Zhang Jianxing, 62, has been combing the ancient forest of the Shennongjia National Reserve for two decades in search of the mythical Yehen or Chinese Yeti, and he assures that he will not give up until he comes face to face with an unusual creature.
Zhang began living as a hermit in a 3,200-square-kilometer nature reserve in 1994 after he got carried away with the search for Yehen, a humanoid creature over 180 cm tall and covered in thick reddish-brown fur. A search for primary sources on the so-called Chinese wild man leads us to the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC) and the works of the poet and statesman Qu Yuan, who mentioned the existence of this mysterious creature in the pristine forests of Shennongjia, Hubei province.
Every 10 months of the year, for the past 22 years, Zhang Jianxing has lived in the heart of Shennongjia National Forest, hoping to stumble upon Yehen. Dressed in camouflage military gear and armed with a SLR camera, he is constantly looking for clues about the creature's whereabouts. In his opinion, Yezhen is more than just an old myth, it is a whole science that he studied for a very long time.
Jianxing claims to have amassed enough evidence of a wild man - over 100 hair samples and 3,000 photographs of large footprints - adding that he even came close to seeing him at least 19 times. And he is not alone in his beliefs. The Association for the Study of the Wild Man, yes, there is one, shows reports from the stories of more than 400 local residents who met the mysterious creature.
Without any concrete evidence to support the existence of a wild man, most scientists consider him nothing more than a legend. "There is no wild man in this world," said Zhou Guoxing, a former director of the Beijing Museum of Natural History and a paleontologist in 2012 who visited all the places where traces of the appearance of a wild man in China were allegedly found. “I have studied everything about wild man, including hair, skulls and various specimens. All of them turned out to be dyed with human hair or with the hair of monkeys and bears."
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Guoxing also added that local authorities in Hubei province are spreading rumors about Yehen to boost their tourism revenues. In 2012, Shennongjia Sanctuary signed an agreement with Beijing to promote holidays for yeti hunters.
But the stubborn Zhang Jianxing is convinced that one day he will prove to scientists the wrongness of their judgments and provide undeniable proof of the existence of Yehen. It's just a matter of time for him.