Monkeys in Chinese culture

Monkeys are one of the smartest animals amongst the animal kingdom according to the Chinese culture.
Monkeys, particularly macaques and monkey-like gibbons, have played significant roles in Chinese culture for over two thousand years. Some examples familiar to English speakers include the zodiacal Year of the Monkey, the Monkey King Sun Wukong in the novel Journey to the West, familiar from its TV version Monkey, and Monkey Kung Fu.
The Chinese language has numerous words meaning "simian; monkey; ape", some of which have diachronically changed meanings in reference to different simians. For instance, Chinese xingxing 猩猩 was originally named "a mythical creature with a human face and pig body", and became the modern name for the "orangutan".
Within the classification of Chinese characters, almost all "monkey; ape" words – with the exceptions of nao 夒 and yu 禺 that were originally monkey pictographs – are written with radical-phonetic compound characters. These characters combine a radical or classifier that roughly indicates semantic field, usually the "dog/quadruped radical" 犭 for simians, and a phonetic element that suggests pronunciation. For instance, this animal classifier is a graphic component in hou 猴 (with a hou 侯 "marquis" phonetic) "macaque; monkey" and yuan 猿 (with yuan 袁 "long robe") "gibbon; monkey".
Note that the following discussion of "monkey; ape" terminology will cite three fundamental sources. The oldest extant Chinese dictionary, the (c. 3rd century BCE) Erya (Chapter 18, 釋獸 "Explaining Wild Animals") glosses seven names for monkeys and monkey-like creatures in the 寓屬 "Monkey/Wild Animal" taxonomy. The first Chinese character dictionary, the (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi defines many names of simians, primarily under the (犬部 "dog/quadruped" radical) in Chapter 11. The classic Chinese pharmacopoeia, Li Shizhen's (1597) Bencao Gangmu (獸之四 "Animals No. 4" chapter) lists medical uses for five Yu 寓 "monkeys" and three Kuai 怪 "supernatural beings". The latter are wangliang 魍魎 "a demon that eats the livers of corpses", penghou 彭侯 "a tree spirit that resembles a black tailless dog", and feng 封 "an edible monster that resembles a two-eyed lump of flesh".
Li Shizhen distinguishes 11 varieties of monkeys:
Nao 夒 was the first "monkey" term recorded in the historical corpus of written Chinese, and frequently appeared in (14th–11th centuries BCE) Shang dynasty oracle bone inscriptions. This oracle pictograph of "a monkey" showed its head, arms, legs, and short tail; which were convergented as 目/頁 ("head"/"eye"), 又/爪 ("hand"/"claw") and later 止 ("foot", which was a corruption from 爪 in this character), 已/巳 ("finished"/"foetus", which was corrupt from the tail) not later than the end of (6th century BCE) Spring and Autumn period bronze script. Compare the seal character for kui 夔 "a legendary demon with a human face and body of a monkey/dragon", which resembles the seal character for nao with the addition of what appears to be long hair on its head.
This graphically complex character nao 夒 "monkey" had an early variant nao 獿 (with the "quadruped" radical and nao phonetic), and a simpler replacement nao 猱 "monkey" (same radical and a rou 柔 phonetic), which is common in modern usage.
The etymology of nao < *nû 夒 or 猱 "monkey" "is elusive", and may be connected with Proto-Mon–Khmer *knuuy "macaque; monkey" or Proto-Tibeto-Burman *mruk; compare *ŋoh 禺 next.
The first Chinese character dictionary, the (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi defines nao 夒 as "a greedy animal, generally said to be a muhou "monkey" resembling a person" (貪獸也一曰母猴似人); see muhou below.
The poet Li Bai alludes to nao (猱) populating the Taihang Mountains, in the north of China, near the capital city Chang'an, in the poem "白馬篇": it should be duly noted that this literary source contextually suggests a temporal location of the West Han era.
Yu 禺 "monkey" appeared on (11th–3rd centuries BCE) Zhou dynasty Chinese ritual bronzes as a pictograph showing a head, arms, and a tail. Yu "forenoon, 9 to 11 AM" is the second of five daily divisions (更) in the traditional Chinese calendar. Banyu 番禺 was "a district in Guangzhou". In modern Chinese scientific usage, yu 禺 refers to the Central and South American "spider monkey".
The etymology of yu < *ŋoh 禺 "monkey" links with Kukish *ŋa:w "ape" > Lushai ŋau "grey monkey"; compare *nû 夒 above.
The Shuowen Jiezi defines yu 禺 as "a kind of muhou "monkey" with a head resembling a gui "ghost"" (母猴屬頭似鬼). Compare the above definition of nao as a muhou "monkey" resembling a person.
Yu 禺 has a graphic variant yu 寓 (with the "roof radical") "reside; imply". The Erya (18) lists monkey definitions under a yushu 寓屬 "wild animal category". Guo Pu's commentary explains yu 寓 inclusively means all shou 獸 "wild animals", and van Gulik says it means "primates in general".
