Shan Hai Jing: The 2,000-Year-Old Monster Manual

When the lights on the Nine-Turn Bridge flicker on, the entire lake transforms into a flowing sea of stars. The lights are not stationary — they pulse gently with the rhythm of the music, casting long ribbons of light across the water. You stand on the bridge and watch a creature — round as a ball, with six legs and four wings — slowly "rise" from the water's surface. Its eyes are two tiny red lightbulbs, and golden patterns ripple across its wings. This is Dijiong, the "perfectly round" mythical beast recorded in the Shan Hai Jing, now "coming alive" in Shanghai — passing through two thousand years of time.

You scan a QR code with your phone, and a silver-blue Yinglong dragon roars out from your screen, its whiskers floating in the night sky, trailing fire-like effects. Around you, tourists softly gasp "so beautiful," while others simply stand in silence, smiling. There is also an AI mythical beast "FeiFei" providing smart navigation services — this round little creature will tell you the story of every mythical beast, from Nine-Tailed Fox to Dijiong, like an expert guide. At that moment, the imagination from two thousand years ago and modern lighting technology meet in the same place — and this is only the beginning.

Yuyuan Lantern Festival — mythical beasts "resurrected" in light and water

This is the power of the Shan Hai Jing — a book written two thousand years ago that still amazes people today. This article will tell you not only why this book is so magical, but also something even more exciting: the mythical beasts and wonders recorded in its pages have transformed from words into real, touchable experiences that you can be part of.

If you think the Shan Hai Jing is just a "Chinese ancient mythology story book," prepare to be surprised. This book is not the product of some author's imagination in a study — it may be one of the world's earliest "encyclopedias" — recording 550 mountains, 300 waterways, over 100 states, and nearly 5,000 mythical beasts. From mythological legends to geographic products, from medicinal plants to ritual ceremonies, everything ancient Chinese people could imagine was included in its 31,000 characters.

Even more surprising — the geographic information recorded in the book has later been proven not entirely fictional. The Tiantai Mountain in Rizhao, Shandong, is recorded in the Shan Hai Jing as "Tanggu" — the place where the sun rises. Today, ancient sun worship relics have indeed been discovered there. A book that Sima Qian called "dare not speak of" actually contains real geographic secrets.

The book was gradually compiled from the late Warring States period through the Han Dynasty, by authors of multiple eras, and to this day, the author remains unknown. It is not a "storybook" — it is a record of the boundaries of how ancient Chinese people understood the world, a mixture of ancient imagination and geographic observation.

The mythical beasts in the Shan Hai Jing are not simply "monsters" — they are inhabitants of a complete worldview. They are not side characters — they are the protagonists.

The Nine-tailed Fox lives on Qingqiu Mountain. It has nine tails, and its cry sounds like a baby's wail. The book says eating its flesh can ward off evil — but the Nine-tailed Fox gradually transformed from an "auspicious beast" to a "demon fox" in later legends — a cultural evolution in itself. Dijiong presents another picture — perfectly round like a ball, with six legs and four wings, no facial features, yet able to jump like a ball in the air. It was the music god of the Yellow Emperor, bringing celestial music to the human world.

Nine-tailed Fox — cultural transformation from auspicious beast to "demon fox"

Yinglong is the "superhero" of the mythical beast world — the most powerful dragon in Chinese mythology, having helped the Yellow Emperor defeat Chi You and assisted Yu the Great in flood control. With golden scales and enormous wings, every appearance brings wind and rain. Yinglong's image gradually evolved into the typical representation of the Chinese dragon — you can see Yinglong's shadow in every dragon dance at Chinese festivals today.

Yinglong — beast that helped the Yellow Emperor and Yu the Great

These mythical beasts are not isolated — they have relationships and stories, together forming a vivid fantasy universe. The Shan Hai Jing is not a mythical beast catalog — it is a "chronicle" of the ancient world. Those mountains, waters, beasts, and myths together weave the earliest imaginative world of the Chinese nation.

The Shan Hai Jing should not stay only on paper. Starting from 2023, the Shanghai Yuyuan Lantern Festival launched the annual theme IP "Shan Hai Qi Yu Ji" (Mountain-Sea Wonder Record), using the Shan Hai Jing as its blueprint, transforming the beasts in the book into massive, glowing, moving installations in reality. The 2026 fourth season "Wilderness Chapter" theme is "Riding Dreams as Horses, Blooming Flowers in Wilderness" — the lantern festival expanded beyond Yuyuan for the first time to BFC Bund Financial Center, Old City Park, and the Bund, forming a new "six-districts-as-one" pattern.

