Xingxing, the White-Eared Ape of Mount Zhaoyao
The Shan Hai Jing opens on Mount Zhaoyao, and the first beast it meets there is the xingxing: a white-eared ape that walks like a man and makes whoever eats it fast.
- Chinese name
- 狌狌 (xīngxīng)
- Oldest source
- Shan Hai Jing, Southern Mountains, Book 1
- Where it lives
- Mount Zhaoyao
- In the game
- Wood beast · 1 Gold · Parting Gift
What the Shan Hai Jing says
The xingxing is the first beast in the whole Shan Hai Jing. The book opens with the first range of the Southern Mountains, and its first peak is Mount Zhaoyao, which overlooks the Western Sea and is rich in cassia trees, gold and jade. Before reaching the beast, the text lists two plants: a grass like a leek with blue flowers that stops hunger, and a tree with black grain and shining flowers that keeps you from getting lost. Then comes the xingxing: like a monkey, with white ears. It moves on all fours or runs upright like a person, and eating it makes you a fast runner.
有兽焉，其状如禺而白耳，伏行人走，其名曰狌狌，食之善走。
A beast lives here, like a monkey with white ears. It goes on all fours, or runs upright like a man. It is called the Xingxing. Whoever eats it becomes swift of foot.
From xingxing to the great apes
The characters for this beast are read the same as xingxing, the word modern Chinese uses for the great apes: an orangutan is a xingxing, and a gorilla is a "big xingxing". Early writers already treated the xingxing as an ape that came close to being human. The Book of Rites, one of the Confucian classics, says that the xingxing can speak, yet it is still a beast, using it as an example that speech alone does not make someone a person.
The xingxing that knows your name
A second xingxing appears in Within the Seas: South. There the text says it knows people's names, and describes it as shaped like a pig with a human face, living west of the burial place of the sage king Shun. The two entries do not match, but together they explain why the creature stayed famous: it was the animal that stood closest to people, able to walk like them and, in some accounts, to speak and recognize them.
The first beast in our game
Because Mount Zhaoyao is where the Shan Hai Jing begins, it is a natural starting point for Beasts of Shanhai too. The xingxing is a cheap Wood beast. Its meat makes you fast, so in the game it gives its strength away: when it falls, the beasts beside it grow stronger. The same first book of the Southern Mountains also holds the nine-tailed fox and the Xuangui turtle.
Swift Ape in Beasts of Shanhai
In our free browser game Beasts of Shanhai, Swift Ape is a Wood beast that costs 1 Gold. Its skill is Parting Gift. Last Breath: both neighbors get +10% attack and HP (at least +1). At two stars they get +20% (at least +2), and at three stars +30% (at least +3).
Questions
What is a xingxing in Chinese mythology?
A white-eared, monkey-like beast from Mount Zhaoyao in the Shan Hai Jing. It walks on all fours or upright like a person, and eating it makes you swift of foot.
Is the xingxing an orangutan?
The name is read the same as xingxing, the modern Chinese word for great apes such as the orangutan, but the Shan Hai Jing beast is a creature of myth with white ears.
Can the xingxing talk?
The Shan Hai Jing says one xingxing knows people's names, and the Book of Rites says the xingxing can speak but is still a beast.
More creatures
Xuangui 旋龟A turtle with a bird's head and a viper's tail, whose voice sounds like splitting wood. Wearing it keeps deafness away.
Nine-Tailed Fox 九尾狐A fox with nine tails and a cry like a baby's. It eats people, and eating it keeps curses away.
Boyi 猼訑A goat with nine tails, four ears and eyes on its back. Whoever wears it knows no fear.
Chiru 赤鱬A red fish with a human face and a voice like a mandarin duck. Eating it keeps scabies away.
Lushu 鹿蜀A horse with a white head, tiger stripes and a red tail, singing as it calls. Wearing its hide blesses a family with many descendants.
Taotie 饕餮A goat-bodied beast with a human face and eyes under its arms, so greedy it eats itself.