The Shanhaijing uses yu 禺 to describe the xingxing, "There is an animal on the mountain which looks like a long-tailed ape, but it has white ears. It crouches as it moves along and it runs like a human. Its name is the live-lively. If you eat it, you'll be a good runner".
The Shanhaijing records a mythical yugu 禺谷 "monkey valley", the place where the sun sets, which suggests that "the monkey is a kind of guardian of the approaches to the nether World". Kuafu 禺谷 "Boast Father raced with the sun and ran with the setting sun", but died of thirst on the way. Yugu is also written as yu 虞 "predict; deceive" or ou 偶 "human image; mate".
Hou 猴 "monkey; macaque" is a common name for simians. For instance, houzi 猴子 means "monkey" or "clever/glib person". Muhou 母猴 "macaque; rhesus monkey" compounds mu "mother" and hou "monkey", and can also mean "female monkey" in modern usage. Van Gulik says that muhou is a phonetic rendering of a non-Chinese term" because mu- occurs in four variants: 母 and 沐 "wash one's hair" in Zhou texts, and 米 "rice" or 獼 in Han texts. In modern Chinese usage, mihou 獼猴 means "macaque; rhesus monkey". The etymology of hou < Old Chinese *gô 猴 "monkey" probably derives from Sino-Tibetan *ʔ-ko. The first syllable in muhou < *môʔ-gô 母猴 or muhou < *môk-gô 沐猴 "macaque" may perhaps be a "pre-initial" supported by the Lolo-Burmese mjo kœ < *mjok "monkey", which might have been the source of Proto-Tocharian *moko.
Lu Ji, who was from the southern state of Wu, noted muhou was a Chu word: "The nao is the macaque [mihou], called by the people of Chu [muhou]. After a macaque has grown old, he becomes a que [貜]. Macaques with long arms are called gibbons (yuan). Gibbons with a white waist are called [chan 獑]." Van Gulik explains the legendary que with the grey whiskers of mature macaques, and associates the chan with the rhesus macaque, or huchan 胡獑, found in present day Yunnan.
The Lüshi Chunqiu mentions the muhou and notes its similarity to humans.
The Shuowen jiezi defines hou as nao, and defines nao 夒, yu 禺, jue 玃, and wei 蜼 as muhou.
The Bencao gangmu lists mihou synonyms of: muhou 沐猴, weihou 為猴, husun 胡孫, wangsun 王孫, maliu 馬留, and ju 狙; and Li Shizhen explains the names.
Bernard E. Read notes, "The menstrual discharge of the monkey [猴經] is said to give immunity to the horse against infectious disease", and suggests the Sanskrit name "is not so remote from the genus name Macacus". Husun "macaque; monkey" is also written 猢猻, as punned in the surname of Sun Wukong 孫悟空 "descendent/monkey awakened to emptiness". Maliu 馬留 (lit. "horse keep") compares with the Cantonese malɐu "monkey" word.
Yuan 猿 "ape; monkey" is used in Chinese terms such as yuanren 猿人 "ape-man; Hominidae" and Beijing yuanren 北京猿人 "Peking Man".
The etymology of yuan < *wan 猿 "monkey" could be linked with Proto-Tibeto-Burman *(b)woy or Proto-Mon–Khmer *swaaʔ "monkey".
Yuanhou 猿猴 "apes and monkeys", according to Van Gulik, originally meant only "gibbons and macaques" but in the last few centuries, it has been widely used in Chinese literature as a comprehensive term for "monkeys". The Japanese language word enkō 猿猴 is likewise means "monkey" in general.
Naoyuan 猱蝯 compounds the nao 夒 variant 猱 with yuan 蝯 (combining the "insect radical" 虫 and yuan 爰 phonetic). Yuan has graphic variants of 猨 and 猿. The Erya defines "The naoyuan is good at climbing" (猱蝯善援), based upon a pun between yuan 蝯 "monkey" and yuan 援 "pull up; climb" (both characters written with the same phonetic element).
Nao 猱 occurs once in the Classic of Poetry, "Do not teach a monkey to climb trees" (毋教猱升木). Lu Ji's 3rd-century commentary says "The nao is the macaque [mihou], the people of Chu call it muhou (see above). In disagreement, Van Gulik gives reasons why nao 猱 means "gibbon" not "macaque". First, the Erya stresses "climbing" as the simian's main characteristic. Second, Zhou dynasty texts record the nao as "a typical tree-ape". Third, numerous early literary sources use naoyuan or yuannao as a binomial compound.
Van Gulik distinguishes nao 猱 "gibbon" from the homonym nao 獶 "monkey" (with a you 憂 phonetic replacing the uncommon 夒 in nao 獿)
The term nao 獿 occurs in the Record of Music chapter of the Book of Rites criticizing vulgar pantomimes, "Actors take part therein, and dwarfs who resemble nao, men and women mix, and the difference between parents and children is not observed"; "here nao clearly means a macaque, familiar through the popular monkey-shows."
