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It sounds to me as if you're referring to the aswang, a type of vampire from the Philippines. It's difficult to describe, since its description differs from one island to the next. One type is a living person who can transform him or herself into a bird to do evil against his or her neighbors. Another type is capable of separating its upper body from its lower extremities, sprouting wings, and flying about the countryside. Yet another type is the corrupted soul of a dead person that takes the form of a reptilian creature resembling a European dragon. Each type has a long, hollow, pointed tongue through which it drinks blood or other bodily fluids and typically preys upon babies and pregnant women.


One of my personal favorite types of vampires is the jiāngshī (also spelled chiang shih), also known as hopping corpses and Chinese vampires by Westerners. Jiāngshī are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb their life energy (qì). They are said to be created when a person's lower soul (pò) fails to leave their body after the higher soul (hun) has ascended to Heaven. This tended to happen when a person suffered a particularly violent death, such as a suicide, hanging, drowning, or smothering. It could also happen when a person wasn't buried properly.

Jiāngshī are usually depicted with an outrageously long tongue and long fingernails. They are often said to be covered in green or white hair. This "hair" is actually grave mold.

People protect themselves from jiāngshī by using salt or garlic. Brooms are used to sweep the creature back to its resting spot, while running water, iron filings, glutinous rice, and red peas act as barriers. It has also been said that the urine from chaste virgins (typically prepubescent boys) can repel and even "corrosively burn" jiāngshī, much like holy water. The rationale was that virgin boys are chaste, therefore bearing "pure Yang energy" (males are associated with Yang whilst females with Ying), which has an offensive effect on jiāngshī (which are also associated with Ying). It is possible to evade the jiāngshī by holding your breath, as the jiāngshī cannot see as humans see and detects the presence of the living by scenting the trace of the higher soul on their breath. It is also conventional wisdom of feng shui in Chinese architecture that a threshold, a piece of wood approximately six inches high, be installed along the width of the door to prevent a jiāngshī from entering the household.

If part of the jiāngshī is removed, it will coninue to function apart from the rest of the body. To destroy a jiāngshī, you must first immobilize it, then bury it with the proper rituals or cremate it to free the person's lower soul and allow it to sink back into the earth.

It is said that you can control a jiāngshī by fastening a yellow paper inscribed in red ink or chicken blood with holy symbols to its forehead.

I'd appreciate it if our discussions revolved around lore and legend, since that's where the vampire originated and, as far as I'm concerned, where it will always belong. I give no credence to "real" vampires, i.e., people who think that they need to drink blood or absorb life force from other people in order to stay healthy. However, I am not the captain, a vice captain, or even a crew member, so there's nothing I can do to stop it, should the discussions happen to swing that way.

I'm a bit of a paradox, as I'm fascinated by the paranormal and the occult, and yet I do not believe in anything I can't see, smell, hear, taste, touch, or measure.

That being said, I don't like discussing "real" vampires because there isn't enough substantial evidence to support their existence. However, if you wish to have such a discussion, then I will indulge you to the best of my abilities, so long as said discussion does not become too heated.

If you'd like to add something, feel free. We need some sort of discussion in this guild.

HUA Ranchan!

Indeed. Porphyria actually bears little resemblence to vampirism. In fact, the theory that porphyria is the origin of vampire and werewolf legends revolves heavily around the harmful effect sunlight supposedly had on vampires. Any true vampire freak could tell you that the this is a relatively recent innovation in vampire lore that started in 1922, with the release of F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, the first film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Furthermore, there are about eight different types of porphyria, and only four of them can cause sensitivity to light.




I have no problem with people who drink blood for pleasure because they are not "real" vampires. A "real" vampire is a person who believes that they need to drink blood or absorb energy from other people in order to stay healthy, who believes that blood sustains them and that they'll get sick without it. Even if they do get sick, I don't consider it proof that they are "real" vampires. To me, it's psychosomatic. They believe they'll get sick, so they get sick.

That being said, scientific studies involving so-called "psychic vampires" have yielded some interesting results, but nothing substantial or conclusive.

This all makes sense. I felt it was more canibalistic almost to crave blood.... I notice myself sometimes drooling at the sight of it, mesmerized.... I don't believe I've ever drank any though.... just... something about how it flows is so..... appetizing >_< and sensual