Sin (Monkey)

Folk culture turned the monkey's clever, crafty nature and its theatrics — feigning sickness, sorrow or death, merry on fine days and gloomy on dull ones, always ready to adapt — into a type of character and destiny. Those born in the year of the Monkey, for example, were believed to be naturally good with numbers, and so drawn to professions such as mathematics or engineering.

Monkeys did not live on the Korean peninsula, but through art and stories Koreans knew their shape, their habits and even their physiology well. The old Korean word for the monkey is jannabi, and at first it carried a negative undertone: the monkey was an unlucky creature, and people avoided speaking of it in the morning. In the tales handed down by word of mouth it was a crafty, tricky and playful prankster and a master mimic, and the stories warned not to trust its talents and tricks too far.

That image softened, the museum explains, mostly under the influence of Buddhism and of Chinese and Japanese customs. In folk customs shaped by China the monkey was believed to drive away every kind of evil spirit, so its image was carved on great buildings and temples; a clay monkey could serve as a talisman, a grave good or an ornament. Over time the monkey of the zodiac became a god of time and of direction.

The monkey shares key traits of body and behaviour with humans, and stood for many talents and for a strong, tender love of spouse and children. In much of the East, apart from a few strongly Buddhist countries, it was "the emblem of ugliness and trickery" — but one that could drive out evil spirits; in China it was believed to bring health, success and protection.

In Buddhist art the monkey guards a monk, holds a peach for long life, or appears with grapes for wealth; so it came to mean protection, longevity and wealth. The museum also recalls Sun Wukong, the monkey of the Chinese novel Journey to the West, endowed with the power to drive out demons.

At Jeondeungsa temple on Ganghwa Island, legend tells of the carpenter who built it. He fell in love with a woman who worked at a tavern in the village nearby, but she stole his money and ran away; so that she would atone for her sin forever, holding up the temple roof while listening to the Buddhist scriptures, he carved a naked woman — or a monkey — under every corner of the roof.

In the masked dances the monkey plays a different part. In some of them, the museum says, a monkey character boldly imitates people in order to mock, with satire and humour, the shallow morality of an old monk or the misdeeds of a shoe-seller.

Monkeys entered Korean art together with Buddhism. On the eaves of the halls of Gyeongbokgung Palace, figures of Sun Wukong and the monk Tang Sanzang from Journey to the West were set to keep evil spirits away. From celadon to blue-and-white porcelain, and on seals, calligraphy, small jars, water droppers and chairs, the monkey is shown in nature, often as a loving mother with her young; in classical painting it stands for long life and many descendants.

Korean scholars were fond of monkeys. Their personal seals, often only three to five centimetres high, show monkeys caught in witty, finely carved poses; inkstones and water droppers show a monkey holding its young or hanging from a vine, and a small jar shows a monkey holding a jar in its hands or on its back.

The Monkey, the Rat and the Dragon form one of the four harmonious triads (samhap, 삼합): in the museum's words, the rat stands for the dragon's brain and the monkey for its quick movement. Monkey and Dragon are drawn to each other — the Dragon to the Monkey's boundless good nature, the Monkey to the Dragon's grandeur — and together they make a great team.

The Rabbit is the Monkey's wonjin (원진), the animal in conflict with it: the rabbit hates the monkey's bottom, which is the same colour as its own eyes, and nowhere in the world, it is said, do rabbits and monkeys live side by side.