hometown for proper burial. Some people speculate that hopping corpses were originally smugglers in disguise who wanted to scare off law enforcement officers.
Hopping Corpses were a popular subject in Hong Kong movies during the 1980s; some movies even featured both Chinese Hopping Corpses and "Western" zombies. In the movies, hopping corpses can be put to sleep by putting on their foreheads a piece of yellow paper with a spell written on it (Chinese talisman or 符 pinyin fú). Generally in the movies the hopping corpses are dressed in imperial Qing Dynasty clothes, their arms permanently outstretched due to rigor mortis. Like those depicted in Western movies, they tend to appear with an outrageously long tongue and long fingernails. They can be evaded by holding one's breath, as they track living creatures by detecting their breathing. Their visual depiction as horrific Qing Dynasty officials reflects a common stereotype among the Han Chinese of the foreign Manchu people, who founded the much-despised dynasty, as bloodthirsty creatures with little regard for humanity.
It is also conventional wisdom of feng shui in Chinese architecture that a threshold (Chinese: 門檻), a piece of wood approximately six inches high, be installed along the width of the door to prevent a hopping corpse from entering the household.
[edit] Cultural references
- "Kyonshi", a word based on the Japanese pronunciation of jiāngshī, is used in some games and trading card games as a term for creatures that combine the characteristics of Chinese and western vampires.
- The hopping corpse has appeared in a handful of films from Hong Kong that have seen Western release, including the Geungsi Sinsang (also known as Mr. Vampire) series featuring Lam Ching-Ying.
- In the film Fei zhou he shang (literally: An African Buddhist Monk), a hopping vampire appears as a character used by the heroic oriental necromancer and is the ancestor of his coward sidekick.
- In the video game Super Mario Land one of the minor enemies, Pionpi, has characteristics of the jiāngshī.
- In Conker's Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64, two parts of the game feature ceramic infant-like enemies that resemble the jiāngshī.
- Poe, an enemy that appears in the Zelda series, is similar to (and possibly based on) jiāngshī.
- In the Jackie Chan cartoon series there is a "Chi Vampire" that is an exaggerated version of the Hopping Corpse.
- In the fighting game Darkstalkers, the character Hsien-Ko is based on the jiāngshī.
- In the role-playing game Shining Force III, the inhabitants of Quonus Village are cursed and transformed into kyonshi. One of the inhabitants can become a playable character.
- In the anime and manga Shaman King, the Tao family has a massive army of jiāngshī at their call. One certain jiāngshī the show focused on was Lee Bailong, who is a thinly veiled reference to Bruce Lee. Here, Talismans are used by the person controlling them, and cutting the talisman off turns the Jiangsi into dust, much like a western vampire.
- In the novel Anno Dracula by Kim Newman, a hopping vampire appears as a minor villain.
- In the Disney/Square Enix video game Kingdom Hearts II, Heartless with characteristics of the jiāngshī appear in Mulan's world.
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card came, a monster card based on the zombie exists as "Master Kyonshi".
- In the MMORPG "Ragnarok Online", monsters known as Munaks, Bonguns, and Hyeguns were heavily based on the jiāngshī figure.
- In the Steve Jackson game, Munchkin Fu, one enemy is the "Hopping Vampire" (a vampire on a pogostick).
- In the PlayStation 2 game Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, when the player is in China, a character summons grasshopper hopping corpses.
- In Oriental Adventures, a supplement for the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, the hopping vampire is a monster the players can face.
- In the MMORPG "MapleStory" monsters known as the Zombie Mushroom and the Zombie Mushmom are based on the jiāngshī.
- Chaozu, a character from the Dragon Ball series, is based upon the jiāngshī.
