A challenge for fellow aspiring authors: make the Jiangshi ("Chinese vampire") scary

[Bbleds]

So after watching the most recent "Big Picture" I got a random idea I think is interesting. During the video it showed some clips of an old cheesy kung-fu movie featuring the mythological monsters that westerners commonly refer to as the "Chinese vampire". Now their depictions are considered by most as silly because they are generally seen wearing lavish robes and hopping around almost like rabbits. I am sure my failings to find it frightening is mainly related to not being part the culture or knowing the history of the myth, but even still just generally not threatening. So I started realizing that surely someone could or has made the creatures into a creepy figure if they reworked the ideas and aesthetics of them in some type of fiction work.

After searching the internet I was a bit surprised to find that it seems no one has really made any attempt at this opportunity. There is a couple of series of Chinese movies ("The Creepy Kid" and "Mr Vampire") but they have the "classic" interpretation seen previously. What I did find is that the mythology and historical originations are ripe with some great material. For instance, they hop because they are essentially corpses suffering riga mortis and the idea possibly started because poor rural families who couldn't transport their dead relatives hired people to carry them. So they supposedly set the dead on upright on sticks placed underneath the arms and as they were carried through villages some unfortunate people witnessed the "hopping" of the Jiangshi. I have a feeling from the posts I see on this site that some of you may want to write and be published like me. So like the title suggests go do just that. My idea is if several of us try to write a good story and send it in for publishing at least one of them has got to stick. Now a couple of clarifications.

I really suggest sending your story to get published as opposed to say posting it on this or another site's thread. You can do that not a big deal, but a short story thread this is not. Plus getting published would be much more valuable and really not as daunting as you think. My best suggestion is submitting to writing contests.

Also definitely not trying to get/ steal ideas for myself. I realize as I write that it sounds even more suspicious, but I already have a decent outline on how I want my story to play out. With that being said, I would love to hear your ideas if you wish to share them on the thread. And I would like some advice and that would be if anyone knows or has found some good reading material on the mythology and history. Also most importantly how to write a fictitious work about a foreign culture without coming off as ignorant and disrespectful. And if anyone interested would like some advice on contests or writing I'll do my best, but I'm an amateur myself.

So if anyone is interested, good luck and have fun.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

Also definitely not trying to get/ steal ideas for myself. I realize as I write that it sounds even more suspicious, but I already have a decent outline on how I want my story to play out.

I find it sad that you even need to say this.

---
That aside, it can be difficult, not only because you're trying to show something that's scariness has been lost, or is not easily understandable to a different culture, but at the time, we have so many many stories about zombies that they're also losing appeal. Anything that remotely sounds like a zombie, might turn people off.

I thought the background of how this creature came into being was a lot more interesting than the actual creature.

What I did find is that the mythology and historical originations are ripe with some great material. For instance, they hop because they are essentially corpses suffering riga mortis and the idea possibly started because poor rural families who couldn't transport their dead relatives hired people to carry them. So they supposedly set the dead on upright on sticks placed underneath the arms and as they were carried through villages some unfortunate people witnessed the "hopping" of the Jiangshi.

But back to the zombie comparison, zombies were not originally like Hollywood shows them now, but were associated with Vodou. Night of the Living Dead made them into what we see (in everything) today, but if you take so much creative liberty with a creature, does it become something that's no longer that creature? What about if you make it so much like a different creature, would it mine as well just be considered the new creature instead?

Jiangshi are apparently a creature that goes for "life force" rather than outright blood like a traditional vampire would. If I wanted to make my monsters different [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurMonstersAreDifferent]. I'd probably start by going along that route, that way it's not technically a zombie, and not technically a vampire as a lot of people know them. I'd also marathon Shin Megami Tensei games until I questioned my sanity.

 

[Jamash]

In the novel Anno Dracula by Kim Newman, the Jiangshi or Mr. Vampire appears in that and is pretty scary.

In the world where Dracula won and is King of England and every other person is a Vampire, Mr. Vampire is scary.

He's an ancient Chinese Vampire (much older and more powerful than common Vampires spawned by Dracula) who is employed as an assassin and is neigh unstoppable in his relentless pursuit of his target, another Elder Vampire who is very powerful in their own right, but it nevertheless helpless against the Jiangshi.

