About

Xing Xing the One-Armed Monkey is a fat monkey with one arm named Xing Xing who's being fed and taken care of by an old Buddhist nun at a temple in the east China Zhejiang province. In the fall of 2022, several viral videos of Xing Xing spread on Chinese social media before being shared on TikTok and Twitter in subsequent weeks where Western internet users began posting about him online.

Origin

On October 7th, 2022, TikToker^[1][2] @animalworld99991 posted two videos featuring a one-armed monkey drinking juice from a carton and eating a banana. The two initial videos were accompanied by a caption that read, "A teacher in her 90s has been playing one-armed monkeys since 20 years ago. The monkey, unable to fend for itself without an arm, is fed by worshippers in a temple." The videos proceeded to gather over 75,000 plays and 2,000 likes (seen below, left) and 200,000 plays and 13,000 likes (seen below, right), respectively, in just over a month.

The story of how Xing Xing lost his arm differs between news outlets, with some attributing his amputation to an encounter with a wild boar trap set by a hunter^[3] and others to a stint at a local circus.^[4]

Spread

On October 8th, 2022, TikToker^[5] @hhyhuang posted a video featuring the monkey as well, this time alongside his caretaker, a Buddhist nun referred to as "Taishi."^[6] The post gathered over 1 million plays and 200,000 likes in roughly one month (seen below, left). On October 9th, TikToker^[7] @tikker1004 then posted another video of the monkey alongside a caption that read, "This is a one armed monkey. It’s said that he was once caught by a hunter and almost made into a monkey brain." The video gathered over 2.6 million plays and 300,000 likes in a similar timeframe (seen below, right).

Videos of the Xing Xing continued to be shared on TikTok, likely being reposted from Chinese apps like Douyin and Weibo. On November 6th, 2022, TikToker^[8] @hhyhuang posted another video of the monkey and his caretaker, gathering over 4.5 million plays and 600,000 likes in nearly a week (seen below, left). On November 8th, the TikToker^[9] then posted another clip of Xing Xing and his caretaker, gathering over 1 million plays and 190,000 likes in a week (seen below, right).

Throughout November 2022, Xing Xing was subsequently referenced in various Twitter threads as well as he spread to other platforms.^[10][11]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References