http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Vampire
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.
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References in works of fiction
* "Kyonshi", a word based on the Japanese pronunciation of jiāngshī, is used in some obscure games and trading card games as a term for creatures that combined 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 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 and the Xbox, two parts of the game feature ceramic infant-like enemies that resemble the jiāngshī.
* Poe, an enemy that appears in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, is similar to (and possibly based on) jiāngshī, though it lacks legs and has a more shadowy-translucent body.
* Another video game, Phantom Fighter for the Nintendo Entertainment System, featured kyonshi almost exclusively as enemies. As the Chinese hero Kenchi, you battled the hopping phantoms with punches and kicks, and even took control of a kyonshi infant by ringing a special bell hidden in some stages.
* In the Jackie Chan cartoon series there is a "Chi Vampire" that is an exagerated version of the Hopping Corpse. It drains the chi of a victim and can detect them by smelling their breath.
* In the fighting game Darkstalkers, the character Hsien-Ko (Lei-Lei in the Japanese version) is based on the jiāngshī.
* In the role-playing game Shining Force III, Scenario 1, the inhabitants of Quonus Village have been cursed and transformed into kyonshi. They attack the player, and can either be killed or relieved of their curse and brought back to life with a holy Elbesem Orb. One of the kyonshi, a dark wizard called Noon, becomes a playable character when rescued.
* In the anime and manga Shaman King, the Tao family has a massive army of jiāngshī (misspelled as jiangsi) at the family's call. One certain jiāngshī the show focused on was Lee Bailong (also known as Lee Pai-Long), who is a thinly veiled reference to Bruce Lee. Here, Talismans are used by the person controlling them (Doshi in the English Anime), 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 charateristics of the jiāngshī appear in Mulan's world, the Land of Dragons. The Heartless' name is "Night Walker".
* In the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card came, a monster card based on the zombie exists as "Master Kyonshi". It is based on the stereotype bouncing corpse- traditional court robe, with a paper talisman over his face. He has 1750 atk, low, considering others monsters in the game. However it possesses the highest attack among non-effect level 4 zombie type monsters in the game.
* In the MMORPG "Ragnarok Online", monsters known as Munaks, Bonguns, and Hyeguns were heavily based on the jiāngshī figure.
* A jiāngshī was featured in an episode of the children's cartoon show Jackie Chan Adventures. In this depiction the Chinese Vampire was depicted as feeding off his victim's chi (life force) rather than drinking their blood. The victims could be revived by a magical chi transfer that temporarily left the revived individual with some of the personality of the chi donor.
* In the animes Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT it is believed by some fans that the charecter Chaozu is loosely based on the jiāngshī
* The vampires became the main theme in three successive television series in Hong Kong, "My Date with a Vampire" (我和殭屍有個約會), which were loosely continued from two earlier series starring Lam Ching-Ying as his typical role of a taoist priest. Many of the international myths of vampires were incorporated into the program, including the idea that vampires are in classes, depending on what class of vampires bite them, as well as many Chinese legends, some of which are changed for the sake of entertainment, for example, Pangu, the mythical creator of the world, was in fact a clan of people, and that all the vampires of the world can traced back to one of its members, who was not technically a vampire for he was never a mortal to start with. The vampires were also changed (at least the first five classes anyway) to resemble human beings, apart from the time they use their powers and drink blood. This also saw the transformation of vampires from stereotype villains to heroes.
* In the Steve Jackson game, Munchkin Fu, one enemy is the "Hopping Vampire" (a vampire on a pogostick), which gains a special bonus if the monster enhancer, "Hopped Up On Lotus", is played.
* In the anthropomorphic game Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, when the player is in China (General Tsao's level), General Tsao 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 Zombie Mushroom and Zombie Mushmom are based on the jiāngshī.
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