The Monkey man is probably the one native of the Chinese duodecimal zodiac with such an unmistakable air of benevolence about him, which becomes even more pronounced with age. In spite of his witty intelligence, people find him innocent, well-disposed, highly approachable. He is mostly recognizable by his angelic smile.

There exists certain elegance in this subject's bearing and movements; it is absolutely natural, inborn, for he abhors nothing more than affectation. He has a nervous, somewhat hopping gait. His body is generally slender but not too long.

The Monkey male is by no means an effeminate man as are his Snake and Goat counterparts. However, one cannot help being struck by the softness of his look and the fineness of his features. In fact, his face faithfully reflects his tolerant, sympathetic soul. But as he is an emotional person despite the many indications of his personality to the contrary, this same face swiftly turn pale under the effect of surprise or restrained anger.

His forehead is high, surmounted with fair, light, almost mossy hair. He smiles or laughs mostly with his sparkling eyes which, at other moments, exhale astonishment and naivetι. He likes to say hello to everyone by puckering up his rounded nose in the manner of rabbits, or winking amusingly.

This man shares many health characteristics with the Dragon male. Like his flashy astrological brother, he is subject to insomnia which, if not effectively combated, may become a severe handicap. His sleep tends to deteriorate with the passing of the years, and it is in his interest to learn to make the most of his endless wakeful hours, not by fretting, but by indulging in some useful hobby such as reading, listening to good music, or photographic laboratory work. In any case he seems to need less sleep than the average person.

The mechanism of vision is almost always more or less defective in the Monkey man. This sign supplies a good horde of myopes, astigmats, and individuals suffering from eyesight anomalies of one kind or another.

But unlike the Dragon, who often fall a victim to hypertension, the Monkey man is liable to hypotension, which, among other things, makes him very sensitive to cold. With his faulty, sluggish circulation, he is exposed, on one hand, to giddiness, migraine, feelings of faintness, sudden losses of consciousness, and on the other hand, to varices, varicose ulcers, hemorrhoids, and even arteriosclerosis. His heart may show signs of irregularity because of the weakness of his blood vessels. In addition, anemia frequently comes to complicate his health condition.

This usually soft-spoken and indulgent nature may have sudden fits of anger which are hard to account for and which he will bitterly regret afterwards. Also, it is not impossible for him to display a paranoiac comportment from time to time.

Although a careful, conscientious driver, he may cause a traffic accident every now and then during one of his well-known "attention failures," for he is vulnerable to sudden strokes of absent-mindedness and euphoria.

All told, though not endowed with a robust constitution, the typical Monkey man does enjoy relatively good health. If he is prudent enough, he will rarely be compelled to keep his bed. Unfortunately, he often shows himself impardonably oblivious of the practical side of life, neglecting to take care of himself as he should. Is his chronic absent-mindedness responsible for his carelessness?

The native must above all secure his vital minimum of sleep, for it is through sleep that he can preserve a good part of his physiological equilibrium. In all logic, he must avoid coffee, tea, tense situations, and in general anything which may jeopardize the smooth functioning of his nervous system.

Fatigable because of his shaky cardiovascular apparatus, the Monkey man will find his interest in avoiding to overwork himself. Constant surveillance by a cardiologist is recommended.

Boredom being the worst enemy of his well-being, he will need to change activities frequently or, if this is not possible, to pause at short intervals during his work. In any case, it is preferable that he be his own employer.

To keep himself fit, he can practice some sport that requires adroitness and mental alertness such as skiing, lawn tennis, table tennis, or fencing. But he is advised against more strenuous sport because of his fatigability.

His diet must imperatively be as diversified as possible. This recommendation is of the utmost importance in view not only of his health requirements but also of his inveterate tendency to eat the same things day in and day out — he is always reluctant to devote his time to thinking of changing his menus.

Given his pathological predispositions, the Monkey man should regularly eat foods that are rich in phosphor such as fishes and oysters, in magnesium such as dried vegetables, in iron, and in vitamins. All fruits, fresh or dried, can prove most beneficial to him.

