Reading Notes: The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung, Part A
For this week's reading, I chose the story of The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung, as told in The Chinese Fairy Book, edited by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).
Sun Wu Kung is born from a rock, from an egg of stone. He is a stone ape, nourished in the rock by earth, heaven, sun, and moon. He grows up in peace and happiness, playing all day, every day, until he comes across a waterfall and passes through it, discovering a heavenly cave. The other apes make Sun Wu Kung their king due to his discovery. After several hundred years pass, Sun Wu Kung desires immortality and so travels on the sea, coming across a fisherman. The ape learns the ways of man, but does not find the secret to immortality among them, so he sets off again, coming across a singing man who directs him to the saint called the Discerner who proceeds to give the ape his name, Sun Wu Kung. Sun proves to be a difficult student of his new master, but is perceptive. After his master asks him which way Sun wants to learn enlightenment, Sun rejects all of the mentioned ways as none offer immortality. The master pretends to be angry and storms off, but Sun recognizes that the master was secretly telling him to come visit him later, at night, by the back door. Due to his perceptiveness, Sun is taught by the master the way to eternal life, along with an incantation that allows the ape to transform himself 72 times and another incantation that allows him to travel great distances (18,000 miles) in a second.
After Sun proves to be disruptive, the master forces him to leave. Sun returns to the other apes and learns that a devil king has been kidnapping some of them. Sun confronts the devil king, defeats him and frees the apes. He then grows concerned about the low quality weapons of the apes and steals weapons from a human town. Sun grows dissatisfied with the knife he took from the devil king and is told by his apes about a dragon king that could give him a more powerful weapon. The ape king then goes to the dragon king but is dissatisfied with all of the weapons offered to him. The dragon queen, tired of Sun's attitude, has the dragon king led the ape to an underwater measuring rod. Sun makes the rod shrink and brings it up, threatening the dragon king with it in order to extort some armor from him. The dragon king is forced to scrounge up some armor for the ape. Sun then returns to the other apes. In a dream, Sun is dragged down to the nether world, where he terrorizes the ten princes of death and forces them to give him the book of life, from which the ape strikes him name and the names of all of the apes, freeing them from death. In this way, Sun achieves immortality for himself and the other apes.
If I were to rewrite this story, I would chose to write it as a series of reports in the celestial news, detailing the ape king's antics to an intrigued heavenly audience. I think it would be fun to try writing in a reporter-like style and it makes sense that the gods and goddesses and all other supernatural beings who are mentioned in the story (especially in Part B) would want to keep up with news on what all Sun is doing. Sun strikes me as an annoying trouble maker, someone who would give the media quite a lot of scandals to write on. I would probably have to choose just a few of the stories in this section, since doing all of them would be a bit difficult and would be far too long. I could have witnesses give quotes about what they saw relating to Sun and could have Sun himself give a couple statements regarding his activities.
Sun Wu Kung is born from a rock, from an egg of stone. He is a stone ape, nourished in the rock by earth, heaven, sun, and moon. He grows up in peace and happiness, playing all day, every day, until he comes across a waterfall and passes through it, discovering a heavenly cave. The other apes make Sun Wu Kung their king due to his discovery. After several hundred years pass, Sun Wu Kung desires immortality and so travels on the sea, coming across a fisherman. The ape learns the ways of man, but does not find the secret to immortality among them, so he sets off again, coming across a singing man who directs him to the saint called the Discerner who proceeds to give the ape his name, Sun Wu Kung. Sun proves to be a difficult student of his new master, but is perceptive. After his master asks him which way Sun wants to learn enlightenment, Sun rejects all of the mentioned ways as none offer immortality. The master pretends to be angry and storms off, but Sun recognizes that the master was secretly telling him to come visit him later, at night, by the back door. Due to his perceptiveness, Sun is taught by the master the way to eternal life, along with an incantation that allows the ape to transform himself 72 times and another incantation that allows him to travel great distances (18,000 miles) in a second.
After Sun proves to be disruptive, the master forces him to leave. Sun returns to the other apes and learns that a devil king has been kidnapping some of them. Sun confronts the devil king, defeats him and frees the apes. He then grows concerned about the low quality weapons of the apes and steals weapons from a human town. Sun grows dissatisfied with the knife he took from the devil king and is told by his apes about a dragon king that could give him a more powerful weapon. The ape king then goes to the dragon king but is dissatisfied with all of the weapons offered to him. The dragon queen, tired of Sun's attitude, has the dragon king led the ape to an underwater measuring rod. Sun makes the rod shrink and brings it up, threatening the dragon king with it in order to extort some armor from him. The dragon king is forced to scrounge up some armor for the ape. Sun then returns to the other apes. In a dream, Sun is dragged down to the nether world, where he terrorizes the ten princes of death and forces them to give him the book of life, from which the ape strikes him name and the names of all of the apes, freeing them from death. In this way, Sun achieves immortality for himself and the other apes.
If I were to rewrite this story, I would chose to write it as a series of reports in the celestial news, detailing the ape king's antics to an intrigued heavenly audience. I think it would be fun to try writing in a reporter-like style and it makes sense that the gods and goddesses and all other supernatural beings who are mentioned in the story (especially in Part B) would want to keep up with news on what all Sun is doing. Sun strikes me as an annoying trouble maker, someone who would give the media quite a lot of scandals to write on. I would probably have to choose just a few of the stories in this section, since doing all of them would be a bit difficult and would be far too long. I could have witnesses give quotes about what they saw relating to Sun and could have Sun himself give a couple statements regarding his activities.
Photo of golden snub-nosed monkeys (found in China), taken by Jack Hynes. Source: Flickr
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