A monkey’s face drawn as a mandala, with every part of it — the mane, the brow, the muzzle — filled with leaf shapes, spirals and fine hatching. It is a page for people who like slow, absorbing work: take one section at a time and let the pattern build up. Free to download and print, no registration needed.
🗣 Conversation Starters — for care activities and family time
Have you seen the news pictures of monkeys bathing in a hot spring?
What is the funniest thing you have watched a monkey do at a zoo?
Was anyone here born in a Year of the Monkey?
Do you remember the old tales with monkeys in them — The Crab and the Monkey, or Momotaro?
Is the Japanese monkey the northernmost monkey in the world?
It is. The Japanese macaque, known abroad as the snow monkey, lives further north than any other primate apart from ourselves. At Jigokudani Monkey Park in Nagano the troop bathes in the hot spring right through the winter, and the sight has been filmed by news crews from all over the world.
What does the proverb “even monkeys fall from trees” mean?
Saru mo ki kara ochiru — “even monkeys fall from trees” — means that even a master of the craft comes unstuck sometimes. English says much the same thing with “even Homer nods.” It is offered as a gentle caution against overconfidence rather than as mockery.
What sort of year is the Year of the Monkey said to be?
The Monkey is the ninth sign of the East Asian zodiac, and people born under it are said to be lively, quick-witted and good at getting things done. In Japanese the word saru also sounds like the verb “to leave,” so the year is spoken of as a lucky one in which bad fortune departs.
