Hopping corpse
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In popular Chinese mythology, hopping corpses (僵屍 Pinyin: Jiangshi, 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.
It came from the myth of "The Corpses who Travel a Thousand Miles" (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.
Some people speculate that hopping corpses were originally smugglers in disguise who wanted to scare off the law enforcement officers.
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".
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.
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 trip the hopping corpse so that it cannot enter the household.
References in works of fiction
"Kyonshii", a word based on the Japanese pronunciation of jiangshi, is used in some obscure games and trading card games as a term for creatures that combined the characteristics of Chinese and "Western" vampires.SM_pionpi.gif
Pionpi, a Nintendo Character
The hopping corpse has appeared in a handful of films from Hong Kong that have seen Western release, including the Geung si sin sang (aka Mr. Vampire) series featuring Lam Ching Ying.
In the video game Super Mario Land one of the minor enemies, Pionpi, has characteristics of the Jiang Shi.
In the fighting game Darkstalkers, the character Hsien-Ko (Lei-Lei in the Japanese version) is based off the Jiang Shi.
In the anime and manga Shaman King, the Tao family has a massive army of Jiangshi at the family's call. One certain Jiangshi the show focused on was Lee Bailong (a.k.a. Lee Pai-Long), who is a thinly veiled reference to Bruce Lee.
In the novel Anno-Dracula, a hopping vampire appears as a minor villian.
In the MMORPG "Ragnarok Online", monsters known Munaks and Bonguns were heavily based off of the Jiang Shi figure. Both of these creatures have a loathing for living alone and bounce around looking for a player to approach so they may attack. The difference between them is that the weaker Munaks are clad in traditional red outsfits and have long queues, while the more formiable Bonguns wear blue and own shorter queues. While fighting these mosters, a player may even be lucky enough to find a Munak or Bongun hat which they can equip for a substancial advantage over most headgear in the game. These hats even include the yellow sheet of paper hanging over the face, though it should be noted that the paper seen on Bonguns has been somehow torn in half.
A Jiang Shi was featured in an episode of the childrens' 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.