Tiger earns its stripes as folk hero and role model

Reverence and prowess

Out of a combination of reverence and fear, stories about people singlehandedly killing tigers are often told in historical records and fiction to prove the power of heroes. One of the best-known stories is that of Wu Song from the classic novel The Water Margin, who kills a tiger with his bare hands in a state of alcohol-induced courage.

"The complex image of the tiger is on the one hand determined by the animal's nature, but is also a result of the complexity of human nature,"Zhu said.

"Defeating tigers can allow people to prove their own potency and be written into history. In this sense, tigers can act a steppingstone－thus humans fear tigers, yet possess the desire to defeat them."

As tigers enjoy the highest level of key State protection in China, it is illegal to harm them to prove the existence of human agency. Most people only see tigers in zoos, where their occasionally cute behavior is recorded and spread on the internet, turning them from awe-inspiring wild animals into the "big cats" we know today.

With the Year of the Tiger approaching, a trend has developed of buying children cute tiger knickknacks, so maybe in the future the tiger will become even more of a children's guardian than it already is.

But for today, let us not forget the animal as the king of all beasts, on whom we have for millennia projected our own fears, reverence and ambitions.