TAIWAN: Countless people have been drawn to an exhibition in Taiwan by hopping vampires from China and disembodied flying heads and organs from Thailand, scandalizing religious groups who have demanded the show be canceled.
On the day of the opening, thousands of people lined up outside the Tainan Art Museum on the island’s south-western coast, and ticket sales had to be temporarily suspended twice to prevent crowding.
A large portion of the display in the show, which includes traditional artifacts, works of art, and popular culture about the afterlife in various Asian cultures, was taken from a French museum.
Visitors line up to mimic the grasping, outstretched hands of three life-size statues of Chinese hopping vampires, which are reanimated corpses with stiffened limbs that can only move by bouncing.
“I expected a lot of people to come, but not this many,” Lin Yu-chun, the museum’s director, told AFP.
Lin stated that the Covid-19 pandemic has made discussions about mortality more prevalent in Taiwanese society in recent years, despite the fact that it is generally considered a taboo subject in Chinese culture.
“Many of us have been directly impacted and faced death,” she explained.
“I have never seen so many people here, not since the pandemic began,” said Su, a vendor whose shaved ice stall is next to the museum.
“It had to be at least a kilometer long,” she added.
Visitors can see Thai ghosts, such as krasue, a bodyless female ghoul with glowing viscera hanging below a floating head, as well as drawings of Japanese underworld spirits and works by Taiwanese artists, once inside.
“Asian ghosts tend to be more feminine, there are more female ghosts,” Lin explained, whereas “western ghosts, such as the vampire, tend to be stern-looking.”
Though the show has captivated large segments of the population, it has alarmed religious groups.
When the exhibit was first announced, a Christian church in northern Taiwan criticised it and called for its cancellation, saying online that it “defiled the country and people,” according to local media.
Other organisations, including some Taoist temples, warned that it was spreading superstition.
According to local media, the museum had prepared 1,000 protective charms to distribute to show attendees in order to ward off bad luck.
