Page 72 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 65
to be too lazy to bestir themselves. Because of its very good eyesight, the cat can see
spirits in the dark. In the province of Zhejiang white cats are never kept, because they get
on to the roof at night and steal the moonbeams: they can even turn into mischievous
spirits. For this reason too dead cats should never be buried lest they turn into demons; it
is safer to hang them up on trees. In Taiwan one may still occasionally see a tree
festooned with dead cats.

A cat looking at a peony: ‘May you be rich!’

It was believed that if a cat jumped over a coffin, the corpse was revived and became
‘undead’, to haunt the area. In short, the cat has demonic powers: it has its uses as a
mouse-catcher, but it can also be a very dangerous creature indeed.
A girl who dolls herself up a lot and flirts around is castigated as a ‘black cat’. The
‘mountain cat’ is the hare. Insincerity in someone is described as ‘the cat weeping over
the mouse’ (which it has just eaten!).