Despite his hopping locomotion, Mr. Vampire is written as scary and formidable antagonist in this book, so it's easy to make the Jiangshi scary as it's already been done. You just need to make use of the fact that despite his bound legs, he's still a very powerful creature with razor sharp talons on the end of mobile arms wielded with martial arts training and an unstoppable thirst for blood, not to his other abilities and 'magics' that come with being an undead being of his age and stature.

 

[Bbleds]

But back to the zombie comparison, zombies were not originally like Hollywood shows them now, but were associated with Vodou. Night of the Living Dead made them into what we see (in everything) today, but if you take so much creative liberty with a creature, does it become something that's no longer that creature? What about if you make it so much like a different creature, would it mine as well just be considered the new creature instead?

Jiangshi are apparently a creature that goes for "life force" rather than outright blood like a traditional vampire would. If I wanted to make my monsters different [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurMonstersAreDifferent]. I'd probably start by going along that route, that way it's not technically a zombie, and not technically a vampire as a lot of people know them. I'd also marathon Shin Megami Tensei games until I questioned my sanity.

Yeah it's pretty interesting to see how cultures somewhat "collided" on the myth. I saw some interesting discussions on how interpretations started incorporating the "blood-sucking" aspect of the westernized vampire. As far as how to make it original and interesting but keep it related to the actual mythology, I'm not exactly sure either. What I intend to try is incorporating aspects of the myth that I find most interesting, and try to depict a "monster" that has the same features but interpreted differently. For instance, a hop would probably still be a tad difficult for a corpse but a stumbling jerking lurch perhaps? Just an idea I'm playing with, but if people will like it or if it will be a different entity altogether I think will mainly will be based on reader interpretations. My general simplified philosophy so far, only time will show if it's actually successful, is making it something I find enjoyable, original and emotionally (dread and fear in this case) resonating.

In the novel Anno Dracula by Kim Newman, the Jiangshi or Mr. Vampire appears in that and is pretty scary.

In the world where Dracula won and is King of England and every other person is a Vampire, Mr. Vampire is scary.

He's an ancient Chinese Vampire (much older and more powerful than common Vampires spawned by Dracula) who is employed as an assassin and is neigh unstoppable in his relentless pursuit of his target, another Elder Vampire who is very powerful in their own right, but it nevertheless helpless against the Jiangshi.

Despite his hopping locomotion, Mr. Vampire is written as scary and formidable antagonist in this book, so it's easy to make the Jiangshi scary as it's already been done. You just need to make use of the fact that despite his bound legs, he's still a very powerful creature with razor sharp talons on the end of mobile arms wielded with martial arts training and an unstoppable thirst for blood, not to his other abilities and 'magics' that come with being an undead being of his age and stature.

Interesting, that is something that didn't occur to me, a "power-struggle/bottom-of-the food chain" aspect. For me I'm leaning towards a more an "unnatural presence in a realistic remote setting" type of approach. For me personally, that is how I enjoy my "horror". More on the creepy side of things I guess, facing an unexplainable "uncanny-valley-ish" being and feeling dis-empowered. Like I said though, that's just me. It's definitely a good premise for someone, probably more skilled than myself, to explore.

Thanks for the comments so far, good discussion.

 

[TakerFoxx]

Jiangshi are the sort of thing that are probably creepy as all hell in their original legends and can be scary in modern literature, but making them scary in any sort of visual medium will be a real challenge.

But they can be adorable though.

Spoiler

 

[an annoyed writer]

Hmm.. I've actually been thinking about this for a couple days now, and it might just be the fact that I've been playing a lot of Mass Effect 3 lately, but I was thinking, what if the 'hop' was taken in a manner that is not extremely literal? What if it's a leap through space-time, not unlike the short teleportation 'hops' that the banshees from Mass Effect use? Picture the traditional Jiangshi, but instead of literally hopping over to their victim like a rabbit, they'd jump-teleport and pop up right in the victim's face. Much, much scarier.

 

[Ratty]

Jiangshi are monsters tailor made for horror comedy. They can be funny, but also threatening when done well.
Part of the trick is to concentrate on the body horror aspect that you see in asian folklore. Arms unexplainably and suddenly growing ghoulsihly long to grab you. Heads that float from the body to attack you, cackling all the while. Places or people that at first appear normal, but then you suddenly realize are rotting and decayed.

