Hopping Jiangshi

The hopping jiangshi is the classic and most recognisable form of the Chinese reanimated dead. Tradition links it to the corpse that dies far from its native village and is not returned in time to receive ritual burial; the critical term is set at forty-nine days (Buddhist tradition) or one hundred (Taoist tradition). A historical motif fed the legend: the «corpse drivers» of Hunan (xiangxi ganshi), who supposedly carried the bodies of emigrants back to their villages by night, guiding them in file with little bells under the direction of Taoist priests. From that image of «walking» corpses arose the figure of the jiangshi that advances in hops because of the rigidity of its limbs.

The hopping jiangshi moves in leaps, with rigid arms stretched forward, because cadaveric rigidity prevents it from walking or bending its joints. Its food is not blood but qi, the breath or vital energy of the living, which it absorbs on drawing near them; the blood vampirism sometimes attributed to it is a modern elaboration, popularised by Hong Kong cinema of the eighties and foreign to classical folklore. It has notable strength and hardened claws, and tracks its victims by their breath. Tradition holds that a Taoist talisman of yellow paper (fú) stuck on the forehead, bearing the formula «急急如律令», paralyses it, and that holding one's breath keeps it from detecting you.

The image of the jiangshi is fixed by its attire: the funerary uniform of a Qing dynasty official, cap included, over greyish or greenish skin. The yellow paper talisman on the forehead is its most characteristic emblem, symbol of the Taoist power that subdues it. It is fought with decapitation, fire, peach wood, glutinous rice, the blood of a black rooster and mirrors, all of them apotropaic elements of Chinese tradition. As the central figure of the jiangshi cycle, the hopping corpse embodies the belief that a soul without rest can animate its own body, and it has become one of the most iconic monsters of East Asian popular culture.