From CRIOnline:
In Xinye County of Henan Province, people almost can not survive by farming because of the sandy soil, so many of them keep monkeys to make a living, with monkey performances. They travel out of the province to perform, even as far as to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Burma. Some of them never come back to Xinye since they went away. Monkeys, to those people, are like family members. They depend on each other for a living.