A male chimpanzee in Chongqing washes a shirt using soap and a scrub brush after observing zookeeper do her laundry. Photo: Screenshot from video by WEVIDEO.

A curious chimpanzee at a zoo in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality seems to have learned to wash clothes with a bar of soap and a scrub brush after watching a zoo keeper do her laundry. 

The zookeeper at Leheledu Zoo, surnamed Xu, said she noticed the curious primate intently observing her scrubbing her clothes in basin. She decided to leave a T-shirt, soap and brush beside a small pool of water in the animal's enclosure, just to see what would happen. 

"I never intended to teach him, but he watched me nonstop so I wondered if he would do it on his own," said the zookeeper. 

Video shows the chimp wandering over to the shallow in-ground pool and after puzzling over the items for a few moments, he picks up the soap and T-shirt and starts imitating how he had seen the zookeeper scrub her clothes.

A female chimp is seen casually sitting on top of a nearby trellis, indifferently watching her mate. 

The video posted by WEVIDEO has received four million views. 

"Can I send my husband to this zoo? He loves to watch housework but does less than this chimp," wrote a netizen. 

Some pet owners were also jealous and asked the zookeeper for help. "I wish my pet could be trained to pick up its own poop and brush the carpet for me," was another humorous comment.  

WEVIDEO