Do zombies really exist in history?

No, zombies are ghosts in China folklore.

Jiang: As the name implies, a stiff corpse. In folklore, it refers to the evil spirit that the human body becomes after death because of excessive yin. Because of the concept of modern film and television, it often has supernatural power. Zombies are ghosts in China folklore, which originated from China folklore in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Zombie-like ghosts include vampires and zombies.

In the west, the English name of a zombie is actually Jiang Shi, because there is no foreign name specially given to zombies in the west, and China's name is usually transliterated. Overseas versions of Hong Kong films usually use the English names of vampires and vampires. Mr. Zombie is an example. In order to distinguish the two, Hong Kong people sometimes call vampires vampires.

Extended data:

Zombies are defined as monsters, which can be found in Woods Language written by Yuan Mei in Qing Dynasty and Yuewei Caotang Notes written by Ji Xiaolan in the same period. Before this, the explanation of zombies in China's ancient books was only the simple meaning of zombies; Zombies described in early classical literature are completely different from the jumping corpses we see in today's movies. For example, the Monkey King in Journey to the West explained the true face of Lady Bones as a zombie.

Zombies represent film and television dramas: Mr. Zombie, Zombie Master, Ghost Taoist, Zombie Revenge, etc.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-zombies