It is never easy to make a good snapshot of the Monkey man's psychological fabric. The difficulty does not reside in some kind of unpredictability as is the case with the Goat male — he is perfectly foreseeable — but in his innumerable, inextricable paradoxes and contradictions. This is a highly complex personality who, however, displays all appearances of simplicity. While essentially cerebral, moved by his head, he reacts almost exclusively with his heart — whence his incredible incoherence. Photographing the Goat, so to speak, astrologers are confronted with the problem of ever-changing lighting conditions; but when they do the Monkey, a careful dosage of the contrasting colors should be exercised so that neither the lights nor the shades are given undue emphasis.

Perhaps this subject's only characteristic which does not bear an internal contradiction is his extreme independence. Under no circumstance does he accept to forgo his insistence on being his own master. He abhors any limitation on his freedom of thought or action: He must be the wind, or he will die!

The Monkey man is one — most probably the only one — who zealously spends his whole existence blasting old customs and outdated ideas as well as battling against retrograde minds. His nonconformism is in all appearance total and uncompromising. Progressive-minded, he acts as if he were born with the mission to being change into the world. Conventional marriage tanks high on the list of his targets as he considers it an old-fashioned institution responsible for many perfectly avoidable evils. But all the while he wants the universe and everyone around him to change, he tends to cling to his own basic attitude — it is perhaps not because of his inability to modify his stands but because of his self-righteousness. Moreover, he seems to hold some respect for his elders. We are putting our finger here on one of his countless inconsistencies, which are quite understandable to us once we have been informed of his incongruousness.

This individual's nonconformism naturally conduces to his originality. He only wants to think and act in his own way, according to his own penchant, completely off beaten tracks of every description. Not vitally concerned with his own image — he could not care less about the opinions of others — he delights in shocking people by his singular manner of speech and outlandish behavior. To many, he appears just plain wacky; to others, his excessive individuality — say, his eccentricity — is a subject of either amusement or irritation. In any case, everyone finds him mystifying because of his exaggerated love of utopia, his unbelievable lack of realism and practicality. On the contrary, the idiosyncrasies of people he meets, however weird they may be, never surprise or trouble him because he takes them completely for granted. However, under the facade of his defying oddity and strangeness, there do exist some familiar shadows. For instance, being very young in spirit, he thinks it is unworthy to worry about money and likes to make fun heartily of penny-pinchers; yet he may from time to time surprise himself in the process of counting and calculating! One thing is certain: One never gets bored in his company. Few people would equal him in intellectual curiosity. Fired with an unquenchable desire for knowledge, he deems everything good to know, including the most unpleasant truths. He is particularly enthusiastic about all things new or unorthodox, refusing to place them under any kind of moral or religious scrutiny — no doubt many heretics burned by the Inquisition were Monkeys. He loves to be the first one to hit upon some idea, to do something, to embark on some practice, even if this may mean that he will get scorched in the process.

The Monkey man is aided in his perpetual quest for novelty by his many relevant qualities. He has enough humility to be willing to learn from all those who have something interesting to tell or teach him. His natural ability to be detached and unemotional helps him keep his already sharp mind always open to anything, while his breadth of vision protects him from being a sterile hair-splitter. Last but not least, he has no bias whatsoever against women — one would have difficulty finding a trace of misogyny in this man, who readily bows to females if these have something to interest him with. Unfortunately, there are quite a few shadows scattered throughout the sunlight. For example, the native of the Monkey cannot help putting his nose into the affairs of other people, thereby tightly earning the reputation of being a professional meddler. He cannot either help trying overexplain everything he knows to his fellow men and women, even against their wishes, because he feels that everyone is more or less dumb while the only smart person on earth is he himself. It is impossible for a casual observer to understand why this man, who is a keen student of human behavior and can predict the outcome of actions and situations with outstanding accuracy, can at times display so surprising credulity and naivetι.

Routine in any form is death to this man as he considers life meaningless without variety and unexpected events. He adores surprises of every kind — a bad surprise is to his eyes even better than no surprise at all — and can adapt himself effortlessly to any situation which may arise. It is why he is constantly on the lookout for new adventures. He could perfectly slam the door against his boss or throw up a good job on the spur of the moment without any regard for possible consequences. Indifferent to riches as well as poverty, he has a passion for gambling; he also likes to put his material security in danger from time to time with a view to forcing himself to struggle of resist the temptation of "bourgeois" well-being. His deliberate, systematic search for new, unforeseen situations stems from his unshakable belief that every experience is good to go through; even the worst tragedies happening to him cannot grieve him much because he looks on them as mere challenges, moreover convinced that misfortune contains seeds of happiness. No wonder why he never feels regret or self-pity; no wonder also why he resolutely turns his back to the past — to him, only tomorrow holds the greatest excitement.

