There was an old Chinese saying, “If there are no tigers in the mountain, the monkeys become the kings.” Obviously, the ancient Chinese believe the tiger to be the king of all animals. The monkey’s intelligence also helped it to be the king’s helper. However, the tiger and the monkey indeed had a deep friendship, according legend, the monkey become a Chinese zodiac because the tiger have spoken on the monkey’s account.
When the tiger become the king of all animals, all animals run away and hide when they saw the tiger, the tiger felt proud and yet lonely. At that time the money was the tiger’s neighbor, the two are very friendly toward each other. After, the monkey became the tiger’s most trusted helper, when the tiger is out; the monkey helps to organize when the tiger is not here. All animals obeyed because they are scared of the tiger. This is where the old saying “If there are no tigers in the mountain, the monkeys become the kings” comes from.
One day, the tiger fell into one of the hunter’s traps, it tried very hard to escape but cannot do so. Luckily the monkey came around and saved to tiger. When the tiger was freed, although it thanked the monkey for saving its life, it was thing, “I am the king of all animals and I fell into hunters’ traps, and I need a small monkey to save me, if monkey spread this around, the how will I command everybody? Why not I just kill the monkey right now.” But then he thought again, “I do not have many friends, if I killed the monkey, then I will have no more friends, if I got into danger again, who will save me? On the other hand, the monkey is scared of me, it won’t dare to spread today’s event around.”
So the tiger told the monkey it would do anything in its power to repay the monkey back. If the monkey has any problems around, it will do what it can to help the monkey. The monkey of course does not spread the event around. After this, the relationship between went up a level.
After many years, the supreme god started to choose the Chinese zodiacs. The tiger is the king of all animals, so he obviously became one of the Chinese zodiacs. When the monkey saw it, it also wants to become a Chinese zodiac, but the supreme god only choose animals who have done great services to the humans. The monkey did nothing to the humans, so it cannot be a Chinese zodiac. So the monkey asked the tiger to speak to the supreme god so the monkey can become a Chinese zodiac. The tiger agreed to help become it own the monkey its life, the tiger did everything it can do to persecute the supreme god that the monkey should be a Chinese zodiac. The tiger told the supreme god how intelligent the tiger is and how when the tiger was out, how the monkey controlled th animals, so the monkey did some services to the humans. So, the supreme god ordered his command to put the monkey to be one of the Chinese zodiacs.
