Why I'm obsessed with zombies and not because Hollywood told me to be

I know that Zombies have become such a cliched niche of the supernatural genre, but I've always loved them. Here's why:



Tim (my husband) as a zombie Halloween 2009, those are my handy make up skills



I'm Filipino and not in the sense that I'm a million generations removed. I lived in the Philippines till I was four and my mom was born and raised there. I still understand Tagalog and can speak it like a 5 year old. Now if you don't know the culture then you can't possibly understand why this would make you a zombie expert. I'm going to beak it down for you and give you some helpful tips when, not if, a zombie apocalypse happens.

Filipinos are seriously a superstitious group of people. I believe this happened because here they were fun loving island people living in the Philippines (minding their own business) when BAM; Spain is all like hey I'm going to colonize you. Along with the colonization they decided to introduce Catholicism. Now here you have a bunch of superstitious jungle people and you're going to teach them about Jesus. A man who was the son of God, who walked on water, who turned water into wine, who rose from the dead, and is the savior of humanity. Do you see the juxtaposition happening here?

Spain colonized the Philippines in the 1500's and 500(ish) years later Catholicism is still one of the most practiced religions. Whenever I speak to white people who have a met a Filipino or two they always tell me how crazy Filipinos are. My answer to that is: "No shit." This article about Filipinos imitating the crucifixion pretty much sums it up. Also, what other country has a zombie race? In America we have zombie crawls where people dress up in zombie drag and stumble around, but no one is actually chasing you. Yes, we at times can be a messed up group of people however, we can sing, and dance better than you. Have you seen the Filipino prisoners dancing to Thriller and other songs?

This also goes to show you that Filipinos care so much about dancing and preforming that it's not taken away from their hardened criminals.

When I was growing up my bedtime stories from my mother didn't involve Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty they were about exorcisms and possessed people that she knew in the Province. She would tell me about people who were possessed by the Devil and had to get exorcised.

She also told me about the time her and her niece saw an Aswang and chased it down. Aswangs are the the most well known of Filipino folklore this list gives a great example of Filipino monsters. Aswangs are basically a mix of a vampire and a shape shifter. The Aswang my mom saw, was in the shape of a cat. These stories were always combined with Bible stories as well. Clearly, the Bible and demonology go together. Anytime you ask my mom for a scary story she always has a true story that's sincerely creepy. Tim always asks her to tell him a story and when she's done talking he always asks me if it's true. How would I know? I wasn't there.  



Example of an Aswang

 This is what I grew up hearing and for some reason my family thought it would be okay for me to watch horror movies at a young age. I saw IT (the movie about a creepy ass clown, based on a book by Stephen King) at the age of four. I also remember watching Pet Semetary, Nightmare on Elm Street, and numerous Filipino horror movies before turning the age of six. I was also handed a Bible and told to read the book of Revelations (which details the apocalypse) so that I could get ready for the future. I remember being handed a Catholic pamphlet, at the age of 9(ish), which gave specific instructions about what to do during that time. I wish I still had it because it had scary pictures of demon type figures surrounding a house, and the people inside were kneeling in prayer.

Now there are many other examples that I could give you as to why my fascination with the supernatural occurred from a young age, but I don't feel like typing a 2000 page book. This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my supernatural education.



Nicole and I (normal) during our Simmons heydays

 As you can see I'm not a bandwagon(er) when it comes to zombie paraphernalia. I just don't discuss it unless you're one of my close friends because then you would most likely think I was nuts. I know this for a fact because Nicole, my roommate at Simmons, and I would play a zombie game on the T all the time. When we were bored we would play, "What are your personal strategies on surviving a zombie attack at X location". The side-eyes we would get from fellow commuters behind their Boston Globes and Wall Street Journals, couldn't be more blatant. It was a fun game to pass the time and a good way to get some nice strategy tips from a different perspective.