Van Gulik and Chinese Gibbon Culture

Robert van Gulik, a well-renowned sinologist, wrote a piece titled “The Gibbon in China: An Essay in Chinese Animal Lore (長臂猨考)”. This essay is the first Western piece that looks into Chinese gibbon culture, and it was also Robert van Gulik’s last sinological discourse. He is very well known for his research on Chinese sexual life, philosophy, lute, inkstone, painting and calligraphy. However, his research on Chinese gibbon culture has gotten very little attention comparatively in Western academia.

In The Gibbon in China, Robert Van Gulik begins his piece describing the earliest traditions of Chinese culture. This refers to the ancient and the classical cultures from the Shang to the fall of the Qing dynasty. One of the most important things in this time for upholding the high culture in China was the infamous examination system (keju 科舉). In traditional Chinese culture, the gibbon is considered the gentleman in the animal kingdom. In this way its image has been likened to traditional Chinese scholar-officials (shidaifu 士大夫). These scholar-officials were civil servants appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day governance. These scholars had been appointed as such after being taught, studying extensively, then passing the rigorous imperial exams (consisting of things like Confucian texts and calligraphy) in order to earn their academic degrees. These scholars represented morality and virtue. Robert van Gulik states that the gibbon is represented as having a moral leadership position among the other species of monkeys and other animals in its forest canopy habitat. The gibbon is an ape, beit a lesser ape, that can typically be described as having larger brains. In contrast, the monkeys are a bit further down on the primate ladder. Gibbons (yuan 猿) are not monkeys (hou 猴). Robert van Gulik chose the gibbon because the ape has been used as example of the shidaifu 士大夫 throughout Chinese history, art and literature. The gibbon also falls in line with the aesthetic taste of the Chinese scholar official with Daoist beliefs; and the gibbon represents a simplified society that he is interested in. Throught Robert Van Gulik’s life, he maintained a strong interest in the animal, collecting books, paintings, artifacts as well as the live animal (Ye 2013: 141-143).

Sources Cited: Ye, Shi, and Freerk Heule. "An Evaluation of Robert Van Gulik’s The Gibbon in China and Its Place in Modern Sinological Discourse." Southeast Review of Asian Studies 35 (2013): 141-60. Www.uky.edu. 2013. Web.