In this chapter, the reader explores different stages in the history of zoology within the Chinese and Japanese traditions. Since many of the animal descriptions in the subsequent chapter’s translations contain unusual concepts of animal perception in Chinese and Japanese culture, it is beneficial to investigate how humans acquired knowledge of non-human animals and the main motivation behind this. In China, the approach stemmed from ancient Chinese lexicons such as the Erya and aimed to classify beings based on human and moral analogy, fitting them into a larger cosmic order rather than analysing them as physical entities with distinct biological systems. In an additional subchapter, Japan will be presented as a potential special case in the development of natural history. Since the country’s borders were closed to Western powers at the beginning of the Edo period, the transmission of Western knowledge was limited, allowing Chinese tradition to dominate Japanese zoology, with the Bencao Gangmu serving as its primary source.