Concluding post: Journey to the West
I really enjoyed blogging about my favorite novel Journey to the West and have gained a lot of insights from this project. My enduring fascination on this story world really comes from the different adaptions I read during different stages of my life - I started out knowing this story world through the 1982 TV shows when I was in kindergarten; then I read the comic books and the children version of the book in elementary school. It was only until grade 11 that I finished reading the original novel.
I was surprised that I had a completely different feeling reading/watching various adaptions vs the original book – partly because the TV shows and other adaptions selected the most exciting and intense parts of the novel, and partly because when I watched Journey to the West as a child, I firmly believe in the story world the author constructed, and had a lot more my own imagination on the story. But now, when I go back and revisit the original novel for the blog post, I see it more as a great classical novel in Chinese literature that requires me to analyze and have some deep thinking on the plot design, opening poems, how are certain elements related to buddhism, whether the author is satirizing the political system and society back then. The satisfaction I get from reading it just for fun versus gaining insights and enlightenment after serious interpretation and analyzation, are different but equally fulfilling.
I didn’t pay too much attention to the gender when I first read this story world. But I do remember some of the demons I really don’t like, lady white bone (白骨精) and spider spirits (蜘蛛精) are female, while two of my favorite characters, Guanying Pusa (观音菩萨) and the King of Nverguo(女儿国国王) are also female. As a child, I think I focused more on whether the character is good or bad, rather than the gender. The fox spirit and demons in the Journey to the West reminds me of Pu Songlin’s Liaozhai (聊斋志异), where in his work, there are also many female fox spirits and demons; in his story, the identity does not matter, whether it is a human, a ghost or a fox spirit, their virtues will be rewarded, and vice will be punished.
Journey to the West is probably the most popular one out of the “Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature”, and has the most adaptions. I believe it is mostly because of the character of the Monkey King, who is a symbol of rebellious spirit. He is a hero fighting for freedom, but eventually he has to compromise and becomes one in the system; many great movies and songs focus on this controversy.
My favorite movie adaption is A Chinese Odyssey (大话西游) that came out in 1995, which focuses on the character of the Monkey King, with the hallucinatory time-traveling narrative including a most unlikely rendition of The Platters’ Only You; near the end of Part Two, the fairy Zixia sacrifices her life to save her great love, the Monkey King, who in turn regrets discovering too late his own feelings for her. The theme song “Yishen Suoai” (一生所爱 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h46F_sQVLjI) is a classic. Another song focusing the complexity of the character of the Monkey King is called “Wu Kong”(悟空); the song is unique in arguing that the Monkey should follow his heart, and going through the eighty-one calamities and being the buddha wouldn’t be satisfying or enlightening for the Monkey if he loses the freedom.
Two more thongs on Wukong that I really enjoyed:
Qi Tian Da Shen (齐天大圣) – Hua Chenyu
Qi Tian (齐天) – Hua Chenyu
One thing I really want to explore more is how the language affects the story world, especially when it is translated from Chinese to English. For example, in western philosophy, people see things through dualism, which is a vertical disjunction between evil and good, damnation and salvation while in Chinese philosophy, the dualistic structure, such as yin and yang is characterized by their interdependency. I will continue exploring the connotations in the novel as I plan to take the Buddhism class next semester.
