What makes this individual a fascinating person is perhaps not his mind but his heart, which is blessed with some rare qualities. Fundamentally good-natured and kind, he is a humanitarian whose energies are directed toward the alleviation of all unhappiness and evil in this wicked world. He believes firmly in the universal brotherhood of man and detests frontiers of any kind. This is a real citizen of the world, at home in any country and at ease with people from every corner of the earth. True to his magnanimous and sociable nature, he accepts people effortlessly, enjoys their company, and is ready to consider everyone his friend, be the latter a king or a tramp, a minister or a pimp. His tolerance is equaled only by his helpfulness. But all such fine qualities can be somewhat altered by his "counter-qualities." This same soft-hearted native may at one time or another appear strangely distant and indifferent or, worse still, commit injustices and even acts of cruelty. While putting an extremely high value on human contacts, he also extols the virtues of solitude and seclusion. For all his magnanimity, he is not immune from touchiness and vindictiveness.

The typical Monkey man considers himself an honest, aboveboard person and can indeed substantiate his claim most of the time. He usually does his own thing without bothering to see whether society approves or not. He hates hypocrisy and underhandedness with every fiber of his being. Yet it would be inaccurate to affirm that he is a model of straightforwardness. First, if he has the ability to confess error, apologize, or accept criticism gracefully, he is not insensitive to flattery and adulation. Second, he has the deceptive habit of agreeing openly with others while rejecting their ideas in secret. Third, he respects law and authority only as far as his personal security requires it, not out of conviction of consideration for the next fellow. Fourth, his conscience is so elastic and can be so easily satisfied that he has few scruples and tends to make the end to justify the means in all cases. Fifth, he delights in fooling everybody and often uses his extraordinary ability to pull the wool over people's eyes.

What is the most likely to endear this character to many people lies in his exceptional capacity to see the funnier side of life. They practically never run the risk of spending dull moments with him. His great sense of humor very seldom fails him, even in adversity or the worst possible circumstances. Always playful and full of fun, he takes nothing seriously, showing a marked tendency toward removing revered things from their pedestals and laughing at his own person, his own defects and misfortunes. He always has a crowd of jokes and amusing anecdotes up his sleeve, which he distributes generously around him wherever he goes. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to believe him to be a really light-hearted creature. More often than not his play-fulness is used, perhaps unconsciously, to cover up his basic pessimism about human nature. It may be relevant to apply this sentence to his case: "I hasten to laugh about everything, for fear of feeling compelled to weep about it" (Beaumarchais).

The Monkey man's most precious characteristic is indisputably his well-developed common sense. Owing to it he almost never risks to stray far from the Golden Mean — it serves as a parapet to prevent him from indulging in excesses of either good or evil.

Harry Truman: a famous Monkey

It is in the field of love that the Monkey man's paradoxes and contradictions seem to be the most acute. People could rightfully wonder if he ever knows what he wants here. His love life would be less inextricable and happier if he could adopt a definite attitude instead of eternally wavering back and forth.

The root of his sentimental problems lies in his utter incapacity as well as categorical refusal to surrender even a small portion of his independence and personal freedom. On the other hand, his heart, like everybody else's, craves for love and abhors loneliness. With his exuberant character and gentle disposition, he falls in love very easily; yet it would be surprising to see one of his love affairs marked with a reasonable degree of stability.

One of the solutions he usually chooses consists of contenting himself with passing fancies, which, of course, cannot bring him entire satisfaction. He loves sincerely — at least this is what he believes — but will be quick to disengage himself as soon as the object of his love appears to have serious designs on him. It would be unjust to accuse him of fickleness, but his desire to avoid confinement in the institution of marriage is so strong that he treasures bachelorhood as much as he does his own eyesight. Though he can be passionate, his instinct for "self-preservation" rarely fails to intervene in time to cool off his ardor. Consequently, his life is often an endless string of separations and ruptures, which makes him complain bitterly that he never has good luck in love!

