I don’t know where but I was watching a film this morning and saw a mention to a film called 僵尸先生, Mr. Vampire, a film from the 1990s, which my dad had me watch when I was about seven or eight and had first moved to the U.K. I sincerely think the film traumatized me, between the Chinese vampires who po-go’ed around, and the Daoist theme and content.
There was a Hong Kong movie rental place that all of the mainlanders rented videos from. It was one of my first introductions to what life would be like. I didn’t realise how big of an influence Hong Kong would have on my life then- it was strange, the influence of Cantonese on our life back then.
Then what about all the other vampires in our lives? Yesterday I was at my grandmother’s house for a celebration of the 100 years of the founding of the CPC, the Chinese Communist Party. It was also the day that she and my grandfather got married, probably some time around 1940. She has been a member of the Chinese Communist Party since she was 18, which makes it 83 years.