Don't Touch the Monkeys

A quick travel story - this one comes from study abroad in China (Fall 2000). I mostly took it from a post I had written over at White Sox Interactive several years ago, but it is informative (and amusing, if you like hearing about me being beaten by old Chinese women and monkeys).

I was hiking on a mountain in Xichuan province with a couple of friends. Now, I was really looking forward to this hike, because we were going to see wild monkeys, and I had never seen wild monkeys. I know, you would think someone from Wisconsin would see them everyday, but no.

So, we get to the portion of the trail where the wild monkeys are supposed to be, and there are all of these signs telling us to put our food away, but no monkeys. Now the chances of me climbing a mountain without a Coke in hand are approximately 0%, so I do not heed the signs telling me to put it away.*

With no monkeys in sight, we keep climbing the trail in search of the monkeys. Shortly, we turn a corner, and there are probably 100 people milling about, feeding a pack/horde/gaggle of large, wild monkeys. The monkeys (and people) are everywhere. Of course, like the fool I am, I just run on up to the first monkey I see, overly excited to see the monkeys.

This monkey immediately grabs my unfinished Coke from my hand and scampers up a nearby tree. I am evidently very upset by this, as several Chinese tourists come and gather around me to watch me, the foreigner, getting extremely agitated over a dime's worth of Coke (there was yelling and wild gesturing involved). My agitation does not disturb the monkey, who promptly opens the bottle of Coke and takes a swig.

Eventually, having no way to get my Coke back (and really, did I want a Coke that a monkey had been drinking out of?), I move to plan B - touch a monkey!

Now, I knew these monkeys were wild animals, but I had never seen wild animals come up to people like this - the only wild animals I had seen who were this tame always allowed themselves to be touched (what can I say, before this my only experience feeding wild animals came with deer). It was quite exciting.

As an American abroad, I decide that the best idea here is to disobey the many signs I had seen coming up the mountain, and feed one of these monkeys. I grab a cracker out of my backpack and hold it out for a very large, male monkey nearby the monkey who is happily sipping my Coke.

This new monkey grabs the cracker and sits down right in front of me - perfect! I reach out an arm and touch him. My fingers had barely glanced his hair when the monkey goes crazy, beating on my legs. I jump up, and the monkey continues hitting my legs with his monkey fists. And it hurts! Finally, the monkey tires of beating me up, and goes to beg other people for more crackers.**

My friends, who have witnessed both of these incidents, are laughing hysterically. However, the group of Chinese tourists around us are not so amused. All of the old women in the group (a surprising number, considering we were climbing a mountain) come up to me, tell me not to touch the monkeys, and give me a slap to the shoulder to drive the point home.

Later on the trail, we saw signs telling us not to touch the monkeys, because they bite. There was even a monkey bite first-aid station. So, evidently, I was not the first foreigner to think that the monkeys wanted me to pet them.

The moral? Don't touch the monkeys.

*The best option for a hike? Nope. Do I care? Nope.

** Like I was going to give a monkey who beat me up any more crackers. Stupid monkey.