is a famous Taoist mountain in China with many temples and nunneries. The mountain is also famous for the odd shapes of its huge, smooth rocks.

A bird's eye view of the Yellow sea in Laoshan district, Qingdao city

Recently, residents living near the mountain have found that several monkeys have been frequently showing up on the mountains, sometimes even begging for food from tourists.

"Monkeys began to ask food from us five or six years ago, and they won't let us go if we give nothing," said Mr Su, a resident living nearby. "Some people say these monkeys have a master because we can see strangling scars on their necks."

A monkey on Laoshan Mountain begs for food from a visitor.

However, most residents in the Laoshan area of Qingdao city have never seen the monkeys, and some even arrange a trip to Laoshan Mountain to see the monkeys. "I often climb Laoshan Mountain, but I have never seen [the monkeys] before. At first I didn't believe it when I heard that there are wild monkeys on the mountain, so I came here. I brought them some food since winter is coming," said a man named Liu.

Although some people find it quite interesting to have monkeys on the mountain, community dwellers nearby don't feel the same way. Mr Wang at the Big Stone Village said, "They are cute, but they are nothing more than animals. This year in another village, someone was hurt by one of the monkeys. So usually we dare not to interrupt them even if we see them stealing food."

"These monkeys come to our village for food in the winter. It's still not too cold now, so I haven't seen any of them this winter," a villager living at Nanjiushui village told this reporter on Nov 30. "Even if we found them we won't drive them away. Instead, we would throw some food at them."

"Monkeys have long been living on Laoshan Mountain, and now they've become the hosts of the mountain. Every year in winter when there is not enough food they will come downhill to 'rob' food from us. But I have never heard of any monkey hurting someone in our village, and we all like these cute creatures," said Mr Wang in Hehan village.

Some villagers assume that these monkeys are Emei Monkeys. "There were no monkeys at all on Laoshan Mountain a few years ago. In 2004, the management office of the scenic area bought some home-raised monkeys from Emei Mountain in Sichuan province. But later some biting incidents occurred, and tourists made lots of complaints. So most of those monkeys were kept under control, but still some of them escaped. And these monkeys might be the offspring of those escaped ones," said a staff member at the entrance of the Laoshan Mountain scenic area.

Some say these monkeys are from the Birds Forest, an ecological park in the Laoshan area. However, a spokesperson at the park told this reporter in a phone call, "No, we keep all our own monkeys in the park. Those monkeys couldn't be ours."

Meanwhile, some locals say that several years ago, a few monkey men brought monkeys to Qingdao to earn money. When they found that monkey performances in Qingdao couldn't earn them a living, they set the monkeys free on Laoshan Mountain, and now these monkeys have reappeared, maybe with their offspring.

By Audrey and Chen Zhilin