hi so just found this blog and you seem pretty knowledgeable about Chinese Chinese mythology. I had some questions about Yao guai. A LOT of questions. I’d hope you could answer some of them.
Now from my understanding, yaoguai just means strange beast/monster and could be any malicious supernatural creature. However, in fiction they’re almost always an animal/plant/inanimate object who aquires enough chi (wether passively from living a long time/eating herbs to consciously cultivating) to attain the ability to shapeshift into a human. I think there was this one guy who was a plague yaoguai? In fiction they’re usually portrayed as human animal hybrids but from my understanding yaoguai present as human and can transform into whatever form they want no?
Yaoguai usually seem to take a villainous role, they aren’t all evil (white snake) but they usually are. And there seems to be some bigotry against them? I know in journey to the west they were trying to eat the party and usually eat humans. Do yaoguai of non carnivores also eat humans? If no why are non carnivorous yaoguai seen as evil? The 3 demon girls in Investiture seem pretty eager to start killing people for really no reason. Do all (or most) yaoguai live in random caves and tombs?
In journey to the west, some monsters aren’t cultivated objects but instead heavenly beings who were demoted/escaped to earth, and they all happened to have been or have been transformed into animals (except Sha Wujing). Are these also yaoguai? Were other creatures like naga or Garuda seen as yaoguai?
How does the depiction of Yaoguai of journey to the west differ from the laypersons view of Yaoguai irl at the time? Did ancient Chinese think Yaoguai would kill and eat them while out traveling? Were Yaoguai hunters a thing (irl or in myth, I know some movies explore the idea).
Japan gave their yaoguai their own unique characterizations (namely kitsune and Tanuki yaoguai) is there any cases like that in China besides the fox?
Wooo, this is an interesting question that definitely deserves more digging.
You are right that yaoguais, like Mo, are a pretty flexible category of supernatural critters, whose early identity seems to flunctuate between natural spirits/weird animals/malicious specters.
And indeed, their later characterization, or, as I'd call it, the narrow definition of yaoguai, is overwhelmingly "animal/plants/inanimate objects that have absorbed enough ambience Qi to become sentient".
But when is this connection between yaoguai and Qi first made?
Welp...the first source that comes to my mind is Lunheng, written by a certain Eastern Han philosopher named Wang Chong, who is most famous for his belief that ghosts don't exist.
Part of it is a critique of the cultural practice of "heavy burials" where people bankrupt themselves just so their family members can enjoy lavish grave goods in the afterlife, and part of it is his metaphysical belief.
Basically, humans are sapient because their bodies are imbued with Qi upon birth. When you die, your body rots and the Qi disperses to go back into the natural cycle, and without a physical form, a disembodied cloud of Qi can have neither senses nor sentience.
On the other hand, he thinks that yaoguai totally exists, and when people said they saw ghosts, it was either a result of their own mental activities, or they were actually seeing yaoguais.
According to Wang Chong, yaoguais are born out of abnormalities in the "Qi of the Sun" (太阳之气), and have the same nature as poisonous substances——"Qi that harms people is poison, and Qi that transforms is yaoguai".
And because Eastern Han cosmology also suggested that human order or disturbances in it would be reflected in natural phenomena, yaoguais as well as other strange things would just naturally pop out as omens to impending disasters.
Also in Lunheng, Wang Chong brought up another influential idea that, if something is old enough, its essence will become a person, or, if they can't do that just yet, imitate the human form.
In the subsequent Northern-Southern dynasty, the period where the Zhiguai fiction genre first becomes a thing, the same ideas are repeated in Soushen Ji:
"Yaoguai is essence that is dependent on objects" (妖怪者，盖精气而依物者也).
Basically, they are what happened when ambience Qi gets attached to various things and causes them to transform. Not just inanimate objects, since the same compendium, we also see a few stories about animal yaoguais (foxes and carps).
And when the various Tang legend compendiums were written, the idea that "Living things or inanimate objects that have existed too long are prone to transforming into yaoguais" is firmly in place, though with a twist: there are stories in Taiping Guangji where a regular human who's too darn old can also transform into yaoguais!
And honestly, Tang legends are full of quirky inanimate object yaoguais (rice spoon, porceline pillow, wheel spoke, gambling tools...), with my favorite being a mercury yaoguai. Yep, literal minerals that gain sentience.
