The monkeys and the men

 The monkeys and the men story

Long, long ago. There were many monkeys living in the forest around Chiengmai. Hunters used to go there from Bangkok to catch them. Some were sold to zoos, some to people who wanted them as pets, and others to people who liked monkey soup.

One day, a hunter caught many monkeys in his traps. They were all screaming and making a loud noise except one who sat very quite. “He must be a very unusual monkey.” The hunter said to himself, “I’ll keep him for myself.”

He sold all the other monkeys and kept this one in a big wooden cage in his house. He was very proud of him. When his friends came to visit him, he showed them the monkey. The monkey always sat very quietly in a corner of the cage.

“He’s very polite and well-behaved,” said his friends. “He’s like a human being. Why don’t you let him out of the cage? We’re sure he won’t run away.”

The hunter did this. As soon as he opened the door of the cage. The monkey ran away to the jungle at the back of the hunter’s house. He soon met some other monkeys. They were interested in him, as a monkey who had been caught by hunter seldom returned.

“What happened?” they asked him. “What was it like living in the monkey hunter’s house?”

The monkey scratched his head and ate a banana before replying to them. “I lived in a cage,” he said. “I had a good chance to watch the hunter and his friends very closely. First of all, they talk a lot. They all talked at the same time. Some of them played silly games. They threw away food they didn’t eat and left it lying around.”

The monkey’s new friends did not want to hear any more. They expected the monkey would tell them something more interesting. They started chatting among themselves and eating bananas and throwing away the skin. Some chased their own tails and scratched their heads.

“Wait,” the monkey called to them. “I haven’t finished yet.”

“we don’t want to hear any more,” the other monkeys said.

“The hunter and his friends don’t seem to be any different from us.”