Van Gulik suggests that Chinese yuan "gibbon" was a loanword from the language of Chu, the southernmost state of the Zhou realm. Qu Yuan's (c. 3rd-century) Chuci uses the term yuanyou 猿狖 three times (in Nine Pieces); for instance, "Amid the deep woods there, in the twilight gloom, are the haunts where monkeys live." This text also uses yuan 猿 once (Nine Songs), yuan 蝯 once (in Nine Laments), and houyuan 猴猿 once (in Nine Longings). If yuanyou was Qu Yuan's (or another Chuci author's) rendering of a Chu word for "gibbon", then naoyuan can be understood as a compound of the native Chinese word nao "monkey in general" and the sinified loanword yuan "gibbon"; and gradually, "nao 猱 came to mean "gibbon", whereas nao 獶 remained reserved for monkeys." You 狖 was a Zhou synonym for "gibbon".
The Bencao gangmu notes that, "the gibbon's meat may be taken as medicine against hemorrhoids, which may be cured also by always using a gibbon's skin as seat-cover. The fat used as ointment is said to be a wonderful cure for itching sores."
Rong 狨 was "a long-haired monkey with golden fur that was highly prized". Read suggests it is the "lar gibbon, Hylobates entelloides", and Luo identifies it as the golden snub-nosed monkey Rhinopitheeus roxellana. In addition to meaning "golden snub-nosed monkey", Van Gulik notes that in modern Chinese zoological terminology, rong denotes the Callitrichidae (or Hapalidae) family including marmosets and tamarins.
The Bencao gangmu entry for the rong 狨 explains the synonym nao 猱 signifies this monkey's rou 柔 "soft; supple" hair.
This entry has two subheadings: the yuan 猨 or changbeihou 長臂猴 "gibbon, Hylobates agilis" and the du 獨 (below).
Juefu 貜父 "a large monkey" compounds jue "an ape" and fu "father". The character jue 貜 combines the "cat/beast radical" 豸 and a jue 矍 "look startled" phonetic (with two 目 "eyes"); compare the graphic variants of 玃 and 蠼. Based upon this phonetic element, the Erya glosses: "Juefu, good at looking." (貜父善顧). The juefu is also called jueyuan 玃猿, which is known as Kakuen in Japanese mythology.
The fulu 附錄 "appendix" to the Bencao gangmu entry for mihou "macaque" adds the jue 玃 "A species of large ape or hoolock, found in Western China, and said to be six feet high, it probably denotes the great gibbon, Hylobates", the "northern gray gibbon, Hylobates muelleri funereus" (viz., Müller's Bornean gibbon); and the ju 豦 (graphically "tiger" and "pig") "wild boar; a yellow and black monkey" or jufu 舉父 "lift/raise father", the "lion-tailed macaque, Macaca/Inuus silenus". The jue entry says:
This all-female zhou monkey is written with a non-Unicode character, combining the 豸 radical and zhou 周 phonetic.
Li Shizhen describes the ju(fu):
Ju 狙 originally meant "macaque; monkey" and came to mean "spy; watch for" (e.g., juji 狙擊 "attack from ambush). The Shuowen jiezi defines ju as "a kind of [jue] monkey, also said to mean a dog that briefly bites a person" (玃屬一曰狙犬也暫齧人者).
The (c. 4th–3rd centuries BCE) Zhuangzi was the oldest Chinese classic to use ju. For instance, it has two versions of a quote from Laozi (called Lao Dan 老聃, lit. "old helixless-ears") using the term yuanzu 猿狙 "gibbon and macaque; monkey" to exemplify someone who is not a Daoist sage.
The Shanhaijing mentions two mythological animals named with ju. First, the xieju 猲狙 (with xie or he "short-muzzled dog"):
Second, the zhuru 狙如 (with ru "be like"):
Xingxing 猩猩 or shengsheng 狌狌"a monkey; orangutan" reduplicates xing, which graphically combines the "quadruped radical" with a xing 星 "star" phonetic, or with sheng 生 "life" in the variant xing or sheng 狌. The name is used for foreign simians in modern terminology, xingxing means "orangutan", heixingxing with hei- 黑 "black" means "chimpanzee", and daxingxing with da- 黑 "large" means "gorilla".
The Erya says, "The [xingxing] is small, and likes to cry." (猩猩小而好啼). Guo Pu's commentary notes, "The Shanhaijing says: It has a human face and the body of a pig, and it is able to speak. At present it is found in [Jiaoji] and the [Fengxi] district (i.e. North Indo-China). The [xingxing] resembles a [huan 獾] (badger) or small pig. Its call resembles the crying of a small child." Fengxi 封谿 corresponds to modern Bắc Ninh Province in Vietnam.
The Huainanzi says, "The orangutan knows the past but does not know the future; the male goose knows the future but does not know the past."; Gao You's commentary says, "The [xingxing] has a human face but the body of a beast, and its colour is yellow. It is fond of wine."
