it’s high time this blog had a late night theme tune

I’ve enjoyed the soundtracks various folks have put up in response to the original here. So let’s keep on rolling. Or staggering, as the case may be. 

We’ve covered the controversy over running versus shuffling zombies before, with this blog being a firm partisan of shuffling. There is, however another option embodied by the jing shi, the famous Chinese hopping zombies. The story goes like this. When somebody died far away from home, they would be reanimated by a Taoist priest, so as to make the return journey home under their own steam. It cost a lot less than having them shipped, apparently. Now it’s obviously bad luck to meet a zombie on the king’s highway, so they would be ordered to hop back to the ancestral village, enabling any other unwary traveler to spot them from a distance and keep away. Once arrived, they would hop about outside the family home until someone came out and plastered the character Fu (fortune), written on a slip of yellow paper, on their foreheads in the manner of the old rizla game. This would cause them to finally expire in a manner convenient for burial. Now hopping zombies aren’t really appropriate for your traditional zombie cannibal flesh eater type film, but they clearly offer much so far underutilized potential in the burgeoning zom-com genre.

Comments

[ajay]

This makes a lot more sense* than the previous explanation (that bodies were buried with their feet tied together to stop them turning into zombies) because, as I pointed out at the time, it's impossible to hop with your feet tied together.

*Inasmuch as any bit of Chinese mythology "makes sense".

[Richard J]

Having visited the Haw Par villas in Singapore last week, the only conclusion I've been able to draw is along the lines of ajay. Chinese mythology is fucking weird.

[Nick L]

Isn't there some strange kind of vampire in Chinese mythology that is basically a flying head with attached internal organs dangling about. When not floating about it supposedly soaks its organs in vinegar. Or maybe I dreamt this after drinking some bad xiaoshing wine.

[McGazz]

Nice tune choice :) I probably shouldn't admit this in public, but I saw Goblin live last year and loved it.

[dsquared]

[Isn't there some strange kind of vampire in Chinese mythology that is basically a flying head with attached internal organs dangling about. ]

Yes there is, as long as by "Chinese mythology" you mean "The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual". Or possibly the Fiend Folio, can't remember which.

[jamie]

Hmm. I think it's time a dug up Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio and did some serial blogging like I did with Aubrey a few years back.

[ejh]

Talking of Chinese mythology, isn't there some creature that's half-woman, half-snake? I usually do a joke to the effect of "what would be mythological about that..."

[Nick L]

Here we go, not just a D&D monster, but also a Malaysian legend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penanggalan

[Richard J]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2729/4466212271_72bd5af08f_b.jpg

Or half-woman, half-crab, for that matter...

[ajay]

Ah yes, the Penanggalan. Turned up in one of the Hellboy comics. ("An old lady saw a spirit in the forest and was so surprised that she kicked her own head off. The head flew away and became a vampire." "I think that's about the dumbest legend I ever heard.")

[ajay]

I don't know if dsquared's more embarrassed about admitting familiarity with the Fiend Folio than I am about admitting familiarity with Hellboy.

[Mr Lazy]

That is a pretty dumb legend. It's such a silly monster I'd also assumed it must be original to AD&D, which renamed it the vargouille. It got beaten into second place on this list of the stupidest ever AD&D monsters
http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm