Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian has 2 cats

The Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines, Huang Xilian, has 2 cats, Ding Ding and Yuan Yuan. They are both grey. One of them, who I believe is Ding Ding has partially folded ears which indicates to me that this cat carries the Scottish Fold gene or a variant of it. The ambassador adopted both cats in the Philippines during the pandemic. 

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian has 2 cats.
This is one of them possibly Ding Ding.

He adopted them as kittens. He took them to a veterinarian to have them checked thoroughly. He says there now strong and healthy. They love each other but sometimes they fight and are a bit naughty. He likes their company during his work and he finds them comforting. He said the work hard during the pandemic.

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian has 2 cats. This is 
possibly Yuan Yuan.

He wants cat lovers to guess which cat is called Ding Ding in which cat is called Yuan Yuan. I haven't got an idea about that! The Chinese word "Yuan" is the currency in China. I checked out what Ding means in Chinese. It's a family name humans and there are just two strokes to it when writing it in Chinese. Someone Facebook said it means (round) in English. I read that it means strong. I'm no nearer to figuring out which name fits which cat. I have guessed.

Huang Xilian should be screaming from the rooftops for the cat cruelty that takes place in China's cat meat markets to stop immediately. It is horrible behavior and it is time it stopped. How can he love cats and be silent about this damnable market where tens of thousands of cats and dogs are brutally killed annually for meat because they belive that the flesh has some medicinal qualities. It is pure bullshit.

Chartreux Cat Was Long Haired?

A show cat judge, John Jennings, of around 1900 in England describes "The French".  He writes that at the time this was a breed of "long-haired cats perpetuated for some centuries..bred by the Chartreuse monks". The coat he describes as "exceedingly long and wonderfully silky". He compares the coat to that of the Persian and Angora.

Apparently at the time the Chartreuse monks were known to have carried out experiments in breeding and crossing of domestic animals. Perhaps the monks were some of the first cat breeders involved in selective breeding.

What is interesting is that the Chartreux is a fairly well known short haired purebred cat that looks similar to the blue British Shorthair. The "French" was "coloured chiefly blue". In modern English the cats were mainly blue in color and blue means grey to people outside the cat fancy.

Conclusion: We have an established cat show judge of the turn of the 20th century century writing a book that is published in 1901 in which he describes a grey long haired cat breed that was bred for centuries by monks in Chartreuse. Sounds like the Chartreux to me only the length of the fur is at the opposite ends of the spectrum  to the Chartreux we have today (2012).

Has anyone heard of this before? It seems to contradict the usual story of the history of this breed. It is particular interesting because we are told that French breeders have been at pains to maintain the true appearance of this cat over the centuries.

Notes: (1) The book referred to is DOMESTIC AND FANCY CATS A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THEIR VARIETIES, BREEDING, MANAGEMENT AND DISEASE (1901) ISBN 9781164623557 - page 14.

(2) Chartreuse is in the south east of France, near Lyon as far as I am aware.

Grey Cat Rafael

Rafael - a rescue cat living in Brazil

This is a gorgeous cat and a fine photograph. Firstly, I like the colours. Rafael is blue, well that is a cat fancy term that actually means a blue-grey which is the result of the dilute gene (dd) turning black grey. The grey cat has to to homozygous for this gene as it is a recessive gene. The grey is nicely offset by the pink ears. They are pink because they are back lit, the light is coming through them.

This is a nice active photograph too. Rafael is walking purposefully towards his target! His eyes are set firmly ahead. He is a young cat judging by the size, expression and his whiskers that look quite fine.

There are a group of cats that I call the grey cat breeds. The only colour that these cats can be is the colour that you see above - blue-grey. The best known of this select group is the Chartreux, a traditional French purebred cat with a long and distinguished history and a connection to monks and the Christian Crusades.

The photographer is Giane Portal, Flickr name: fofurasfelinas, a name I can never type without pausing! She lives in San Paolo, Brazil (I think it is San Paolo), which I have just read is a violent city where youths carry machine guns and pistols openly and in defiance of the police who seem not to care or who cannot cope. Against this backdrop Giane takes the best amateur cat photographs anywhere.



From to Home Page

Benedictine Cat

This is the name of a monk who turned cat burglar - just joking. The Benedictine cat is a long haired Chartreux. The Chartreux is a natural and well established cat breed of some antiquity I think it fair to say. Read about and see the best pictures (no kidding) of the Chartreux by clicking on this link: Chartreux cat. Or see a video if you're feeling lazy: Chartreux video.

So if one talks about the Benedictine cat we can in fact talk about the Chartreux cat as the only difference is that the Benedictine has a recessive gene, acquired from the Persian cat (with which the breed was mated) that produces a long haired cat, on occasions...

Update May 2012: A book dated 1901 by a show cat judge (John Jennings), DOMESTIC AND FANCY CATS A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THEIR VARIETIES, BREEDING, MANAGEMENT AND DISEASE (1901), refers to the "The French". This cat is written about as if it is the Chartreux except that it is a long haired cat. "In France a breed of long-haired cats have been perpetuated from some centuries and the name 'French' has been given to a variety indigenous to the country". The author goes on to describe a cat bred by the Chartreuse monks, which has a "wonderfully silky" coat that is "exceedingly long". He writes that the coat hints at a Persian/Angora combination.  The color is "chiefly blue". He says the monks sold the cats for a good profit but the cats were sterile ("failed in reproduction"). He speculates that the cats were altered (neutered or spayed). That begs the question whether the Chartreux was a long haired cat originally.


