Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures,
Speaker 1: ideas and monsters in time. Imagine yourself out on the road,
Speaker 1: so frustratingly close to the walls of the city you've
Speaker 1: been traveling too, and yet night is falling, the mist
Speaker 1: is rolling in, and then up ahead you see several
Speaker 1: figures in the gloom, fellow travelers, a patrol of guards
Speaker 1: from the city. You entertain the possibility that they are bandits,
Speaker 1: and then they do something quite unnatural. They hop like
Speaker 1: a creature whose legs are bound or stiff with rigor mortis,
Speaker 1: or perhaps even forgetful of proper bipedal locomotion, and forced
Speaker 1: to lunge itself forward through physical space like a great
Speaker 1: writhing worm. The creatures hop and hop again, ever closer
Speaker 1: to you, And as they get closer you see that
Speaker 1: they are undead horrors, dressed in robes from the Ching Dynasty,
Speaker 1: decayed corpses, burning with unnatural life. As they hop, they
Speaker 1: reach out towards you with elongated fingernails. They gasp with bloody,
Speaker 1: faint tooth jaws, and if they catch you, they will
Speaker 1: drain every last ounce of precious chi from your body.
Speaker 1: In some ways relatable to Western concepts of the zombie
Speaker 1: and the vampire, this is the jiang shi. And while
Speaker 1: Chinese mythology and folklore is filled with various ghosts and monsters,
Speaker 1: this particular horror seems to emerge from a ching dynasty
Speaker 1: crisis concerning the burial of the dead. According to the
Speaker 1: Afterlife Corpses, A Social History of Unburied Dead Bodies in
Speaker 1: Chin China sixteen forty four through nineteen eleven by historian
Speaker 1: Joehi Su, numerous records from the eighteenth and nineteenth century
Speaker 1: discussed the problem of unburied bodies left upon the ground
Speaker 1: without proper burial. These were not exclusively the victims of war, famine,
Speaker 1: or disaster either. They were seemingly, for the most part,
Speaker 1: individuals who simply had no permanent grave. This, Sioux writes,
Speaker 1: was due to changing socioeconomic structure and the resulting imbalance
Speaker 1: between population and arable land. A family would need to
Speaker 1: secure claim to the land in order to bury deceased
Speaker 1: loved ones. If a grave could not be obtained, they
Speaker 1: were left out and often abandoned or lost. While jiang
Speaker 1: Nan was the region most impacted by this, it became
Speaker 1: an empire wide crisis because it wasn't just about the dead,
Speaker 1: but it perceived cultural decline in funeral custom and even
Speaker 1: devotion to one's ancests. While solutions finally emerged, such as
Speaker 1: public cemeteries and coffin homes, the specter of the jiangshi
Speaker 1: remained in the Chinese imagination, a specter of the abandoned
Speaker 1: and vengeful dead. These beliefs, along with other records Sue
Speaker 1: writes quote, demonstrate unburied dead bodies as highly abnormal and
Speaker 1: deeply problematic, representing a dysfunctional aspect of popular death custom.
Speaker 1: Jiangshi famously play a role in an entire sub genre
Speaker 1: of Chinese supernatural, horror and comedy films, including Mr. Vampire,
Speaker 1: which we watched on Weird House Cinema last year. They're
Speaker 1: also now featured in Dungeons and Dragons, listed in Ones
Speaker 1: Van Ripton's Guide to Ravenloft as a challenge level nine
Speaker 1: monster capable of changing shape and of course, draining the
Speaker 1: energy of its victims. While sometimes played for comedy, there
Speaker 1: is a deep and unnatural horror to the Jiangshi, and
Speaker 1: it absolutely demands a place in your nightmares and at
Speaker 1: your gaming table. Tune in for additional episodes of The
Speaker 1: Monster Fat each week. As always, you can email us
Speaker 1: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.