The Bencao gangmu entry for the xingxing or shengsheng, which Read identifies as the "orangutan, Simia satyrus", records,
The subentry for the yenü 野女 "wild women" or 野婆 "wild wife" says,
The bright scarlet dye known as xingxingxue 猩猩血 "gibbon's blood" was not used by the Chinese, but observed in imported Western textiles. Although the source for this tradition of the bloody dye remains untraced, Edward H. Schafer notes a Western analogue in "St. John's blood", a variety of the red dye kermes, which derives from the insect kermes. The Tang dynasty chancellor Pei Yan wrote,
Edward H. Schafer quotes a Tang story.
The Chinese belief that gibbons enjoyed drinking wine has parallels in Classical antiquity, "monkeys were reputed to be overfond of wine, as Aristotle, Aelian, and Pliny observed, and their drunkenness made them easy to capture." Chinese stories about the xingxing liking wine appealed to the Japanese. In Japanese mythology, the Shōjō 猩猩 was a god of wine with a red face and long, red hair, who was always drunk and dancing merrily. Compare the drunken monkey hypothesis that the human attraction to ethanol may have a genetic basis.
Feifei 狒狒 "monkey; baboon" reduplicates fei, written with the "dog/quadruped radical" 犭with a fu 弗 phonetic. Van Gulik says Chinese zoologists have adopted feifei as a convenient modern rendering of "baboon".
The Erya glosses, "The feifei resembles a person; it has long hair hanging down on its back; it runs quickly and devours people." (狒狒如人被髮迅走食人). Guo Pu's commentary says,
Xiaoyang 梟羊 is a variant of the mythic xiaoyang 梟楊 "owl-poplar", which David Hawkes describes as "an anthropoid monster whose upper lip covers his face when he laughs. His laughter was sinister, it was said, being an indication that he was about to eat human flesh."
The Shuowen Jiezi writes feifei 𥝋𥝋 with an obsolete pictograph, and Xu Shen says: "People in the north call it Tulou [土螻 "earth cricket"]. Now people call it Renxiong [人熊 "man bear"]."
The (c. 9th century) Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang describes the feifei.
Regarding this widely copied fanzhong 反踵 "reversed feet" description, Van Gulik reasons that a copyist misread the ji 及 "extend; down to" in Guo Pu's 及踵 "hair hanging down to its heels" comment as fan 反 "reverse; opposite". He further suggests that the human face, long lips, and long red hair description of the feifei could apply to the orangutan.
The Bencao gangmu entry for feifei, identified as the "golden snub-nosed monkey, Rhinopithecus roxellanae" and "baboon" Papio hamadryas, lists other synonyms of xiaoyang 梟羊 "owl goat", yeren 野人 "wild man; savage" (see Yeren), and shandu 山都 "mountain capital".
The Bencao gangmu supplement lists four other monkey-like creatures under feifei.
Shandu 山都, which Read identifies as the "chacma baboon, Cynocephalus porcarius":
Shanhui 山𤟤:
The Shanhaijing context describes the shanxiao 山魈 or shanhui 山𤟤.
Muke 木客 "tree guest":
Shanxiao 山 [non-Unicode character with 犭radical and zao 喿 phonetic]: "The one footed mythological monster. Numerous beings are described in the [Shanhaijing]. It says that people cannot see it therefore it seems utter nonsense to write so much about it." [sic]. See the shanxiao 山魈.
Wei 蜼 "a monkey" is written with a character that combines the "insect radical" 虫 with a zhui 隹 phonetic. The etymology of wei < *wih or *ruiʔ (< *r-wiʔ) 蜼 "kind of monkey-like animal" is hypothetically connected with Palaung-Wa *rəyol "white-handed gibbon" or the -i in wei could be a diminutive suffix added to the you < *wu 猶 "monkey" word.
The Erya glosses, "The wei has an upturned nose and a long tail. It is good at climbing mountain peaks." (蜼卬鼻而長尾時善乘領). Guo Pu says, "The wei resembles the macaque but is larger. Its colour is yellowish-black, its tail several feet long, resembling an otter's tail, forked at the tip. Its nostrils are tilted upward; when it rains the wei hangs from a tree and covers its nostrils with its tail, or with two fingers. The people east of the (Yangtse) River catch and raise it. It is swift and strong." Based on this description, Van Gulik identifies wei as the golden snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana), which is "a smaller monkey with a long tail, and a pronounced upturned nose; it has a blue-black face, and long, fluffy golden fur."
You 猶 "a monkey" has an uncertain etymology and meaning. Schuessler notes you < *ju < Proto-Chinese *wu 猶 "a kind of monkey" has comparative linguistics similarities with Proto-Tibeto-Burman *myuk or *mruk > Burmese myok and Mru yuk "monkey". You < *ju phonologically resembles two Old Chinese "monkey" words: yu < *ŋoh 禺 and hou < *gô 猴. The character猶, with the "quadruped radical" and a qiu 酋 phonetic, originally denoted a simian, but became a common Chinese phonetic loan character for you "still; yet".
