Jiang shi, literally “stiff corpse”, are the Chinese counterparts to zombies, and enjoyed their own success in pop culture during the 1980’s when they were heavily featured in Hong Kong films. Although the fad was short-lived, nobody can really be sure if it will stay dead.

The legend goes that Taoist priests, in order to bring the dead back to their families for a proper burial and to save themselves from chronic back pain, could teach the corpses to hop on their own. Control of the corpses depended on a single piece of yellow paper, a kind of talisman, affixed to their foreheads. In the movies, if this paper were to fall off, the corpse, or jiang shi, would have a mind of its own, and go crazy in its hunger for life essence. Thus, in stark contrast to Western zombies, survival depended quite strongly on finding the right type of glue. Keep in mind, too, that this was before the invention of the stapler.

Holding one’s breath is another useful survival tip when hunted by jiang shi, who are blind and can only detect living beings by their breath. This, of course, diminishes the threat level of jiang shi to that of a slightly unbearable fart, but it also allows for impromptu, silent games of Marco Polo in which the person who is caught literally becomes “it” in that he or she is no longer a living person.

The inherent silliness of jiang shi is not lost on the Chinese people, whose films featuring jiang shi were partly comedy. Perhaps the only ones who take this seriously anymore are the jiang shi themselves.