Hopping vampires from China and disembodied flying heads and organs from Thailand have drawn hordes of people to an exhibition in Taiwan and outraged religious groups who have called for the show’s cancellation.
Ticket sales had to be temporarily suspended twice on opening day to avoid overcrowding at the Tainan Art Museum on the island’s southwest coast as thousands queued to see the gory exhibition.
The show features traditional artifacts, artwork and pop culture about the afterlife in various Asian cultures, with much of the exhibit being sourced from a French museum.
The main attraction is three life-size depictions of Chinese hopping vampires — reanimated corpses whose stiffened limbs can only move by hopping — with visitors lining up to mimic their grasping, outstretched hands.
“I expected a lot of people to come, but not that it would burst with crowds,” Lin Yu-chun, director of the museum, told AFP.
Lin said the Covid-19 pandemic has brought discussions about mortality to the fore in Taiwanese society in recent years, despite the fact that it’s a taboo subject in Chinese culture in general.
“Many of us have been directly affected and faced death,” she said.
“I’ve never seen so many people here, not since the pandemic started,” said a vendor surnamed Su, whose shaved ice stand stands next to the museum.
“The line must have been at least a kilometer long,” she added.
Inside, visitors can see depictions of spirits from Thailand—such as Krasue, a disembodied female ghoul whose glowing entrails hang beneath a floating head—as well as drawings of Japanese underworld spirits and works by Taiwanese artists.
“Asian spirits tend to be more female, there are more female spirits,” Lin explained, while “Western spirits tend to look stern, like the vampire.”
Although the show has captivated large sections of the public, it has alarmed religious groups.
A Christian church in northern Taiwan criticized the exhibition when it was first announced and called for its cancellation. She said online that she is “polluting the land and the people,” local media reported.
Other groups, including some Taoist temple groups, warned against spreading superstitions.
Local media reported the museum had prepared 1,000 wards to distribute to visitors to ward off bad luck.
But Tony Lyu, a police officer in his 20s who was visiting on the same day as AFP, said the show allowed him to reflect.
“I’ll try not to do bad things from now on for fear (of going to hell),” Lyu laughed.
Zora Sung, 25, a hospital lab technician from the capital Taipei, said she was “moved and a little touched.”
“Hell is also a part of our culture that we have to try to understand,” she said.
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