DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

   In Chinese folklore Chiang-Shih, or "hopping ghost", is a combination of spirit monster and unburied corpse, which vaguely resembles a Western Vampire; it comes to life and wreaks death and misfortune.  The Chinese believe that an unburied corpse was a great danger because evil spirits could easily inhabit it.    Traditionally the Chinese would bury their dead in garments that bound their legs together, so the spirit was thought to hop instead of walk.   The Chiang-Shih are blind but intensely powerful, with great supernatural powers, including gale-force breath, sword like fingernails, incredibly long eyebrows that can be used to lasso or bind an enemy, shape-shifting powers and the ability to fly.    The Chiang-Shih is created when a person dies a violent or painful death or when the soul has been angered because of an improper burial or improper preparation for burial, or when improper respects are paid to the dead.  Something even being buried in the wrong locatio

   Japan like any other country is steeped in ghostly lore.  Here are a few of the more common Japanese spirits for you to read about and be amazed by.  Bakechochin     Translated as "haunted lantern", in Japanese folklore a Bakechochin is a lantern inhabited by ghosts.  According to folklore the lantern has a long tongue and wild eyes and is home for the ghosts of people who died with hate in their hearts; for this reason, they are doomed to hauntthe earth for all time.  If someone should light one of the haunted lanterns it is thought that a hateful ghost may leap out of it and attack.  Buruburu    Buruburu, meaning the sound of shivering, is a terrible ghost from Japanese folklore that for reasons unknown is said to lurk in forests and graveyards in the form of an old person, who is sometimes one eyed.  According to legend it attaches itself to its victim's spine and causes a chill to run down them, or in the worse case causes them to die of fright.