I've been an enthusiastic fan of these monsters for years now but it's difficult to get a lot of the movies involving them where I live. Still, I'd say if you want to do some research on Jiangshi and Chinese horror films in general, a good place to start is
Spooky Encounters: A Gwailo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror [http://www.amazon.com/Spooky-Encounters-Gwailos-Guide-Horror/dp/1900486318]

 

[Altorin]

you'd almost have to make them like Weeping Angels. Basically, as soon as you see a Jiangshi move, they're not scary anymore.. the whole mummy pose and bunny hopping is just... I don't even know what to call it, but it's not scary..

but imagine catching a glimpse of one, and at first your brain just ignores it, and you look away and it's suddenly ten feet closer when you look back, then you start running, and every time you look back to see how close it is, it's catching up. Once or twice when you peer back, it almost looks as though its flying, but its arms don't move. Nothing moves. It's just there, and it's getting closer. Looking back for an extra second to get a bearing on the beast that's chasing you, you tumble and fall, and a moment later it lands silently on the ground next to you. It looks down at you, its eyes white and rotten, its mouth a horrible sight, it bends down, and you can hear the centuries creaking loudly in its joints. Its mouth gets closer and closer. Its creaking fingers grasp you, pulling your body up, its fingertips worn down to bloody points, tearing through your clothes.

Now, that seems pretty scary to me and doesn't move TOO far away from the popular imagery of the Jiangshi.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I'm not a writer, nor do I care about getting anything published, so I'm just going to put out some ideas that I have that I think would be necessary to making the Jiangshi scary to western audiences.

The first and most important one is explaining in detail what happens with a jiangshi feeds on someone's "life force." To western audiences the "life force" is a kind of nebulous concept that doesn't really mean anything, so you need to create a sense of horror around its removal.

If it was me I'd probably go with something along the lines of having your life force stolen from you would mean that your body's aging would be accelerated. Then the person whose life force is being fed on by the jiangshi would feel every malady which occurs during the aging process happening to them all at once. Essentially all of the little aches and pains of aging, the ones that are annoying but mostly bearable would hit them all in the span of a few minutes, and it would be complete torture. Maybe the person was destined to have 20 years of arthritis at the end of their life, well all the pain of those 20 years would suddenly be condensed into 10 minutes, and intensified in magnitude by over 1 million times (1,051,200 times to be exact). That person feels their bones turning to dust, their muscles withering away, etc, and all written in extreme detail. You want to present the feeding of the jiangshi to be a horrible and agonizing way to die.

Then the second thing would be to make the jiangshi appear scary while still maintaining what makes it unique in chinese folklore. You have to figure out a way to keep the whole bunny hopping thing, while making the bunny hopping be there for a reason, or baring that, make it less of a detriment in some way, or give the jiangshi powers that make up for the fact that it has to bunny hop everywhere.

For this I would leave the bunny hopping as an integral part of the jiangshi but make the jiangshi move very quickly through bunny hopping, making huge leaps. Imagine a character running through the forest with a jiangshi in pursuing him in the trees above, leaping from branch to branch, tree to tree above the character's head, just out of his range of vision making it impossible to know where the attack is coming from (Predator style). The jiangshi are supposed to use martial arts, so give them supernatural "wire-fighting" moves. Essentially you make them move like the characters from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, giving them the ability to jump up walls, hop along the tops of trees, leap from wall to wall and onto the ceiling in a house, etc. while the human characters are stuck on the ground. Now the jiangshi bunny hop because using both legs to push off the ground makes use of the martial artist super muscles and allows them to jump incredible distances.

 

[geK0]

I think maybe if you were to show them leaping instead of hopping they might be a little more scary. Think Like left 4 Dead hunters, but in Chinese robes instead of hoodies.

Edit: I need to read prior posts before just inserting my opinions and assuming they havent been said yet.

 

[Bbleds]

If it was me I'd probably go with something along the lines of having your life force stolen from you would mean that your body's aging would be accelerated. Then the person whose life force is being fed on by the jiangshi would feel every malady which occurs during the aging process happening to them all at once. Essentially all of the little aches and pains of aging, the ones that are annoying but mostly bearable would hit them all in the span of a few minutes, and it would be complete torture. Maybe the person was destined to have 20 years of arthritis at the end of their life, well all the pain of those 20 years would suddenly be condensed into 10 minutes, and intensified in magnitude by over 1 million times (1,051,200 times to be exact). That person feels their bones turning to dust, their muscles withering away, etc, and all written in extreme detail. You want to present the feeding of the jiangshi to be a horrible and agonizing way to die.