The Erya glosses you as "Like a muntjac and good at climbing trees" (如麂善登木). Hao Yixing 郝懿行's 19th-century sub-commentary says, "The wild animal you is a kind of monkey, shaped like a muntjac, which resembles a hornless deer with feet like a dog." The you is also called youhu 猶猢 and identified as the husun 猢猻.
The Shuowen jiezi defines you as "a kind of jue "large monkey", you is also said to be the Longxi [modern Tianshui region] word for "puppy" (玃屬一曰隴西謂犬子為猷).
Du 獨 (lit. "alone") named "a larger monkey", which was interpreted as a monkey with "solitary habits", based on the word's literal meaning. Read identifies it as "a species of baboon or mandrill".
The Bencao gangmu rong 狨 entry notes the du 獨.
The Bencao gangmu entry for hu 虎 "tiger" lists huangyao among animals that are strong enough to kill and eat tigers.
Guoran 果然 (lit. "indeed; really") or 猓然 is described as "a timid monkey with a long tail". Van Gulik tentatively associates guoran with the surili monkeys of the genus Presbytis found in Southeast Asia.
The Bencao gangmu entry for the Guoran 果然, which Read identifies as the "proboscis monkey, Nasalis larvatus", lists synonyms of Yu 禺, You 狖, Lei or Wei 蜼, and Xianhou 仙猴 "transcendent monkey".
This guoran heading has two subheadings.
Mengsong 蒙頌 or Menggui 蒙貴 (see below).
Chanhu 獑猢, which the Shuowen writes with the "rat radical" 鼠 as zhanhu shu 斬𪕮鼠, is described by Li Shizhen
Mengsong 蒙頌 or menggui 蒙貴 (lit. "cover praise" or "cover expensive") "a dark monkey, a skillful rat-catcher" is an obscure ancient name. Read suggests mengsong was the "mongoose, Herpestidae mungo".
The Erya succinctly defines mengsong as "shaped like a [nao] monkey" (蒙頌猱狀). Since the Erya dictionary, which glosses words from the Chinese classics, has the oldest textual usage of mengsong, the name presumably comes from a lost pre-Qin classic. Guo Pu's commentary gives the synonym menggui and says, "An animal like a small [wei] proboscis monkey, purple black in color, from Yunnan (交趾 "Annam"). They are reared as rat catchers better than cats." Guo says these monkeys came from present-day central Vietnam, specifically Jiuzhen 九真 and Rinan 日南, modern Nghệ An Province and Quảng Bình Province.
The Tang author Duan Chengshi's (853) Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang says, "Cats are also named menggui or wuyuan 烏員 [lit. "crow member"]."
The Bencao gangmu subsumes mengsong under the guoran "monkey" entry: "Mengsong is also called Menggui. It is small Guoran. Purple and black, it is found in Jiaozhi. It is raised in houses. It catches mice even better than a cat or a leopard."
The simians (higher primates) of China include two families of Old World monkeys (Cercopithecidae) and lesser apes or gibbons (Hylobatidae, lit. "wood walkers"), listed with modern Chinese nomenclature:
The Monkey is the ninth of the twelve-year animal cycle in the "Chinese zodiac". The Year of the Monkey is associated with ninth Earthly Branch symbol shen 申 denoting the southwest direction and seventh lunar month. For example, one Year of the Monkey begins February 8, 2016.
Several mythical or semi-mythical monkeys are mentioned above in the Terminology section. Early texts treat the juefu 貜父 (cf. Japanese kakuen) as both a factual "large ape found in western mountains" and a mythological "single-sex species that abducts and mates with humans"; said to be either all males (viz. fu 父 "father") who rape women (Soushenji) or all females who rape men (Bencao gangmu, cf. xingxing). The early pictographs for nao 夒 "monkey" and kui 夔 "a legendary demon with a human face and body of a monkey/dragon" were nearly identical. Chinese legends say that foreign textiles used xingxing 猩猩 blood as a scarlet dye.
Many Chinese mythological creatures are said to resemble monkeys or apes. For instance, the xiao 囂 is described as "a long-armed ape" and the shanxiao 山魈 "mountain imp" supposedly had a human face and a monkey's body. The lake-dwelling shuihouzi 水猴子 "water monkey" is said to like drowning people.
Based on the data for the juefu, xingxing, and feifei, Van Gulik concluded that,
Like the Indian monkey-god Hanuman in Hindu mythology, Chinese deities sometimes appear in the guise of monkeys. The best-known of these is Sun Wukong, the main protagonist in Wu Cheng'en's picaresque novel Journey to the West, also known as Monkey. In the southern regions of China, many temples were built to the monkey-god who is worshipped as the Qitian dasheng 齊天大聖 "great saint equal to heaven", which was a name of Sun Wukong.
