The lion is a special animal to the Chinese people. A pair of stone lions, a male and a female, can often be seen in front of the gates of traditional buildings. The male lion is on left with his right paw resting on a ball, and the female lion is on the right with her left paw fondling a cub. The ball played by the male lion symbolises unity of the empire, while the cub with the female symbolises thriving of offsprings.

The stone lions were also used to indicate the ranks of officials by the number of lumps of curly hair on the head of the lion. The houses of first-grade officials had lions with 13 lumps and the number of lumps decreased by one as the rank of the official went down each grade. Officials below the seventh grade were not allowed to have stone lions in front of their houses.

It is interesting to note that China had no lions initially. It is believed that when Emperor Zhang of the Eastern Han reigned in AD 87, the King of Parthia presented a lion to him. Another lion was given by a Central Asian country known as Yuezhi in the next year. The earliest stone lions were sculpted in the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 AD – 220 AD) with the introduction of Buddhism into ancient China. In the Buddhist faith, the lion is considered to be a divine animal of nobleness and dignity, which can protect the Truth and keep off evils.

The expression on the face of this female stone lion at Nanjiao Park caught my attention - not fearsome as typically, but with its head tilted backwards, its jaws partially open with tongue sticking out, and a melancholy look on the face…