The Monkey Chronicles：Hong Kong Literature Series

 HONG KONG LITERATURE SERIES

Series Editor: John Minford

After her celebrated The Teddy Bear Chronicles, Xi Xi turns her creative vision towards the world of the primate kingdom. At the age of 73, despite physical challenges, Xi Xi traveled extensively across Asia, from tropical forests to conservation centers, immersing herself in the natural world of apes and monkeys.

This book is one of the remarkable outcomes of this journey. Xi Xi documented 51 endearing ape and monkey puppets that she had sewn, weaving them into a series of insightful dialogues with her friend, the Hong Kong writer Ho Fuk Yan. These discussions cover the depiction of apes and monkeys in Chinese and Western literature, painting, drama, and film, as well as the interconnectedness of humans and their primate relatives. Xi Xi’s words, filled with empathy, reveal the heart of her work: ‘If there is a common theme to our conversation, it is to respect life and speak for those lives that have been discriminated against in the history of human development, and apes are the starting point for this’.

The Monkey Chronicles is a testament to Xi Xi’s resilience and creativity, offering a poignant meditation on coexistence, environmental ethics, and the power of art to reimagine our place in the natural world.

 Author

Xi Xi (1937–2022), pseudonym of Cheung Yin, was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong with her family in 1950. In 1957, she graduated from Grantham College of Education and became a teacher at a government primary school.

She increasingly focused on her writing career, and her fiction and poetry earned her numerous literary awards, including the 1983 United Daily Award in Taiwan for her short story ‘A Girl Like Me’, the 2019 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature at the University of Oklahoma, and the Cikada Prize awarded by the Swedish Institute in the same year. She also received the Hong Kong Arts Development Council’s 16th Life Achievement Award in 2022.

Xi Xi’s literary works spanned across novels, essays, modern poetry, and literary criticism. She published over 45 books, including My City, Not Written Words, The Teddy Bear Chronicles, Carnival of Animals: Xi Xi’s Animal Poems, and many more.

Translators

Jasmine Tong Man is now a visiting lecturer specialising in literary translation at various tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. She earned her PhD in Translation Studies in 2001. Her translation work includes Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast (Book One) and Amiri Baraka’s poetry into Chinese. In collaboration with David Morgan, she has translated Leung Ping-kwan’s poems and short stories, as well as Wei Ya’s children’s poetry, into English. Recently, she has been crafting bilingual stories about life in Hong Kong, featuring her own watercolour illustrations.

David Morgan has collaborated with Jasmine Tong man on various translations from Chinese to English for almost twenty years. He has also made a number of extended translations from Spanish to English and of short stories from French to English by the Palestinian novelist Mahmoud Shahin.

Editor

John Minford is Emeritus Professor of Chinese at The Australian National University.

 Series Editor's Preface v

Acknowledgements viii

Foreword xii

Preface xvi

The Naming, Classification and Distribution of Apes and Monkeys 001

—A Conversation between Xi Xi and Ho Fuk Yan

The Strepsirrhini 017

—Xi Xi

The Tarsier 018

The Slow Loris 021

The Bushbaby 025

The Ring-tailed Lemur 029

The Crowned Lemur 033

The Indri Lemur 036

The Aye-Aye 039

Images of Apes and Monkeys in the West 045

—A Conversation between Xi Xi and Ho Fuk Yan

Tales of Apes and Monkeys from Chinese Literature 097

—A Conversation between Xi Xi and Ho Fuk Yan

The New World Monkeys 135

—Xi Xi

The White Uakari/ Bald uakari 136

The White-faced Saki 139

The Capuchin Monkey 142

The Spider Monkey 145

The Night Monkey 148

The Golden White Tassel-eared Marmoset 150

The Emperor Tamarin 153

On Zoos and Conservation Centres 157

—A Conversation between Xi Xi and Ho Fuk Yan

The Old World Monkeys 185

—Xi Xi

The Japanese Snow Macaque 186

The Crested Black Macaque 189

The François’ Langur and the White-headed Langur 191

The Proboscis Monkey 194

The Red-shanked Douc Langur 197

The Spectacled Langur 199

The Golden Snub-nosed Monkey 201

The Hamadryas Baboon 204

The Mandrill 207

Questions on Evolution: Are Apes and Monkeys Our Ancestors? 211

—A Conversation between Xi Xi and Ho Fuk Yan

Apes 225

—Xi Xi

The Gibbons 226

The Siamangs 229

The Orangutans 232

The Gorillas 235

The Bonobos 237

The Chimpanzees 239

Some Names and Books 243

—A Conversation between Xi Xi and Ho Fuk Yan

Primates on the Brink of Extinction 271

—Xi Xi

The Ruffed Lemurs, The Golden Bamboo Lemurs,

The Marmosets, The Red-backed Squirrel Monkeys,

The Woolly Spider Monkeys, The Red-laced Howler Monkeys,

The Diana Guenon, The Golden Langur,

The Tana River Red Colobus, The Capped Langur,

The Lion-tailed Macaques

Appendix 287

What Is the ‘Red List of Threatened Species’? 288

A Guide to Primate Names 290

Heights of the Stuffed Apes and Monkeys 291

Summary of Primate Order and Family Classification 292

Classification of Primates 293