The Nine-Turn Bridge area's theme is "Horses Leaping Across the Galaxy, Chasing Dreams in the Heavens" — the lake surface transforms into a star sea, the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions light up according to their positions, and Shan Hai Jing mythical beast lantern groups like Dijiong and Jiliang gallop among the stars. The central square's "Galloping Nine Provinces, Stepping into Flowers" main lantern group, inspired by the "Six Magnificent Horses of the Flourishing Tang," has thousands of flowers blooming beneath horses' hooves every evening when the lights turn on.

"Shan Hai Qi Yu Ji" — bringing Shan Hai Jing to life through lanterns

AR interaction is the biggest surprise of the lantern festival — scanning a code summons animated effects of mythical beasts like Yinglong, FeiFei, and Jiao flying out from the phone screen, the combination of myth and technology makes young people ecstatic. The festival also introduced AI mythical beast "FeiFei" for smart navigation services, plus interactive experiences like AI photography, "VR Fantasy, Crossing Mountains and Seas," and "Digital Lantern Riddles."

This IP has already gone abroad — the 2024 Paris lantern exhibition attracted nearly 200,000 local tourists, 2025 saw it enter Bangkok, Thailand, as a key event for the 50th anniversary of China-Thailand diplomatic relations, and it also lit up Hanoi, Vietnam. An ancient Chinese book from two thousand years ago is being rediscovered by young people worldwide through lantern festivals.

Beyond the lantern festival — the "Shan Hai Jing" blind box toys reimagine mythical beasts in palm-sized cute forms, their round figures dissolving the distance of these divine creatures, sold to 18 countries worldwide. "Shan Hai Jing: Illustrated Guide to Chinese Mythical Beasts" has been published in Arabic, Turkish, Thai and other overseas editions.

The Yuyuan Lantern Festival is not the only Shan Hai Jing experience. In two other corners of China, you can walk into this book in different ways.

Tiantai Mountain in Rizhao, Shandong, is the real location of "Tanggu" from the Shan Hai Jing — the book records this as the place where the sun rises. The mountain gets its name from records in the Shan Hai Jing and Bamboo Book Chronicles. In 2025, the Shan Hai Jing Mythical Beast Sculpture Theme Park officially opened here. 100 sculptures of various mythical beasts come into view — some standing proudly, others hidden among the trees. After three years of researching ancient texts, sculptors used metal, fiberglass, and car paint techniques to three-dimensionally present over 100 mythical beasts described in the Shan Hai Jing.

The "Shan Hai Jing Cultural Leisure Trail" in Dalian offers another experience. This 1,200-meter light trail is located in the Eastern Port Tourist Resort area, with 7 large three-dimensional picture book art installations presenting mythical beasts like Nine-tailed Fox and Golden Crow, along with myths like Gonggong Breaking the Mountain and Nuwa Mending the Sky. During the day you can appreciate the exquisiteness; at night it becomes even more magical — when the lights turn on, the entire trail feels like a time tunnel through the mythical world.

Dalian Shan Hai Jing Trail — 1,200m light myth tunnel

A book written two thousand years ago — how can it still make people "wow" today? Because it is not just a book — it is a living fantasy world. The mythical beasts from the pages glow at the lantern festival, stand in sculptures, and run on light trails. The "Tanggu" from the pages waits for you on the real hills of Rizhao, and the constellations from the pages light up again on the Nine-Turn Bridge in Yuyuan.

English editions of the Shan Hai Jing have been translated into Arabic, Turkish, Thai and other languages. Overseas readers marvel at the imagination in this book. Sarah Abbacchino, a British publisher, said after seeing the "Shan Hai Jing: Illustrated Guide to Chinese Mythical Beasts" at a book fair: "This is really magical, absolutely incredible. I sincerely hope all the world's children can see what I just saw."

So when you plan your next trip to China, please add the Shan Hai Jing to your list. You don't need to read this ancient book first, you don't need to understand classical Chinese — all you need is to walk onto the Nine-Turn Bridge in Yuyuan, stand among the hundred beast sculptures on Tiantai Mountain, or step onto the light trail in Dalian. That two-thousand-year-old imagination will find you on its own.

Because some stories are not worn away by time — they simply "come alive" again and again, in new forms.