Week 9 Reading: The Monkey King (Asia) Part A

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Image on Flickr
For this week’s reading, I chose the Asian Monkey King unit. I decided to read this tale because it is one continuous story when most of the units are made up of multiple stories. Also, my boyfriend, Yat Fan, is from Hong Kong. He has told me about the Monkey King before and keeps telling me to read Journey to the West, which is about the Monkey King’s journeys. I thought that that sounded like a big time commitment, so reading this unit is a good compromise.
From this unit, I learned that Buddhism began in India and then made its way to other parts of Asia. This particular adaptation of the story is from Chinese folklore. It begins by explaining the origin of the Monkey King. Before reading, I did not know that the king was made of stone and that he was born by being hatched from an egg that emerged out of a sacred rock. After he had lived three hundred years as the king of his fellow apes, he began contemplating death. Considering how sad the prospect of death was, he set off to learn how to become immortal.
Something that I thought was interesting about this tale was that I originally believed that the Monkey King would behave in a divine manner. He is actually incredibly selfish and does not mind scaring other creatures or stealing from them for his own pleasure. This can be seen throughout the unit, such as when the Monkey King raids a city of all their weapons and then demands the mightiest weapon and a suit of armor from the Dragon King.
Considering what I will read about in Part B of this unit, I think that the Monkey King will end up getting into a lot of trouble. Some opposed to the Monkey King’s behavior have already threatened to call upon the Lord of the Heavens. It is known that the Monkey King possesses a “monkey mind” and often acts wildly and rashly. I am interested to learn about how the Lord will confront the Monkey King’s erratic behavior and what the consequences will be.

You can access this tale here: link.
Wilhelm, R. “The Ape Sun Wu Kung.” The Chinese Fairy Book, 1921.

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