Mythology and Folklore MLLL 3046

Image on  Flickr There once was a young boy named Archibald. He was naughty and a nuisance to his fellow classmates, so they never wanted to play with him. Archie, however, was bigger than most of the other children and bullied them into letting him join their games. The other children never wanted to invite the bully to their birthday parties, but since Archibald’s parents were important government officials, the children’s parents always felt obligated to invite the naughty boy, too. Archie’s parents ignored their son’s rude manners and allowed him to do as he pleased, further encouraging his bad behavior. One of Archibald’s classmates, Ginny, was set to have a fantastic birthday party on Sunday afternoon. Ginny never let Archibald around and told her parents that she would simply refuse to go to her own birthday party if he was to be invited. Ginny’s parents were aware of the officials’ poorly behaved son and agreed to exclude him from the invite list. With this, Ginny...

Image on  Wikipedia This is a continuation of my Monkey King (Asia) reading notes. I chose to read about the journey of the Monkey King because it is a story known by everyone where my boyfriend is from, Hong Kong. He keeps trying to get me to watch movies about the Monkey and the various gods associated with him, but they all look so cheesy! :’-D While reading the second half of the Monkey King’s story, I realized that he is a very different character than what I imagined he would be. I originally assumed that he would be a character widely respected by other gods and goddesses. However, the Monkey King is really a pretty unlikable character. He is constantly doing whatever pleases him and does not think about how his actions affect other people. He also thinks so highly of himself that every time he has dialogue, I am instantly annoyed. The Monkey refers to himself as “venerable”, demands a high-status position in the heavens, and eats all of the Queen-...

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 pr...