| Jiangshi | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Two people dressed up as jiāngshī. Here, thefulu is hanging from the forehead. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 殭屍 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 僵尸 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hanyu Pinyin | jiāngshī | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | stiff corpse | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vietnamese alphabet | cương thi | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chữ Hán | 殭屍 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hangul | 강시 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hanja | 殭屍 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kana | キョンシー | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ajiāngshī (simplified Chinese:僵尸;traditional Chinese:殭屍;pinyin:jiāngshī;Jyutping:goeng1 si1), also known as a Chinesehoppingvampire,[1] is a type ofundead creature or reanimated corpse inChinese legends and folklore. Due to the influence of Hong Kong cinema, it is typically depicted in modern popular culture as a stiff corpse dressed in officialgarments from theQing dynasty. Although the pronunciation of jiangshi varies in different East Asian countries, all of them refer to the Chinese version of vampire.
In popular culture, it is commonly represented as hopping or leaping. In folkloric accounts, however, it is more formidable, capable of giving chase by running, and if sufficiently ancient or if it has absorbed sufficient yang energy, capable also of flight. According to folkloric understandings, "jiāngshī came from the hills, soaring through the air, to devour the infants of the people".[2]
In both popular culture and folklore, it is represented either as anthropophagous (i.e. man-eating), therefore resembling Eastern European vampires, or as killing living creatures by absorbing theirqi, or "life force".[3] It is usually not represented as blood-sucking, as in the Western conception. During the day, it rests in a coffin or hides in dark places such as caves and forests.[4]
De Groot suggests that the belief in jiangshi was the result of the natural horror at the sight of dead bodies, nourished by the presence of unburied corpses in the imperial China, which "studded the landscape", the idea of the vital energy flowing through the universe as capable of animating objects - including exposed corpses - and by severe cultural taboos concerning postponement of burial.[5] These fears are described as having preoccupied "credulous and superstitious minds in Amoy".
The belief in jiangshi and its representation in the popular imagination was also partly derived from the habit of "corpse-driving",[6][7] a practice involving the repatriation of the corpses of dead laborers across Xiang province (present-day Hunan) to their hometowns for burial in family gravesites. The corpses were trussed up against bamboo sticks and carried by professionals known as corpse-drivers and transported over thousands of miles to their ancestral villages, which gave the impression of a hopping corpse. These professionals operated during the night to avoid crowds during the day, which served to amplify the fearful effects of their trade.
Jiangshi legends have inspired agenre of jiangshi films and literature in Hong Kong and the rest of East Asia. Movies such asMr. Vampire and its various sequels (Mr. Vampire II,Mr. Vampire III, andMr. Vampire IV) became cult classics in comedy-horror and inspired a vampire craze in East Asia, including Taiwan and Japan. Today, jiangshi appear in toys and video games. Jiangshi costumes are also sometimes employed during Halloween.
TheQing dynasty scholarJi Xiaolan mentioned in his bookYuewei Caotang Biji (閱微草堂筆記) (c. 1789 – 1798) (The Shadow Book of Ji Yun, Empress Wu Books, 2021) that the causes for a corpse to be reanimated can be classified in either of two categories: a recently deceased person returning to life, or a corpse that has been buried for a long time but does not decompose.
Some causes are described below:
In both folklore and popular culture, the appearance of a jiangshi can range from that of a recently deceased person in a state ofrigor mortis to that of horribly decayed and rotting corpse. The jiangshi always lacks the suppleness that characterized a living person or even the Western vampire. The Chinese character for "jiang" (殭/僵) in "jiangshi" literally means "hard" or "stiff".
Jiangshi are described as having greenish-white skin, possibly deriving fromfungus ormould growing on corpses. They have long hair[10] and may behave like animals.[11] They are ferocious, ravenous beings possessing extreme strength, being described as attacking men with "brute force and clumsy violence".[12] They are often represented as being capable of giving chase by running,[13] and sometimes by flying - "a jiangshi came from the hills, soaring through the air, to devour the infants of the people".[2]
OneHow.com, there was a list of five methods:[1]
Architectural features
It is also the conventional belief offeng shui practitioners in Chinese architecture that athreshold (traditional Chinese:門檻; simplified Chinese:门槛; pinyin:ménkǎn), a piece of wood approximately 15 cm (6 in) high, be installed along the width of the door at the bottom to prevent a jiangshi from entering the household.[14]
De Groot observes that unburied corpses studded the landscape of imperial China, causing great fear and nourishing "an inveterate belief in these specters". Furthermore, it was supposed that corpses, if left unburied and exposed to the sun and moon so as to absorb the vital energy permeating the universe, could reanimate as ravening jiangshi. The notion that corpses are prone to becoming jiangshi when their burial is long-postponed would have motivated the populace to quickly bury the dead in their midst.[5]
A supposed source of the jiangshi stories came from the folk practice of "transporting a corpse over a thousandli" (traditional Chinese:千里行屍;simplified Chinese:千里行尸;pinyin:qiān lǐ xíng shī). This was also known as "driving corpses in Xiangxi" (traditional Chinese:湘西趕屍;simplified Chinese:湘西赶尸;pinyin:Xiāngxī gǎn shī).
