Jiangshi
Also called Jiang-shi, Goeng-si.
In Chinese folklore, the jiangshi is a reanimated corpse that moves by hopping with its arms outstretched, animated by an excess of unchecked po (魄) spirit after death.
At a glance
- Tradition
- Chinese mythology
- Region
- China (place of origin)
- Symbols
- Vampire
Near this figure
Symbols
Judged against the description by a model. Meanings are our own paraphrase.
- Vampire is image-domain The vampire denotes the dead that will not stay dead, feeding on the living, seductive and repugnant at once, draining what it claims to love.
why
The jiangshi, sometimes rendered in English as the "Chinese hopping vampire" or "hopping corpse," is a reanimated cadaver from Chinese folklore, with roots in Qing dynasty tales and older Taoist and folk-religious ideas about the human soul.
Traits
Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.
Form
- Rigid limbed hopping gait
why
A jiangshi is typically described as stiff-limbed and rigid with rigor mortis, its arms held out before it, unable to bend its joints and so forced to move by hopping rather than walking.
Offensive powers
- Superhuman strength
why
Folklore credits the jiangshi with a limited but dangerous set of abilities: superhuman strength, an acute sense of smell that it uses to track living victims by their breath since its own eyes are of little use, and, in some tellings, the power to transform others it kills or drains into jiangshi in turn.
- Soul drain
why
Unlike the wandering, sorrowful ghosts of Chinese tradition, the jiangshi is not a spirit but an animated body, driven by instinct and hunger rather than memory or personality, and it is conventionally said to attack in order to absorb the qi, or life force, of the living, sometimes described as literally sucking the victim's breath.
Utility powers
- Keen scent
why
Folklore credits the jiangshi with a limited but dangerous set of abilities: superhuman strength, an acute sense of smell that it uses to track living victims by their breath since its own eyes are of little use, and, in some tellings, the power to transform others it kills or drains into jiangshi in turn.