The more "human" portrayal of yaoguais who fall in love with humans and aren't just spooky/malicious critters already surfaced in the Tang legends, but personally, I think Qing folklore compendiums are where the humanization of yaoguais really peaked.
But, all in all, most yaoguais of the medieval Zhiguai genre are still a mix of "dangerous wild animals that know magic", "like ghosts, but an animal", "humorous nuisance", and "Heavens WTF is that thing".
And there seems to be some bigotry against them? I know in journey to the west they were trying to eat the party and usually eat humans. Do yaoguai of non carnivores also eat humans? If no why are non carnivorous yaoguai seen as evil?
Again, personal impressions, but I feel like the idea of "prejudice" against yaoguais is something that's applicable only to the overwhelmingly "humanized" yaoguais of Ming-Qing literature.
(There are more than a few stories in Liaozhai where the humans are assholes, and the yaoguai's revenge is completely justified.)
In medieval legends where their characterization still flips wildly between horror story boogeyman, jackass spirits, and a weird thing that happened to someone once, the human characters' treatment of yaoguais are also pretty negative.
JTTW's case is complicated by the fact that its yaoguais are both lively characters AND metaphors for obstacles that stop you from reaching enlightenment, with a dash of social satire.
Through that lens, a yaoguai king that eats people can be three things at once: 1) a character that serves the plot by creating problems for the pilgrims, 2) a personification of a particular sentiment/mental obstacle, and 3) modelled after IRL bandits.
In journey to the west, some monsters aren’t cultivated objects but instead heavenly beings who were demoted/escaped to earth, and they all happened to have been or have been transformed into animals (except Sha Wujing). Are these also yaoguai? Were other creatures like naga or Garuda seen as yaoguai?
I feel like trying to put them into neatly delineated boxes like fantasy species of modern novel is kinda a lost cause——especially when you consider how fluid the boundary between various supernatual beings can be!
Like, a ghost can become a god with enough worship and/or an official appointment. So can yaoguais. A human can cultivate into an immortal. So can yaoguais.
As for nagas and Garuda: they originated from Buddhism, and in both scriptures and syncretized popular religion, they are considered beings of the Path of the Beast. Which yaoguais also fall under.
Were Yaoguai hunters a thing (irl or in myth, I know some movies explore the idea).
Not a specialized profession, no. But if yaoguais or ghosts or whatever are creating troubles for you, you can always pay a Buddhist monk or Daoist priest to deal with it.
(My favorite twist on this idea are Liaozhai stories where the Daoist keep his own yaoguais/ghosts, then sicc them on people after giving prophesies of impending disasters, so that he'll be paid to get rid of the problems he created.)
Japan gave their yaoguai their own unique characterizations (namely kitsune and Tanuki yaoguai) is there any cases like that in China besides the fox?
Welp, I feel like we have a lot of memorable yaoguai *characters* (the JTTW ensemble, Daji, White Snake, etc), but not a lot of iconic species (tho many iconic yokais, like Kappas, can be traced to medieval Chinese compendiums).
I guess the Four/Five Great Immortals (Fox, Weasel, Snake, Hedgehog, Rat) of northern Chinese folk religion are the closest thing we have to species-wide characterization, though foxes and weasels still get the most spotlight.
Also, tiger yaoguais and their ability to command the ghosts of people they've eaten to lure in more victims.
It might have sth to do with the "anything can become a yaoguai if you leave it there long enough" premise, where, well, species just don't stand out as much?
Sidenote: my favorite case of people taking that premise to its logical conclusion comes from an obscure satirical novel called "Battles of the Hundred Yaoguais" (百大妖精斗法) from the late Qing dynasty, which gives us gems such as:
-A traditional one-wheeled cart yaoguai being knocked off a cliff by a motorcycle-riding "Freedom God"
-The cart yaoguai's soul making a complaint to the "Great Centipede King", a train yaoguai, who proceeds to RUN OVER the "Freedom God" as revenge
-The soul of the "Freedom God" goes to space and gets the help of the Car Yaoguai named Moda ("motor")
-An electric fan yaoguai from the...Electric Wind Cave who wielded a "four-leafed banner" (metal fan blades), and the Daoist subdues it by pointing a sword at its engine
-Two separate Opium Yaoguai Kings and a morphine needle treasure
-A whale yaoguai being killed by someone driving a submarine into it