His second solution seems equally erratic. It involves love affairs with beautiful, glamorous women who should preferably be inaccessible for one reason or another. In this way he can give full rein to his heart and experience a whole range of thrilling emotions without running the risk of being caught. Married women, understandably, are his prized preys. Whether or not he wants to admit it, he wishes with all his forces to suffer from unrequited love!

His third solution represents an important compromise he may eventually be willing to conclude with reality. It consists of his settling down, on a basis of friendship and complicity, with a woman who should imperatively be intelligent, fun-loving, and fiercely independent-minded herself. This concession of his must be subordinated to the agreement, whether tacit or explicit, that neither party will ever pose as an obstacle of any sort to the other freedom — both partners must feel absolutely free to indulge in infidelity or walk away whenever the fancy takes them. As a rule this man always prefers free union to conventional marriage!

It may not be superfluous to repeat that, to the Monkey-male, there must always exist more friendship than "pure" love in any affair. A girl who projects to capture his heart would find her interest in being to him a companion first and a lover second.

There could hardly be anything he resents more than possessiveness. He will not hesitate to drop a girl the very moment she becomes possessive. In the same vein, he loathes the clinging type of woman. He himself believes jealousy is degrading and can remain perfectly unruffled should he be betrayed or when other men ogle his woman.

Once committed, he may show himself capable of fidelity as long as his personal freedom is not threatened. Although rarely lavish with sentimental demonstrations, he does care for his mate and give her sufficient proof of his affection and devotion. His kind and understanding disposition could heal many emotional wounds he may have unwittingly inflicted on her. As he has no prejudices against the female sex, she will find no reason to complain about his misogyny.

This man has a special predilection for mysterious women. A good way for his mate to retain his interest is never to unveil herself entirely. This is not an authoritarian type of lover. He could not care less if his woman wears the trousers both in the home and in society.

His physical appetites are of the moderate variety for the precise reason that sex constitutes only one facet of his mercurial existence. This does not necessarily imply that he is incapable of sensuousness and charming little romantic idiosyncrasies. He enjoys giving pleasure as well as receiving it. Both foreplay and afterplay are as important to him as the copulatory act itself, for he considers sexual intercourse primarily as a game.

Despite all his affirmations to the contrary, he only feels lukewarm love for children and never appears enthusiastic about having a large family.

Nothing is worse for you than a humdrum life without surprises. You get bored very quickly, and it's why you readily adopt certain eccentric attitudes in order to prove to yourself and others that you don't let yourself stagnate in routine. Therefore, your faithfulness in love is rather shaky. By advocating love without constraints and the suppression of taboos, you are certainly likely to scare off some suitors!

Very charming, you are much sought after as a single man. Of course, you profit fully by this situation, for it allows you to preserve your precious freedom and at the same time not to suffer from loneliness. Indeed, you are most often afraid of engaging yourself, that is, of forgoing your dear independence and freedom of action. Thus you try to preserve your freedom as long as possible.

You do have one reasonable solution, though. It's a friendship and complicity marriage with an intelligent, funny and independent woman, with whom you'll share your couch, but without any obligations for either party and with perfect respect for mutual freedom. In any case, you'll always prefer free love to traditional marriage.

The woman who arouses your reveries is free. She often presents herself under the appearance of a revolutionary. She fights for her ideas and can fall in love only with a brother of arms. This woman is also very often a feminist. You are one of those men who really wish for the liberation of women — for you, women's access to autonomy is not a fashionable claim but a profound conviction. Your ideal woman is also often a scientific, an astronaut leaving for the stars, a technician capable of driving her space ship, or a research worker leant on the secrets of matter. The woman of your dreams can be a forbidden one — perhaps a cousin — or a man. You will not become incestuous or homosexual for that much, but it pleases you to toy with such fantasms.

If the man of your heart is a MONKEY

In the Monkey man, contradictions become inextricable. If he could succeed more often in knowing what he wants, his emotional life would be happier. He loves with sincerity — at least he believes he does. But he's so much afraid of loosing his freedom that when the day comes for an engagement, he finds a thousand pretexts to escape — though he may complain afterwards that he's very unhappy.