Wolfram Eberhard explains, "It is not only in Indian mythology that the monkey plays a leading part; it is also found in South Chinese and in Tibetan legend. Several varieties of monkey are native to South China; and according to one Tibetan myth, the Tibetan people are descended from a monkey", namely Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa. "Tales of women who have been abducted and ravished by monkeys and who have then given birth to children, are common in South China, and several Chinese 'clans' attribute their origins to such a union." Eberhard calls Yang 楊 the "Monkey Clan", citing the totemistic myth recorded in the Soushenji and Fayuan Zhulin that the Yangs living in southwestern Shu (state) (modern Sichuan) were descendants of monkeys. The Soushenji (12) "reported that in the southwest of Shu there were monkey-like animals whose names were [jiaguo 猳國], [mahua 馬化], or [jueyuan 玃猿, see "Jue and Juefu"]. These animals abducted women and sent them back when they became pregnant. If the baby were not accepted, the woman would have to die. Therefore these children were raised and they received the clan name Yang. For this reason this clan occurred quite frequently in Southwest Shu."
According to orally transmitted accounts collected from the Miao ethnic group of China, at first there were no people, but rather the ancestors of modern humans were monkeys. One day the monkeys went to play in a cave, where a divine dragon resided. The dragon blew upon the monkeys its divine breath, which caused them to be transformed into modern human beings.
Chinese religions use monkeys and apes as metaphors for people. In Chinese folk religion, some shape-shifting monkeys were said to be human ancestors. In Daoism, monkeys, particularly gibbons, were believed have longevity like a xian "transcendent; immortal". In Chinese Buddhism, on the one hand, monkeys symbolized restless and foolish humans, and on the other hand, Gautama Buddha was supposedly a benevolent monkey king in an earlier incarnation.
Chinese traditional folk religion regards monkeys as supernatural beings. Eberhard cites early reports that monkeys "could talk", "knew the past", and "were like men".
Jan Jakob Maria de Groot's classic study of Chinese religions distinguishes "monkey demons" and "were-monkeys", both of which could shape shift between a monkey and a human. While a monkey demon "often acts as a dangerous devil" (frequently transforming in order to have sex with a human), a were-monkey was usually virtuous (e.g., the monkey who takes human shape in order to become a Buddhist monk, Xuanshizhi 宣室志).
"Monkey demons" could assume both male and female forms. De Groot describes them as either "a lewd fornicator of wives and maids" or "a seductress, in beautiful female forms, of adults and inexperienced youths, whose senses it bewitches at the detriment of their health". For instance, the (4th century) In Search of the Supernatural records a monkey-demon story from the era of Emperor Xiaowu of Jin.
Legends about monkey-human interbreeding are common, as noted above Jue ape-men copulate with women and Zhou monkey-women copulate with men.
The Youyang zazu tells a legend that the Chinese peoples were descendants of simians: "a monkey married the female servant of a daughter of heaven and thus became ancestor of the [Ji]; another monkey also married the servant of a daughter of heaven and became founder of the [Cheng]" – using Ji 姬 (lit. "imperial concubine") as "a general term for southern peoples" and Cheng 傖 (or cang 傖 "coarse; vulgar") as "an insulting word for North Chinese who had migrated to the south".
The Baopuzi lists ways to protect oneself from mountain demons associated with different astronomical days (chap. 17), including "On a day shen [申 "Monkey"], a man calling himself a lord is a monkey [猴]; a [day jiuqing 九卿], an ape [猿]."
"Were-monkeys" (named in analogy with werewolf) were frequently older monkeys that transformed into humans. The (c. 1st century) Wu Yue Chunqiu tells a story about King Goujian of Yue (r. 496–465 BCE) wanting to improve his army's military skill. One of his ministers suggested:
Mr. Yuan is named Yuan Gong 袁公, a wordplay upon yuan 猿 "gibbon; monkey". Noting that this "monkey-man" called himself a member of the Yuan 袁 ("monkey") clan, De Groot says, "In subsequent ages it continues a feature of monkey-myth to represent were-monkeys as persons bearing that tribal name, just as man-foxes were … often believed to be members of the Hu tribe."—referring to the pun between hu 狐 "fox" and the Hu 胡 ("barbarian") clan.
Baiyuan 白猨 "white gibbons" like "Mr. Yuan" were considered to be spiritually powerful. The (c. 239 BCE) Lüshi Chunqiu has a "knack story" about the legendary archer Yang Youji 養由基 and a shen baiyuan "supernatural white gibbon" that instinctively knew the intentions of humans.
The (121 BCE) Huainanzi tells a simpler version of this story.
Daoism, like Buddhism, paradoxically treats monkeys as both foolish and wise animals.
The (c. 4th–3rd centuries BCE) Daoist Zhuangzi illustrates the gibbon/macaque distinction (see Symbolism section). The first story is about a jugong 狙公 "macaque/monkey trainer".
Zhuangzi tells a yuan 猿 "gibbon" parable to the King of Wei.
