By John Evanishyn
Reporter
If you’ve recently found yourself at one of Tacoma’s common outdoor locations (the Ruston Way Waterfront or Point Defiance) you may have noticed a striking number of people shuffling through bushes and peeking up tree trunks. These aren’t pedestrians going back through parks to scour for their lost phones en masse, these are Tacoma’s avid Monkeyshine hunters.
Monkeyshines are most often dazzlingly colorful glass blown orbs with an imprint of the year’s Chinese Zodiac animal. In the past several years, imprinted glass medallions, tokens and statuettes of the respective zodiac animal have become commonly hidden as well. These shimmering glass objects are hidden around Tacoma on the nights surrounding the Lunar New Year.
The fleet of glass blowers behind the Monkeyshine hunt have always remained anonymous. The first year the glass floats began turning up around the city was in 2003—the year of the monkey. After this first year of only 200 hidden glass orbs, the project and its lore have grown rapidly. 2021 is the year of the ox and 100 glassblowers have worked to create upwards of 2400 works of art.
February 12th marked the beginning of the year of the ox. Even in the days leading up to the holiday, people began to come across ox-themed trinkets on their walks around Tacoma. In the days following, people in great numbers have been finding the glass orbs across the city and posting their finds to the Monkeyshine Tacoma Facebook page. From these posts, two things become abundantly clear. 1.) People often find Monkeyshines when they least expect to. 2.) Having small children search for you drastically increases your chances of bringing an orb home.
Also important to note is though Lunar New Year happened nearly two weeks ago there are still many Monkeyshines to be found. Given the snow that hit the Puget Sound the weekend of the Lunar New Year, the hiding process was delayed. People in a constant stream began posting their Monkeyshine finds February 16th and in the days since.
This year is an especially nice year for this Tacoma tradition given the looming pandemic and the encouragement to spend time with people outdoors and at a distance. Hunting for Monkeyshines is about the best reason to get out of the house on these stormy days in our slow crawl to Spring.
On a final note, the lion statues at Wright Park are an exhausted hiding spot. Groups of people, one after the other, like a human carwash, have been observed cycling through and poking around these lions. If one thing is a given in this year’s search for the Monkeyshine, don’t check the lions. Happy Hunting!
