raphaelblackwoode:

In case anyone was wondering, Mei’s halloween costume is called a ‘Jiangshi‘ and it’s probably one of my favorite cultural monsters. :D The Jiangshi is also known as ‘the hopping vampire’ and I first ran into it on a game called Ragnarok Online.

While often mistaken for a zombie, it is in fact a vampire (despite the fact that it’s a reanimated corpse) and is typically dressed in garments from the Qing dynasty. They move only by hopping around (hence the name) and often have their arms outstretched forward permanently, both due to rigor mortis. They also feed off of the life energy of their victims (much like Mei in overwatch), which is where the vampire comes in, although the Chinese claim that the slavic vampire had no influence on the Jiangshi.

You can stop a Jiangshi one of several ways, from apparently sucking their held breath out of them, which causes them to turn into a normal, lifeless corpse, to throwing rice and small objects in it’s path, which will force it to pick up and count each grain. (Counting vampire. Hmm..)

Originally posted by jupiter2

The weaknesses of a Jiangshi include the blood of a black dog, a wooden sword made from a peach tree, a hen’s egg, glutinous rice (by extension of its use in the attempt to draw poisons from a living body), and the urine of a virgin boy. (Yikes)

 They’re controlled by the talisman that’s placed on their heads, and like a western vampire, anyone who’s life force is drained by the Jiangshi becomes a Jiangshi themselves.

Here’s a few examples from pop culture you may recognize as a Jiangshi.

Nightwalker Heartless from Kingdom Hearts

Lee Pailong from the Shaman King manga/anime.

Hsien-Ko from the Darkstalkers fighting game.

Thanks for taking a look, I know the Jiangshi isn’t a very popular monster in western culture and I know a few people have been curious about her new Halloween Skin so I thought I’d make this post. :D

I’m glad there’s a post about this. I once cosplayed as the one from Ragnarok and could never remember what it was called.