The Daoist discipline of daoyin "guide and pull" is based on the notion that circulating and absorbing qi "breath; life force" in the body can lead to longevity or even immortality. Long-limbed animals were believed to be innately adept at absorbing qi and thus acquire "occult powers, including the ability to assume human shape, and to prolong their life to several hundred years". For example, the (c. 4th century) Chunqiu Fanlu says, "The gibbon resembles the macaque, but he is larger, and his colour is black. His forearms being long, he lives eight hundred years, because he is expert in controlling his breathing."
The Baopuzi lists animals associated with longevity, including (chap. 3), "A macaque may evolve into an ape after 800 years. After another 500 years it evolves into Jue, and Jue will evolve into Chanchu (toad) after 1,000 years."
Another animal associated with longevity was the he 鶴 "crane", whose long neck and legs supposedly enabled the bird to absorb qi and live up to a thousand years. The pair of yuanhe 猿鶴 "gibbon and crane", both of which were famous for their graceful movements, became a literary and artistic trope for a "long life". The (624) Yiwen Leiju encyclopedia quotes a Baopuzi story, not found in the received text, about King Mu of Zhou (r. 976–922 BCE). "When King Mu of the [Zhou] dynasty made his expedition to the south, his entire (routed) army was transformed. The "gentlemen" [君子] among his troops changed into gibbons or cranes, the "small men" [小人] into insects or grains of sand.", noting that this widely quoted passage "sets up the gibbon as the gentleman among the primates – a position he has kept till the present day."
When Buddhism was first transmitted into China circa the 2nd century CE, monkeys were already an ancient tradition in Buddhist texts.
Sutras frequently quote the Buddha to use "monkey" similes. The Dhammapada (334) says: "The craving of a person given to heedless living grows like a creeper. Like the monkey seeking fruits in the forest, he leaps from life to life (tasting the fruits of his kamma)." The Samyutta Nikaya (12.61) says: "Just as a monkey roaming through a forest grabs hold of one branch, lets that go and grabs another, then lets that go and grabs still another, so too that which is called 'mind' and 'mentality' and 'consciousness' arises as one thing and ceases as another by day and by night."
Several of the Jataka tales describe the Buddha's past lives as a monkey or an ape (see the Four harmonious animals). For example, the Mahakapi Jataka or Great Monkey King.
Chinese Buddhists adapted and expanded upon these traditional "monkey" metaphors for human qualities. A famous Chan Buddhist example is the Chinese xinyuan "mind monkey", which is a Buddhist psychological metaphor describing "unsettled; restless; inconstant" mentality. The word xinyuan 心猿 "heart-/mind-monkey" is frequently combined with yima 意馬 "thought-/will-horse" in the four character idiom xinyuan yima or yima xinyuan, reflecting the previously mentioned association between monkeys and horses (and a major motif in the Journey to the West).
Monkeys are a traditional theme in Chinese literature. Besides the prominent "Monkey King" Sun Wukong mentioned above, gibbons and macaques are popular images in Chinese poetry. Van Gulik says nearly every Chinese poet who wrote from the 3rd to 7th centuries referred to the "graceful movements of the gibbon and his saddening calls". For instance, the Tang poet Li Bai wrote poems about gibbons 白猿 in the Qiupu 秋浦 region (in south-central modern Anhui Province).
A modern example is Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee story "The Morning of the Monkey", published in The Monkey and the Tiger.
Reflecting the simial likenesses among humans, monkeys, and apes, many languages symbolically use "monkey; ape" words in reference to people. English monkey, for instance, can mean a "mischievous child", "person with minimal intelligence and/or bad looks", or "menial employee who does a repetitive job"; and ape can mean "uncivilized person", "wild; crazy", or "imitate; mimic". Compare the Chinese words houzi 猴子 "monkey; mischievous/glib person", hour 猴儿 "monkey; endearing term for a child", and houjing 猴精 "monkey spirit; clever and roguish person".
Zhou dynasty culture symbolically contrasted the gibbon as "gentleman; sage" (junzi 君子 or sheng 聖) and the macaque as "commoner; petty person" (xiaoren 小人).
See the Zhuangzi stories (under "Daoism").
Eberhard describes a traditional Chinese literary motif that monkeys will sometimes seduce and impregnate women, who give birth to either a monkey-child or a monkey spirit. Thus, in the "popular mind", says Eberhard, a monkey can also symbolize an adulterer.
The earliest Chinese monkey-shaped objects, believed to have been belt hooks, date from the late Eastern Zhou period (4th–3rd centuries BCE) and depict a gibbon with outstretched arms and hook-shaped hands. The oldest extant painting of a monkey is attributed to the Buddhist monk and artist Guanxiu (832–912). It shows a gibbon offering peaches to a Luohan 羅漢 "arhat", which says "firmly establishes this painting in a Buddhistic context".
Gibbons became a popular subject for Chinese painters (for example, Yi Yuanji, fl. 1050–1075) during the Northern Song dynasty, and then again from the Southern Song dynasty into the Yuan dynasty, especially for the Chan Buddhist monk Muqi Fachang (1210?–1269?).
