Long hair in ghost in asia mythology

[WayneLigon]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that especially in Chinese myth, long hair equates to great power. This is why most of your powerful Mandarins grow long beards. Pai Mei, the powerful martial arts master in Kill Bill has long hair and especially long eyebrows. This is one reason you see lots of men with really long hair in anime - usually they will be people with some degree of personal or temporal power. Chinese dragons often are shows with some kind of hair. I can't find a specific reference to it, though, since of course on the 'net all I get are 'hair loss cure' sites

 

[s/LaSH]

On a different tack, hair and nails apparently continue to grow after death, and in historical Western times were used as evidence that exhumed bodies had been engaging in vampiric activities. It could be applied to Eastern undead just as easily, and it's a great visual image - long hair, long nails, very creepy.

 

[Chorn]

On a different tack, hair and nails apparently continue to grow after death,

This is patently false. It's just an urban legend. Nails appear to have grown after death because the skin around the nail recedes as the body dehydrates. This leads to the nails and hair appearing to have sprouted a few extra millimeters.

Coffin Nails
http://www.snopes.com/science/nailgrow.asp

One thing I heard about Japanese spirits is that it's very bad thing if you can't see its face. The spirit will look like a normal person otherwise, but its face is a horrid deathmask that it hides underneath its long hair.

 

[merztrumpet]

I've read that it's common at Japanese funerals for the deceased woman to have her hair let down over her body, hence the ghost with long hair in front of their face a la Ringu. Not sure how true this is though.

 

[moritheil]

This is patently false. It's just an urban legend. Nails appear to have grown after death because the skin around the nail recedes as the body dehydrates. This leads to the nails and hair appearing to have sprouted a few extra millimeters.

Coffin Nails
http://www.snopes.com/science/nailgrow.asp

But it doesn't matter in the slightest whether or not it's scientifically true or false. We're talking about whether or not the people who came up with the legends believed it.

 

[Heathen72]

Chorn, don't this

On a different tack, hair and nails apparently continue to grow after death

and this

This leads to the nails and hair appearing to have sprouted a few extra millimeters.

kinda mean the same thing?

 

[Chorn]

I originally parsed it as s/LaSH echoing something he heard as being true. I know that people used to believe that this meant the bodies were still "alive" post-burial, but I thought he meant that the nails thing was fact. Rereading it I see how it was supposed to read now.

 

[devilish]

One thing I heard about Japanese spirits is that it's very bad thing if you can't see its face. The spirit will look like a normal person otherwise, but its face is a horrid deathmask that it hides underneath its long hair.

I just watched the deleted scene from The Grudge (yes, not the original but
still inspired...) and in it, the victim sees the ghost woman and the long hair but
the shock doesn't come until she lights a lighter and sees her pale face.

 

[s/LaSH]

I originally parsed it as s/LaSH echoing something he heard as being true. I know that people used to believe that this meant the bodies were still "alive" post-burial, but I thought he meant that the nails thing was fact. Rereading it I see how it was supposed to read now.

To be honest, I thought it was almost definitely true, but I had some doubts so inserted the 'apparently'. Good to be set straight - I'll never reject new knowledge.

 

[Heathen72]

To be honest, I thought it was almost definitely true, but I had some doubts so inserted the 'apparently'. Good to be set straight - I'll never reject new knowledge.

Yes, me too, and I didn't mean to jump on Chorn. Just feeling a bit pernickety yesterday.
Thanks Chorn.