If you’re interested in learning more about animal histories in China check out the Chinese Animal Studies Network.
They have an excellent newsletter.
I recently read this Talking Animals Q&A with researcher Olivia Milburn.
Here’s an interesting excerpt:
To start, what first inspired you to include animals in your research?
I first started studying the role of animals in Chinese culture in 2011, due to having purely by chance encountered a story about Confucius having a pet dog.2 This is not an aspect of the life of the Sage that has really received any attention at all, but I felt it was a very humanizing detail, and it throws quite a different light on Confucius to think of him as a pet owner—in fact he’s one of the very first people in Chinese history to be recorded as having a companion animal. It is also interesting that the Liji 禮記 (Record of Ritual) does specifically stress that this was a pet, and not a guard dog or hunting dog or anything like that.
Learn more here.
John is an award-winning author of stories, novels and plays. He is author of THE STANDING DEAD, coming in 2027. He is also author of the novels The Tourist Trail and Where Oceans Hide Their Dead and co-author of the mystery Devils Island. He is editor of Writing for Animals (also now a writing program). More at JohnYunker.com.