Monkeys are a frequent motif in modern Chinese art. Several examples are based on a visual pun between hou 侯 "marquis; count" and hou 猴 "monkey". Since mashang 馬上 literally means "on horseback" or figuratively "immediately", an image of a monkey riding a horse is called mashang fenghou馬上封侯 "May you immediately be conferred the rank of marquis", which is a Chinese gift of congratulations for gaining promotion. Another visual pun showing one monkey crouching on the bei 背 "back" of another bei 辈 "generation" can be interpreted as "May you rank as marquis from generation to generation"; and a painting of two monkeys in a tree has the same signification.
Another frequent image is a monkey holding a peach, as in the 16th-century novel Fengshen Yanyi, which refers to a legend that a monkey stole the peaches of Immortality from the garden of Xi Wangmu "Queen Mother of the West".
The familiar three wise monkeys are a Japanese, rather than Chinese, pictorial maxim to "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". See Monkeys in Japanese culture for more information.
Simians have played a role in traditional Chinese medicine, "which maintains that the meat, bones and livers of monkeys have various curative effects, ranging from detoxification to improving sex drive". Chinese state-owned medicine companies buy about 2 tons of monkey bones annually, estimated as "taken from at least 1,500 primates."
The (1597) Bencao gangmu lists pharmacological uses for four monkeys. The mihou "monkey; macaque" is the most versatile.
The meat and blood of a rong 狨 "gibbon" are used for anal fistula, and the fat for scabies. Read notes "The placenta, liver, and bile of the gibbon are used in Japanese Domestic medicine." The meat of a guoran 果然 monkey is prescribed for malaria and chills. The meat of a xingxing 猩猩 monkey supposedly "cures drowsiness and hunger, and desire for a cereal diet, it allows an exhausted man to travel well, and old age will not tell on him". This refers to the Daoist bigu "avoiding grains" fasting technique associated with achieving xian "transcendence; immortality".
Monkey meat, as mentioned above in the Bencao gangmu, was traditionally considered both a medicine and a delicacy in Chinese cuisine.
Several Chinese classics record the practice. The Lüshi chunqiu lists roast "lips of the xingxing ape" among the five finest meats. The Yiwuzhi records a "special soup made of monkey head was typical for southern peoples." The Huainanzi (19) has a story about eating monkeys: "A man from Chu had some boiled monkey meat that he gave to his neighbors. They thought it was dog meat and found its flavor pleasing. Later, when they heard it was monkey, they knelt down and vomited all they had eaten. This was a case of not even beginning to know about flavor."
Eating monkey brains, hounao 猴腦, is a controversial practice. Qing emperors ate monkey brains during feasts known as the Manchu Han Imperial banquet. According to Stephen Chen, the son of chef Joyce Chen, Qing emperors "were partial to scooping out the brain of a living monkey for a tasty treat, and the practice continues to this day, particularly in some southern provinces".
Modern day official Chinese policy with regards to the procurement of certain monkeys for food makes their consumption illegal, with sentences of up to 10 years in prison for violators.
Monkey Kung Fu, or houquan 猴拳 "Monkey Fist", refers to several Chinese martial arts techniques utilizing monkey-like movements. Modern Chinese movies have popularized the Drunken Monkey style.
The monkey is a secondary animal style, besides the basic Five Animals, or wuxing 五形 "Five Forms", of Tiger, Crane, Leopard, Snake, and Dragon.
The Huainanzi (7) criticized yogic practices like the yuanjue 蝯躩 "gibbon leap": "If you huff and puff, exhale and inhale, blow out the old and pull in the new, practice the Bear Hang, the Bird Stretch, the Duck Splash, the Ape Leap, the Owl Gaze, and the Tiger Stare: This is what is practiced by those who nurture the body. They are not the practices of those who polish the mind [e.g., the Perfected]."
The history of pet monkeys in China goes back at least to the Spring and Autumn period (771–476 BCE).
The scholar Robert van Gulik, who was a great fancier of gibbons, wrote, "there is only one objection to keeping a gibbon as pet, namely that one is liable to become too fond of it, and cannot bear to part after one's pet has reached maturity."
The Huainanzi (2) mentions caging a gibbon, "If you put an ape in a cage, it will be just like a pig. It is not that it is no longer clever or agile but that it has nowhere to give free rein to its ability." The text (16) also mentions a beloved pet gibbon, "The king of Chu lost his [pet] ape, and [to recapture it] he destroyed every tree in the forest." This was likely King Gong of Chu (r. 590–560 BCE) who is identified with a related story (16.89), concerning "The king of Chu had a white ape" that could catch arrows shot by archers.
Traditional Chinese holidays include the Monkey King Festival celebrated on the 16th day of the 8th lunar month, and the Birthday of the Monkey God, celebrated in Singapore on the 16th day of the 1st lunar month.
Nanwan Monkey Island is a nature reserve in Hainan, China.
"Monkey" is also a popular name for foodstuffs including Chinese teas:
Footnotes