How would China parse the Zombie Apocalypse?

Perhaps they could find a peaceful solution.  After all, in many parts of Florida, there are huge numbers of white haired zombies staggering about and no one seems to feel any need to run about screaming over the situation.
 

got mindless zombies wandering around with not much constructive to do? Put them in my Business English class, they will fit right in. Probably raise the class average a degree or two.

...

Fine. But a grand public holiday is coming. The business classes will mingle with the square dancing aunties. That jaunty tune you'll be hearing in minor cities across the country is a powder key of carnage and financial chaos waiting to blow. They'll take the squares, grind out their cigarettes in the KTVs, and amble after any young people not quick enough to remove themselves to a first tier city. And are they safe on the coast? No. No they aren't.

Assuming that in the early days of the Zompocalypse, institutional authorities and police forces still exist, would China mobilise troops against zombies? Armed police?

Let's consider two presumably reasonable outbreak scenarios: something terrible happens in a given city and either there is a national holiday and much train, plane, and car travel or it's a normal working week but the city population has a large percentage of workers (and managers) who will flee to their real hometowns. The first scenario calls for no particular conscious choice. The second requires people to become worried enough. In either case, would armed services people become involved?

Here's what I think (presently; don't deport me, bro): it depends a lot on who wants to save "the country". For all the nationalism that exists, I'm not so sure there are many agencies available that'll act together to keep the nation in one piece. This is at least in part caused by how power is organised. Which is to say, there really is only one (barely) constituted authority and that's the Party. In a crisis like a Zompocalypse, if the Party were unable to compel the various agencies to follow a bunch of selfless institutional policies meant to protect the country and the citizens, then local power groups would take over and act like gangs and create fiefdoms. (Then a zombie would find them all drunk off their tits at karaoke and that would be that.) As it happens, I suspect the present paramount general leader secretary could pull it off. The party at present, at least as far as I understand it from the news, could possibly successfully coordinate a nationwide zombie counter-offensive. What form that counter-offensive would take.... I don't know.

One country, two systems.  One system for the living.  One for the more active group of the deceased.

No such sop to the UN shall be countenanced. Since historical times the dead have been a part of China. Terracotta Warriors? I bet you thought they were made of clay. Oh sure, the west may have the dead jump around and be all lethal and such, but zombies were invented in China along with paper, gunpowder and spaghetti. The connection is plain for all to see.

China took care of stray zombies centuries ago.  Corpse herders just round them up and take them back where they belong.

I recall reading somewhere about that. There really was such a job, called corpse walker or something similar. They were people who transported the dead back to their hometowns. I may be forgetting some details. Supposedly this is the origin of the walking dead - some corpse carrier would be strolling through the dark night, because who wants to carry dead people during the day, and bam! people start making nonsense up.

here we go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangshi

A supposed source of the jiangshi stories came from the folk practice of "transporting a corpse over a thousand li" (simplified Chinese: 千里行尸; traditional Chinese: 千里行屍; pinyin: qiān lǐ xíng shī). The relatives of a person who died far away from home could not afford vehicles to have the deceased person's body transported home for burial, so they would hire a Taoist priest to conduct a ritual to reanimate the dead person and teach him/her to "hop" their way home. The priests would transport the corpses only at night and would ring bells to notify others in the vicinity of their presence because it was considered bad luck for a living person to set eyes upon a jiangshi. This practice, also called Xiangxi ganshi (simplified Chinese: 湘西赶尸; traditional Chinese: 湘西趕屍; pinyin: Xiāngxī gǎn shī; literally: "driving corpses in Xiangxi"), was popular in Xiangxi, where many people left their hometown to work elsewhere.[7][8] After they died, their bodies were transported back to their hometown because it was believed that their souls would feel homesick if they were buried somewhere unfamiliar to them. The corpses would be arranged upright in single file and be tied to long bamboo rods on the sides, while two men (one at the front and one at the back) would carry the ends of the rods on their shoulders and walk. When the bamboo flexed up and down, the corpses appeared to be "hopping" in unison when viewed from a distance away

I did a field test on Saturday.  I went to Carrefour done up as a zombie and spent some time staggering around the store.

What was amazing is how close I managed to walk by some people without them even noticing.  Most of those that did notice took it pretty well, but a few did decided to widen the distance significantly.

So, had I actually been a properly contagious zombie, I'd have had plenty of chances to munch on some brains and recruit some new zombie friends.

Lol. You're probably on the ebola watchlist now.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2729979/Bizarre-moment-Shanghai-commuters-suspect-Ebola-outbreak-run-lives-Western-looking-passenger-collapses-train.html

Just for grins, I did have some "blood" leaking out of one corner of an eye.

I also won Best Costume at the Meten English Halloween party.

Surprisingly, it was easier to terrify people at a Halloween party than in Carrefour.

I've never really gotten why people like/are interested in zombies and zombie movies. ("Night of the Living Dead" is painfully stupid, not profound social commentary; "The Walking Dead" flips back and forth between gratuitous violence and horrible dialogue.) Finally, I decided to read about The Walking Dead to see what its fans think it's about. Most said that the zombie genre is about human nature – what people would do if the world's societies collapsed. Is that really the draw?

I'd honestly love to know if there's any Chinese literature that reflects upon the topic of the end of civilization. Is there any Chinese literature that gets compared to The Road?

Unless several families have been keeping their dead relatives on display for a very long time, there's a string of coffin makers along a road about 45 minutes bike ride from here. Chinese coffins look damn heavy. Rather than rectangular, they flare at the ends and have a lot of curved wood. They look like buggers to break out of:



The ones around here have peaks on the top at either end, like traditional roofs.

I suppose that could all be pine, or even plastic. There's still earth to dig out of, and for the contagion to seep in to. The uprising could be supernatural in origin, I suppose, but all bets are off in that case. How do you prepare for the supernatural? (Damn. I bet Chinese folklore has an answer for that one. Maybe they will be the only ones to survive.)

That is very cool. Are there really that many burials where you are? I've never seen a coffin for sale in my time here, and assumed that unless you're in the countryside pretty much everyone is cremated. My wife's family had to pay a hefty bribe to be able to bury her grandfather (on ancestral land) rather than have him cremated, but I hadn't thought to ask about the coffin.

I've never really gotten why people like/are interested in zombies and zombie movies. ("Night of the Living Dead" is painfully stupid, not profound social commentary; "The Walking Dead" flips back and forth between gratuitous violence and horrible dialogue.) Finally, I decided to read about The Walking Dead to see what its fans think it's about. Most said that the zombie genre is about human nature – what people would do if the world's societies collapsed. Is that really the draw?

I'd honestly love to know if there's any Chinese literature that reflects upon the topic of the end of civilization. Is there any Chinese literature that gets compared to The Road?

I would love to know too. I know there is scifi in China, and for instance, the three generals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_science_fiction#1991_-_Present

And I have a vague recollection of a recent novel that sounded like The Road, but I can't remember. And pretty much none of any of this is in English or even translation anyway. I keep hoping one day some of it will be. Still waiting.

The one Chinese scifi-ish novel I've read in English was The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung. It has road journeys, but civilization doesn't actually end. I'm not sure many Chinese stories will ever feature actual ends of civilization.


As for zombies... they let you break up society. Other kinds of stories, say fantasy or scifi proper, make over society with complex new rules representing either magic or technology, or both. Zombies tear it all down without offering up an enemy. Zombies invent complex and interesting relationships to flesh.

Which is to say... I don't know either. But a good dystopia is freeing.