Nosferatu

[Hyde_is_my_anti-drug]

Recently I have been doing some digging regarding Nosferatu or Vampyre (Vampires) and found some very interesting facts about them, like the different kinds of Nosferatu, their origins etc. So I thought I'd make a place for people to share information conserning Vampyre, talk about your favorite kinds, and if you believe that Vampyre are real or not. All that good stuff.

I personally believe in the existence of Vampyre. They show up too often in folklore and religion all around the world to not have a basis in fact. For one thing several diseases have been linked to Vampirism including Xeroderma Pigmentosum which shows symtoms similar to both the current idea and old folklore of what Vampyre are (hating light, bad reactions to garlic etc).
In studying the Romanian Vampires I have found a remote branch of Nosferatu that I was not aware of and am now fasinated with; Strigoi. I've been studying them recently and I find them very interesting. I love the rules they must observe when performing their Embrace, and their two holidays (Nov. 11, April 22). I found a wonderful site with a lot of information about them, here's the link: ♡ Свежие песни читать | все самые хитовые тексты песен ♡

Oh, and if anyone has information conserning the Chinese Vampyre-like creatures found in their mythology please tell me if you would. I've been finding it extremely hard to find anything about Chinese Vampires so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[bossel]

if you believe that Vampyre are real or not.

Depends on how you define a vampire. That there were people who drank blood for religious or other reasons is clear, but they had not much in common with those mythological creature you find in movies & such. "Undead" vampires most probably do not exist.
Vampire bats on the other hand do exist, but they can't change into human beings, nor do they do anything to their victims beyond drinking blood, maybe except for the occasional infection with rabies. Rabies then again may lay at the basis of some European vampire legends, but unrelated to vampire bats.

BTW, Chinese "vampires" are called jiāng shī, AFAIK very different from European mytholoy, but don't ask me for details. Just google for it.

 

[-rika- shinya`]

geungsi have stiff bodies, rather than walk,they generally hop around with their hands outstretched in front of them and wearing ancient robes and hats, has blue/white faces and vampire teeth

In popular Chinese mythology, hopping corpses (Traditional Chinese: 邃｢Kﾅｽr or 殭ﾅｽr; Simplified Chinese: 邃｢K窶ｺ邃｢; Hanyu Pinyin: Jiāngshī; literally "stiff corpses") are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence (qi) from their victims. Jiangshi is also pronounced Geung si, which is the Cantonese pronounciation for Hopping Corpse. They are said to be created when a person's soul (ﾃｩﾂｮ Po) fails to leave the deceased's body. The influence of Western Dracula stories brought the blood-sucking aspect to the Chinese myth in modern times. In fact, Dracula is translated to Chinese as "blood-sucking jiang shi" where the thirst of blood is explicitly emphasized because it is not a traditional trait of a jiang shi.
It came from the myth of "The Corpses who Travel a Thousand Li" (ﾂ静ｧ窶板｢ﾂ行ﾅｽr), which describes Tao wizards who transport corpses over long distances to hop on their own feet back to their hometown for proper burial. Some people speculate that hopping corpses were originally smugglers in disguise who wanted to scare off law enforcement officers.
Hopping Corpses were a popular subject in Hong Kong movies during the 1980s; some movies even featured both Chinese Hopping Corpse and "Western" zombie. In the movies, hopping corpses can be put to sleep by putting on their foreheads a piece of yellow paper with a spell written on it (Chinese talisman or 窶｢窶 pinyin fu2). Generally in the movies the hopping corpses are dressed in imperial Qing Dynasty clothes, their arms permanently outstretched due to rigor mortis. Like those depicted in Western movies, they tend to appear with an outrageously long tongue and long fingernails. They can be evaded by holding one's breath, as they track living creatures by detecting their breathing. Their visual depiction as horrific Qing Dynasty officials reflects a common stereotype among the Han Chinese of the foreign Manchu people, who founded the much-despised dynasty, as bloodthirsty creatures with little regard for humanity.
It is also conventional wisdom of feng shui in Chinese architecture that a threshold (Chinese: 窶禿･ﾅｸB), a piece of wood approximately six inches high, be installed along the width of the door to prevent a hopping corpse from entering the household

something like this

 

[Hyde_is_my_anti-drug]

Thank you -rika- shinya`!!

Depends on how you define a vampire. That there were people who drank blood for religious or other reasons is clear, but they had not much in common with those mythological creature you find in movies & such. "Undead" vampires most probably do not exist.

Well, it all depends on how you define "existence." Myths have great power on the human brain and often prey on what we fear. In turn we internalize them making them almost real, spreading them to others like a virus. Fear to me is very much a tangable force. So in this respect I think Vampyre of all kinds exist because they reprisent a particual branch of fear and fear most certainly exist. Now as for them literally existing, I won't say they do or don't but I'll say that I believe in them. As to what form of Nosferatu I believe exists...I don't really believe in one form or another, just the general idea that they exist. I think if you look for the universal truths in Vampyre lore, the things all of them share, you'll get close to what Vampyre really are.
As I said once on a different thread; some people believe in God, I believe in Vampires.

Vampire bats on the other hand do exist, but they can't change into human beings, nor do they do anything to their victims beyond drinking blood, maybe except for the occasional infection with rabies. Rabies then again may lay at the basis of some European vampire legends, but unrelated to vampire bats.

Actually, the term "Vampire Bat" came long after the myths of the Vampyre. They were named for the Vampyre not the other way around (not saying that you said it was the reverse or anything, just stating a fact). Although they will always be connected in Vampyre lore they did not begin that way.

P.S. Love your avatar by the way *hopeless Treky*