Five-year-old Elisa got very excited at the sight of three monkeys carrying a giant red and green peach. She tried very hard to get free from her mother's guiding hand as she was getting closer to the fruit, which is so big that all the three naughty monkeys have to carry with their forelimbs and walk under it in an unsteady way.

The American girl was not afraid of the monkeys at all. Instead, she begged her mother to get her the big peach.

Elisa was not at the zoo. She was at the opening of an exhibition of the Chinese ink and wash paintings on Tuesday night at the Asian Cultural Center in New York City. The 50-odd paintings feature all kinds of monkeys, a symbol of cleverness and vitality in the Chinese culture.

The art show was opened to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and the United States.

The paintings were all by Professor Xu Peichen from Nanjing Normal University in East China's Jiangsu Province. Xu, who was born in 1951, has been regarded as "the Oriental Monkey King" simply because of his great achievements in painting all kinds of monkeys after more than 20 years of hard work.

At the opening ceremony, Xu, donning a traditional Chinese costume, said the monkey's intelligence and cute nature were highlighted in "the Pilgrimage to the West", an ancient Chinese literary masterpiece based on the historical travels to India of Buddhist Monk Xuan Zang in the seventh century in search of Buddhist scriptures.

In the famous Chinese classic novel, Xuan Zang was escorted by Sun Wukong -- the Monkey King, an evil-fighter with integrity and a high sense of loyalty. The Monkey King, though a little bit mischievous, is admired by generations of Chinese children, who have grown up with the dream of becoming someone like Sun Wukong.

Besides, Monkey ranks the ninth in the 12-year rotation of the Chinese birth sign system that starts with rat, followed by ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and ends with pig.

Over the past two decades, Xu has traveled a lot in China to see as close as possible how monkeys live, what they do and how they contact each other in the group. "Wherever monkeys are, there are my footprints," he told Xinhua.

"It is my first time to open an exhibition of my paintings in the United States, and this is also the first of its kind in the Western countries," he said.

Thanks to his exploratory efforts, he developed an artistic capacity to display a vivid monkey simply by drawing a couple of lines on paper with his Chinese writing brush. His paintings have been on display at a great varieties of exhibitions across China and have won different kinds of awards.

"I paint monkeys to show their happiness and sadness in order to illustrate the great harmony between the environment, animals and human being," he said.

Speaking at the opening ceremony on behalf of Peng Keyu, the Chinese consul general in New York, Cultural Counsellor Zhai Deyu said that Professor Xu's paintings show the aspirations of the Chinese people for peace and harmony in the world at large, and also voice their good wishes to pray for the future sound development of Sino-US relations.

(Xinhua News Agency July 29, 2009)