During the Qing dynasty, laborers from all over China often engaged in difficult construction work in the backwaters of western Hunan (Xiangxi), and the mortality rates were high.[15][16] The Chinese preferred to be buried alongside family, partly due to the belief that their souls might feel homesick if they were buried far from home, so an industry for the transportation of these corpses to their native villages, often across thousands of miles, soon developed. The corpses would be arranged upright in single file and be tied to long bamboo rods on the sides, while two men (one at the front and one at the back) would carry the ends of the rods on their shoulders and walk. When the bamboo flexed up and down, the corpses appeared to be "hopping" in unison when viewed from a distance away.[17][18][19]
Two oral accounts of transporting corpses are included inLiao Yiwu'sThe Corpse Walker. One account describes how corpses would be transported by a two-man team. One would carry the corpse on his back with a large robe covering both of them and a mourning mask on top. The other man would walk ahead with a lantern and warn his companion about obstacles ahead of him. The lantern was used as a visual guide for the corpse carrier to follow since they could not see with the robe covering them. It is speculated in the accounts in the book that corpses would be carried at night to avoid contact with people and the cooler air would be more suitable to transporting bodies.[20]
Actual corpse-driving using manual labor gave rise to legends and rumors of the use of Taoist sorcery to transport dead bodies. According to these tales, the relatives of a person who died far away from home could not afford vehicles to have the deceased person's body transported home for burial, so they would hire a Taoist priest to conduct a ritual to reanimate the dead person and teach him/her to "hop" their way home. The priests would transport the corpses only at night and would ring bells to notify others in the vicinity of their presence because it was considered bad luck for a living person to set eyes upon ajiang shi.
Some[21] speculate that the stories aboutjiang shi were originally made up by smugglers who disguised their illegal activities as corpse transportation and wanted to scare off law enforcement officers.
Archaeologists have foundrevenant and what appear to be deviant burials dating back to 4500–3800 BC in Cyprus.[22] Those born as illegitimate children, with abnormalities, or on inauspicious days, or who were victims of murder, drowning, suicide, curses, or theBlack Death were thought to have had the potential to be avampire. A suspected vampire would be incinerated or dismembered to prevent their return. Other preventive methods included deep buried burial, prone burials, and tying, staking, or pinning corpses with stones.[22] These types of burials have been discovered in numerous locations, including Egypt, Greece, and Rome.Slavic folklore references vampires and preventions dating back to the 11th century with Drawsko, Poland being home to some of these burial sites and early discoveries of such practices. The three primary areas of focus upon burial to prevent vampirism were the mouth, the hands, and the feet, as the mouth is used for feeding, the hands are used for grasping victims, and the feet are used for movement.[23] Folklore and burial practices dealing with revenants can also be traced back toNorse mythology withdraugr or draug(s) that closely resemble stories of jiangshis.[24] These draugr were also re-animated corpses that rose from their graves, and many of the various accounts report the draugr to be sighted far from its initial burial site.[24]
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In popular culture, such as injiangshi movies, jiangshi have a standard appearance. They have a papertalisman (fulu, with a sealing spell) attached onto and hanging off the forehead in portrait orientation, and wear a uniform coat-like robe and round-top tall rimmed hat characteristic of amandarin (Chinese official from during the Qing dynasty). The influence of western vampire stories brought the blood-sucking aspect to the Chinese myth in more modern times in combination with the concept of thehungry ghost, though traditionally they feed solely on theqi of a living individual for sustenance and in order to grow more powerful. Some claim that their modern visual depiction as horrific Qing officials may have been derived by theanti-Manchu oranti-Qing sentiments of theHan Chinese population during the Qing dynasty, as the officials were viewed as bloodthirsty creatures with little regard for humanity, although the plausibility of this claim is affected by the lapse of time between the modern depiction and the end of the Qing empire.[1]
Jiangshi legends have inspired agenre of jiangshi films and literature in Hong Kong and the rest of East Asia. Movies such asMr. Vampire and its various spin-offsMr. Vampire II,Mr. Vampire III, andMr. Vampire IV became cult classics in comedy-horror and inspired a short-lived vampire craze in East Asia, including Taiwan and Japan. The craze subsided quickly by the mid-1990s but enjoyed a brief resurgence in the early 2000s. Attempts to experiment with the genre by producing pure horror movies, such as Tsui Hark'sThe Era of Vampires without the comic elements, have met with criticism and lacked the same popularity.
Today, jiangshi appear in toys and video games, such as Hsien-Ko fromDarkstalkers, Qiqi inGenshin Impact, Chiaotzu inDragon Ball, and Yoshika Miyako fromTouhou Project. Jiangshi costumes are also sometimes employed during Halloween.