Nice, that is a very intriguing concept. The only time I've read an example of a similar idea was in the novella that "Hellraiser" was based on, "The Hellbound Heart". The narrator explains in detail every little thing of the tortures that the Frank character experiences in his mind when he first solves the puzzle box, good read by the way if you are a Hellraiser or Clive Barker fan. I wanted to include the "life force" aspect of it, but all I could think about was the victim aging to dust in seconds flat ala "Indiana Jones" style. So it was one of those "cross that bridge when I get to it" things, but I will be outright honest there is a chance I may actually use that aspect of describing what the victim experiences internally in general. So thank you, and everyone again. Very good and entertaining discussion.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

If it was me I'd probably go with something along the lines of having your life force stolen from you would mean that your body's aging would be accelerated. Then the person whose life force is being fed on by the jiangshi would feel every malady which occurs during the aging process happening to them all at once. Essentially all of the little aches and pains of aging, the ones that are annoying but mostly bearable would hit them all in the span of a few minutes, and it would be complete torture. Maybe the person was destined to have 20 years of arthritis at the end of their life, well all the pain of those 20 years would suddenly be condensed into 10 minutes, and intensified in magnitude by over 1 million times (1,051,200 times to be exact). That person feels their bones turning to dust, their muscles withering away, etc, and all written in extreme detail. You want to present the feeding of the jiangshi to be a horrible and agonizing way to die.

Nice, that is a very intriguing concept. The only time I've read an example of a similar idea was in the novella that "Hellraiser" was based on, "The Hellbound Heart". The narrator explains in detail every little thing of the tortures that the Frank character experiences in his mind when he first solves the puzzle box, good read by the way if you are a Hellraiser or Clive Barker fan. I wanted to include the "life force" aspect of it, but all I could think about was the victim aging to dust in seconds flat ala "Indiana Jones" style. So it was one of those "cross that bridge when I get to it" things, but I will be outright honest there is a chance I may actually use that aspect of describing what the victim experiences internally in general. So thank you, and everyone again. Very good and entertaining discussion.

When you write your book you better put a special thank you to me at the beginning, then you're free to steal whatever you want from this.

Another idea for making the jiangshi (or really any monster) seem threatening is to show that it's relentless and pretty much unstoppable. There's a great video on youtube called "The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon." The video is basically a trailer for a fake movie (a comedy horror movie) about a guy who gets cursed to be haunted by a japanese spirit called a Ginosaji. The Ginosaji kills its victims by slowly beating them to death with a small soup spoon over the course of years. The premise is funny, but the video is actually genuinely creepy in parts. The Ginosaji never stops, never rests, and is inescapable, always able to find its victim. Its attacks might not be particularly painful or dangerous but it slowly drives its victim mad because they are always on guard never able to sleep or have a normal life.

Spoiler

The more difficult it is to escape the monster the more threatening it becomes.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, is the OP asking how to make bunny hopping scary, or to make vampires that bunny hop scary?

Because, well, they don't just bunny hop, they do other things. Those other things can be scary.

 

[Jacques Joseph]

I totally think bunny hopping could be made scary, if done right. In a "it´s so weird and out of place that it kinda becomes disturbing" way... (of course combined with making the vampires look scary by other means as well). Although I can´t remember names, I´ve seen quite a couple of horror movies (especially asian) where the premise is quite silly and it´s exactly the fact that this silliness is carried out totally straight that makes it scary.

 

[SteveG]

With Jiangshi, the hop is a "secondary feature". To cultures (Chinese, but also Taoism specifically) who hold Chi as highly as they do the thought of something that relentlessly pursues you to take the Chi (& your life while it's at it) is terrifying. I have a Wuxia (Kung Fu fiction) novel coming out next month and while it doesn't have Jiangshi in it, the series following does (in a small way) and other baddies from Chinese mythology. When writing about Jiangshi I didn't really consider the hop as scary or not, merely a means to get the Internal Energy devourers to their intended victim. "Western zombies" aren't that scary in my opinion if you think of it as something dragging one leg along. It's the tireless pursuit of eating you that is frightening. Same thing with Jiangshi.