Not far away from the Beijing Railway Station, a remnant of the Ming dynasty capital city stands at the intersection of the East Second Ring Road and a municipal park adjacent to the fragments of the Ming city walls. Passengers often pass by it and they never notice that this is something that is really interesting and has a legend to tell.
It was only in the 19th century that the people of Beijing began to say that a fox spirit haunted the tower, thus giving it a name that endured until the Liberation of 1949.
It is said that fox spirits immensely enjoy human company and have a taste for a dram, or two, of fine spirits fermented from rice and other grains. If a spirit takes too much on board, it can only retain its human guide with an extraordinarily exercise of will. If not, then it gradually resumes a fox appearance.
In Beijing, the Fox Tower was believed to be the home of the King of the Fox Spirits. A tale from 19th century Peking recounts the experience of the tower’s watchman, a lonely widower who worked here at night and as a hawker in the Hademan market during the day in order to make ends meet. The watchman had befriended an elderly man – a master raconteur of stories – who would visit the watchman during his lonesome shift and regale him with stories and poetry. Over the years, the two became close friends, probably resembling the elderly gentlemen that still sit in the animated discussion on the benches in the Ming Wall Relic Park, serenaded by pet larks in their bird cages or fanning themselves briskly in the summer heat.
On a Chinese lunar New Year’s Eve, the watchman invited his old friend to share a ceramic crock of rice wine, much like those still on sale in markets and shops throughout the city. The friend drank deeply of this fine gift and insisted that the watchman accept two pieces of silver as a New Year's gift. The friend exhausted himself in the attempt of overcoming the watchman’s refusal to accept the gift, a strenuous act as can be seen today in the fight between old friends to grab the bill in any Beijing restaurant. After draining the pot, the friend fell asleep. To the shock and amazement of the watchman, his friend transformed into a fox, and then, like the Cheshire cat in Alice’s Wonderland, faded into nothingness.
The next evening, the fox spirit returned in human form, cap in hand, with profound apologies for having alarmed the watchman. He acknowledged that he was the King of the Fox Spirits and promised the watchman that his daily earnings as a hawker would increase every day by the sum of fifty coppers for the following three years, a tidy sum in those days which made for a comfortable retirement for the watchman.
