Hopping corpse

In popular Chinese mythology, hopping corpses ({{zh-tsp|t=?? or ??|s=??|p=Ji?ngsh?}}; literally "stiff corpses") are corpses whose touch can kill a living person instantly. They are said to be created when a person's soul (魄 Po) fails to leave the deceased's body.

Related Topics:
Chinese mythology - Corpse

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It came from the myth of "The Corpses who Travel a Thousand Li" (千里行屍), which describes wizards who transport corpses over long distances to hop on their own feet back to their hometown for proper burial.

Related Topics:
Li - Wizard

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Some people speculate that hopping corpses were originally smugglers in disguise who wanted to scare off law enforcement officers.

Related Topics:
Smugglers - Law enforcement

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Jiangshi is also pronounced Geung si, which is the Cantonese name for vampire (it is usually translated as xi xue gui (吸血鬼) or "blood-sucking ghost" in Mandarin). Hence, a hopping corpse is also called a Chinese vampire. To distinguish between a Chinese vampire and a Western vampire a Cantonese speaker may use 吸血僵屍 (Cantonese Yale: kap1 hyut3 geung1 si1) for a "blood-sucking geung si".

Related Topics:
Cantonese - Vampire - Mandarin - Yale

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Chinese vampires were a popular subject in Hong Kong movies during the 1980s; some movies even featured both Chinese and "Western" vampires. 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 fu2). Generally in the movies the hopping corpses are dressed in imperial Qing Dynasty clothes, their arms permanently outstretched to catch and strangle victims. 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.

Related Topics:
Hong Kong movies - Pinyin - Qing Dynasty - Tongue - Fingernails - Han Chinese - Manchu

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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.

Related Topics:
Feng shui - Chinese

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