So, he'll have a choice between love affairs with no future, charming adventures which won't satisfy him, and impossible relationships with beautiful and inaccessible women. Such women will give him all the emotions that he wants, without his being afraid that they'll pin him down.

He has one reasonable solution, though. It's a friendship and complicity marriage with an intelligent, funny and independent woman, with whom he'll share his couch, but without any obligations for either party and with perfect respect for mutual freedom. In any case, he'll always prefer free love to conventional and bourgeois marriage.

Of the entire Chinese zodiac, the Monkey man is undoubtedly the least misogynous — he's ready to consider as his equal any woman who's worthy of his esteem. But, before finding his white blackbird, he could most likely go through a number of divorces and break-ups!

ADVICE

Even after a couple of years of common life, you can still be surprised by some of your Monkey man's reactions, for he has a multi-faceted personality and is so unpredictable. Original, anticonformist, he rejects restraining social rules and taboos. Don't ask him to lead a conventional life or to care about what people can say.

Also, don't take the risk of awakening his tendency to provocation. Indeed, when he starts provoking, nothing can stop him.

To hold on to this man, who's crazy about independence, try to make his life easier. Free him from material and family worries, refrain from complaining and criticizing. Also, beware of too tight ties, from which he'll sooner or later try to free himself. Maybe it's on this point that you should be most careful if you want to protect your couple, since your Monkey man won't tolerate the slightest violation of his freedom.

The male Monkey ranks among the most talented individuals as far as work capacities are concerned. And when it comes to versatility, he occupies an unchallenged position.

This man can succeed wonderfully in any and all professions if he is sufficiently interested in them. Here lies the basic fact about his abilities: They can be catalyzed exclusively by a keen interest, not by profit, glory, or other considerations. Once he has squeezed all the spice out of a given endeavor, he will simply drop it without regret and start to look for excitement elsewhere. It follows that he is definitely not the one to do well in any routine or repetitive job. Also, though he may enjoy group collaboration due to his natural gregariousness, he needs to be given plenty of rope or, better still, to be his own boss: Without the possibility of moving at his own erratic pace or changing professions whenever he fee1s like it, he would only prove a disheartened and worthless worker.

Given his shrewdness and adroitness as well as his love of independence, the average Monkey man is very good as a handyman or craftsman. His creations always bear the mark of both originality and practicality.

Although not overambitious, the native often finds himself entrusted with "noble" tasks. People seek him out for his discerning intelligence and the sharpness of his judgment. Gifted for brilliant studies — provided he accept the matters taught him — he sometimes covers himself, almost against his will, with an impressive array of diplomas, which naturally lands him in very high and responsible positions.

He is probably the most inventive man beside the Snake. The fields of science and research are therefore wide open to him. He can be a first-rate engineer or technician; he can equally distinguish himself in such disciplines as biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, sociology, or psychology, owing to his passion for theories and his power of vision. As only the future holds real interest to him, it is not rare that he makes himself known as an inventive genius in avant-garde techniques — electronics, space travels, computer science, and so on. Unfortunately, as he always lives ahead of his time, his theories, too revolutionary as they are, rarely fall on receptive ears. He does not care much about it, however, since he gives much more importance to ideas than facts, to projects than realizations. Politics, for this specific reason, should be out of question for him.

As already indicated, material gains are not a prime mover in the Monkey man's life. This observation is nevertheless not meant to mask his undeniable facility for making money, his amazing adroitness in financial deals. It is not impossible for this subject to earn a huge lot of money one day — but only to lose it the next day through gambling or just for the thrill of losing. In general, there is no such queer thing as an entrenched, "bourgeois" Monkey!

This man can fruitfully exploit his deep knowledge of human nature and his skill in human contacts in being a troubleshooter. People would be well-advised to appeal to him if they want to settle disputes or conduct negotiations to the satisfaction of all the parties concerned.

His unique sense of humor helps him be an exceptionally brilliant satirical writer or, at a more modest level, an extremely popular comic or clown.

Despite all their abilities and qualifications, many Monkey men only occupy a marginal place in society as a result of their uncompromising nonconformism and their dogged refusal to work up the ladder. This situation does not bother them in the least, for what really counts for them is that they belong to themselves.