Chinese Vampires

A couple of posts back, I put up a photo of some skulls with fangs that are strung together like a necklace on a statue's chest. I asked if anyone knew anything about Chinese vampires and received a note from a dedicated viewer (thanks J.V.!) saying that entering the term in google, had some interesting results. Here for your interest, is the synthesis of a couple of sites on the subject.

Jiang shi, translated as "stiff corpse" are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence from their victims. They are called vampires by westerners, but don't typically use teeth to suck blood from their victims as do our Transylvanian friends. Apparently they can range in description from just normal, to stiff bodies (like the ghouls in the Saturday morning Scooby Doo cartoons), to greenish-white fur covered bodies. Jiang shi often were portrayed wearing the clothing of Qing dynasty officials; Qing rulers were Manchu and much hated by the Han- the ancestors of most of Chinese today- yet adding another layer of despicability (my word) to the creatures.

According to Wikipedia:

Jiangshi stories came from the folk practice of "Traveling a Corpse over a Thousand Li", where traveling companion or family members who could not afford wagons or have very little money would hire Taoist 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. After they died, their corpses were transported back to their rural hometown using long bamboo rods, believed they would be home-sick if buried somewhere unfamiliar. When the bamboo flexed up and down, the corpses appeared to be hopping in unison from a distance. There is a more complex explanation of Chinese vampires here. 7

To fans of Chinese movies, apparently Jiang shi were made popular in Hong Kong movies from the 1980'(some of them featuring Sammo Hung). Controlling these vampires is as easy as writing a spell on a piece of paper and putting on their foreheads! These movie vampires are pictured with outstretched arms and pointy fingernails and "outrageously long tongues." Here is a great example of a Chinese vampire in a movie clip from Youtube.

It does not explain the teeth on the statue's skulls, but that gave us all the opportunity to learn little bit more about Chinese Vampires.