The Walking Dead Of China

Mysterious Universe

If you think that the concept of the jerky, slow-moving zombies is a relatively modern one, then it is very much a case of time to think again. Within Chinese culture and folklore, tales of such abominations date back centuries. In China, the zombie is known as the jiang-shi. And it is just about as deadly and terrifying as its Haitian and western counterparts.

Jiang-shi translates into English as “stiff corpse.” And there is a very good reason for that: the movements and gait of the Chinese undead are not at all dissimilar to the zombies of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.

In China, the jiang-shi is a creature with a seemingly never-ending case of rigor mortis. Most people are familiar with the concept of this post-death condition: when a person dies, the body significantly stiffens. This is due to a now-permanent lack of oxygen, which prevents the body from producing Adenosine triphosphate, a molecule significantly involved in the regulation of the human metabolism.

As the metabolic system finally comes to an irreversible halt, the process of rigor mortis quickly begins. Many people, however, are unaware that rigor mortis is not a permanent condition. While it typically sets in just a few hours after death, within a day or so, its effects have completely vanished and the body is as supple in death as it was in life. For the jiang-shi, however, rigor mortis never, ever goes away, something which ensures the creature retains a stiff, robotic gait at all times, just like Romero’s infamous ghouls.

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