‘Oxen of the deep with teeth that reap’: Representations and perceptions of sharks in imperial China

Abstract

What can sharks (sha) reveal about how imperial China imagined, feared, consumed and classified the sea? Examining classical glosses, materia medica, local gazetteers, travel accounts, visual albums and late imperial literature on sharks, this article traces the shifting meanings of sha from early textual ambiguity through Song pharmacological classification, Ming narratives of danger and predation, and Qing emphasis on fins, flavour, culinary technique and value. Sharks inhabited not simply the physical ecosystem of the ocean, but also the conceptual space between fear and utility, luxury and maritime knowledge. Once described as ‘oxen of the deep’, such creatures thereby provide an opportunity to link animal studies with maritime history, exploring the ways marine animals shaped human efforts to categorize the ocean, imagine danger at sea, extract commercial weight and construct cultural relationships with marine worlds.