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IN a big lake at the top of the sacred Changbai mountain in Jilin province, a strange being rises from the ice-cold water, flashes its hulky body for just a few moments to tease a passer-by, then swims away into the distance at the speed of a motorboat.

  No one has really seen the guaishou, or weird animal, up close, but everyone in this corner of the northeast has an opinion about China's version of the Loch Ness monster.

  Scientists are intrigued, tourists keep their cameras ready for a potentially lucrative photo, and the local travel authorities are rubbing their hands with the prospect of a tourism bonanza.

 Claims of monster sightings, from more than 100 people so far, are taken so seriously in Jilin that at the end of 1993 a Research Association for Queer Animals was set up. Among the 50 members are prominent journalists, television personalities, scientists and travel officials.

  People cannot agree on exactly what the monster looks like, ''but it's definitely not a fish'', said Hou Wei, head of international marketing at the Yanbian Tourism Bureau and deputy chief of the association.

  ''I myself haven't seen it. Too bad,'' he sighed.

 During the final years of the Qing Dynasty at the beginning of this century, four hunters happened upon a golden-coloured monster with a square head as large as a wash-basin, horns and a long neck. As it rose up out of the water, the hunters thought they were seeing a dragon.

  Local people later called the lake ''Dragon Lake''. After the communist revolution, the guaishou was seen in 1962 by Zhou Fengying, a worker at the Jilin Meteorological Bureau, while making a check at the weather station next to Tianchi (Heavenly Pool) Lake, as it is now called, on top of Changbai mountain.

  What Mr Zhou saw, from about 300 metres away, were two black monsters with heads like dogs churning up the water as they spun around the lake.

  In 1980 he had even better luck. That year he ran (Cont'd from Page 1) into seven or eight guaishou that looked like little white pigs and two black ones resembling the beings he had seen 18 years earlier.

 Another weatherman shot at a guaishou that year and then reported it to the Jilin government. Officials had begun to feel a bit protective of their unusual creature and declared shooting weird animals illegal.

 The provincial government soon sent in teams of scientists who spotted what they thought was their objective. But when they brought out their binoculars it was only a wild goose.

  Then the scientists discovered some strange droppings on the bank of the lake, but those turned out to have been left by otters.

 Plenty of people were sceptical. Some Changbai mountain experts called the whole thing nonsense. They argued that the 300-year-old lake, formed after a volcanic eruption in 1702, was far too young to have bred some leftover from the age of dinosaurs.

  They also said the water was so cold that it could not nurture plant or fish life, let alone a monster.

  Some said the guaishou was only a floating stone. Mr Hou said that one strange thing about the lake is that while logs sink to the bottom, for some reason stones float on top.

  Yet, curiosity was aroused. Even the North Koreans decided to send in a team of scientists. They spotted a strange being jump down from a precipice, swim around the lake for more than an hour, and then come out to sun itself. After analysing their photos, the North Koreans concluded the animal was a bear.

  Nevertheless, there are many who swear the thing is some sort of Loch Ness monster. One local publication published a snap-shot of what it referred to as the guaishou, but the picture was so fuzzy and distant that no one can say exactly what it was.

 China has been through monster mysteries before. Manas Lake in northwestern Xinjiang was said to be infested with monsters. But scientists established the monsters were simply a rare species of salmon - about 12 metres long and weighing up to three tonnes - which had formerly been thought to be extinct.

 None of this discourages Mr Hou. Not bothering to hide the Travel Bureau's vested interest, he notes that the more attention the monster gets, the bigger potential for tourism revenues.

      Changbai mountain, the mythical birthplace of the Korean people, gets a mere 26,000 tourists a year, the vast majority of them from South Korea.

  ''If more people know about the monster, it will attract more world scientists - and tourists,'' said Mr Hou.

 ''Sooner or later, someone with a telephoto lens will run into the guaishou and get a good picture,'' he said. ''That will be a lucky day.'' 



Monster tourism boom sighted