Chartreux Cat - this is a shorthaired but dense haired cat - photo by EugeniusD80

The Chartreux is a splendid looking cat with an appearance similar to the other grey cat breeds, the Korat, Russian Blue and Nebelung. Although the Nebelung has long hair so I would expect the Benedictine would look more like a Nebelung if that makes sense. Why I am describing the cat in words? Simple. There are no pictures.

It seems that when the Persian long haired gene was introduced to improve eye color (gold/copper colored now) in the Chartreux, some breeders thought that they might as well set up a new breed out of what was probably an unforeseen accident. The new breed was experimental. Perhaps it still is?

As this experimental breed originates in the UK, perhaps the type of Persians used were doll face Persians and in any event the Chartreux is very much a "regular" looking cat breed so the Persians would have to be Traditional Persians.

As there are no pictures of a Benedictine cat we can imagine this cat by showing pictures of both a Chartreux cat (above) and a Doll Face Persian (below).


Silver Traditional Persian cat - photo by slight clutter

Finally, why the Benedictine cat? Well, the Chartreux has a connection with monks and the Benedictine monks are fairly well known so the connection between the cat and monks is retained in the Benedictine. The original connection came from the myth (not sure) that Carthusian Monks brought the Chartreux cat (not a Chartreux cat at that time, of course, just a nice stocky grey cat) with them when they settled in France in the Chartreuse region. The cat was named after the region were the monks settled.

Benedictine Cat to Chartreux cat

Photos published under a creative commons license - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License.

Grey Cat Breeds

Photo of Nebelung Cat Lovenblues Mozart Bronikowski
copyright © Helmi Flick – please respect copyright.

The Nebelung has a medium-long silky and fine blue/grey coat, with a plumed tail. This photo illustrates that nicely. 

Nebelung Male - Aleksandrva n Song de Chine. Photo: Wikipedia (2007).

The cat above is a 4 year old male (at time of the photo) and an international champion. His name is Aleksandr van Song de Chine. I presume the photo was taken by the person he lives with, Anke Zekveld. Anke has a cattery. The website is www.nebelung.nl. If I am not mistaken it is based in the Netherlands. Aleksandr is a fine cat of the grey cat breeds. And he has a lovely character too.

Grey Cat Breeds is a Google search term that I just picked up on my travels over the Internet. Some people like grey cats (or gray cats). There are a few cat breeds that have to be blue/grey, otherwise they are not a cat of that breed. Pretty tough criteria.

Here's a list with pictures and links of the grey cat breeds (are there some more?). The pictures are by amateur photographers of their cat companions. Some of the cats are relatively rare. For example, the Nebelung comes to mind in this category. There are links below the photographs to the best professional photographs, by, who else, Helmi Flick.

Nebelung


Nebelung cat photo copyright V La under CC

The color of this cat has to be blue (I would call it bluish grey, that's why he's in this post!). Go to a full description and a professional photo (Helmi Flick) by clicking on this link. You can see how this cat ranks with other cat breeds in terms of rarity by clicking here. You'll find that this cat is pretty rare still despite the fact that the breed was created in 1984 and developed with great determination by Cora Cobb. This cat is essentially a long haired Russian Blue. They were breed in parallel in Russia over the period Cora was developing the breed in the USA.

Chartreux

Photo: Helmi Flick.

This cat breed has a long and distinguished history, during which cat breeders are now intent on preserving the purity of this breed. The breed comes from France. See and read more (plus professional photos) by clicking on this link. The Chartreux is more or less the same as the British Blue cat. As is the case for the Nebelung the only color is the one you see - blue/grey.

Russian Blue


Russian Blue Cat photo ©Sensual Shadows Photography

The Russian Blue is another cat that has got to be blue/grey to be part of this breed and is therefore one of the grey cat breeds. As the name clearly suggests this cat originates in Russia, specifically the north of Russia, near the Norwegian Border from a town called Archangel. I am not altogether convinced of this fact. It would seem that some cat breed histories are "glossed up" a bit to make the cat more desirable. Cynical or just sensible? See more on this cat.

Korat

Korat cat - photo copyright Nick Hodge

The Korat cat primarily has one color, the one you see in the photo. However, of these four breeds the Korat is the only one that can also be found in lilac or pointed coat. I have selected the Korat because by convention it is considered to be a grey breed.

All these cats carry the genotype to produce the grey coloration, which is aaB-dd. The symbol dd represents a pair of dilution genes; aa represents the non-agouti gene (self black) and B- represents the brown gene (producing black to brown and chocolate etc. in more dilute forms). Read and see a lot more on the Korat cat (stays on this website).

There is one more cat breed that need not necessarily be blue/grey (many colours and patterns are allowed) but which looks great in grey and is often grey, and that is the British Shorthair. This is one of my favorite cats and is in the top 10 of the most popular cat in the pictures-of-cats.org website poll. Helmi Flick has two British Shorthairs.

In addition to these mainstream cat breeds there are two rare grey cat breeds: Madura Blue and Cuban Blue. I don't have photographs of these breeds. The Madura comes from the Madura and Ra’as Islands, Indonesia. The Cuban Blue is what is called “under development”. This means not yet accepted by the US cat associations as at the date of this updated section (August 2014). It is registered with a Cuban cat association: Associación Cubana de Aficionados a los Gatos (Acag).

The "Maltese Cat" refers to any random bred cat or cat of unknown breed with primarily grey fur. This comes from the belief that cats on the island of Malta are often grey haired cats.

Sources:

• Robinson's Genetics for Cat Breeders and Veterinarians and Sarah Hartwell

From Grey Cat Breeds to Home page