Journey to the West – Wu Cheng'en
Sunday, July 4th, 2010This is at least my fourth encounter with the Journey to the West story – and the chances are that you’ve encountered it too, although not necessarily going by that title.
Everyone who was a kid during the late 1970s or early 1980s remembers rushing home from school on Friday afternoons in order to watch Monkey on the telly. This Japanese adaptation of a ubiquitous Chinese myth featured a range of archetypal characters including Monkey, Sandy, Pigsy and the occasional appearance from Yu Lung, the dragon who spent half his time as a horse and the other half as a somewhat lost-looking human.
This motley crew was accompanying a young priest, Tripitaka, on his journey from China to India in order to seek some important Buddhist scriptures and to atone for past misdeeds. The series followed their (mis)adventures as they did so and ensured that, as far as Brits of a certain age are concerned, Japanese actor Masaaki Sakai will always be the face of the Monkey King – complete with golden headband and bushy sideburns. And the series was in no way hurt by the fact that Tripitaka was played not by a man but by Masako Natsume – a Japanese actress with stunning looks and phenomenal popularity who subsequently died after suffering from leukaemia at the age of 27.
But the 50-odd episodes of Monkey aren’t the only place that the Westerner can encounter the Journey to the West legend. In 2008 a huge event happened for lovers of historic Chinese martial arts movies, which I believe are known as Wuxia. Legendary actors Jet Li and Jackie Chan, who espouse quite different martial arts styles, nevertheless teamed up for the first time to make a film using elements of The Monkey King story called The Forbidden Kingdom. The film, which charts the progress of an unhappy American teen called Jason Tripitakas (geddit?) after he has a violent run-in with a gang and falls through time back to ancient China, struck me as one of the best and most accomplished pieces of contemporary film-making I had seen for some years. Needless to say, this comes highly recommended.
And, of course, Monkey plus his cohorts also formed the basis for the BBC’s coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics with characters designed by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett.
And so taking a look at the original source material was long overdue. I had on the shelf an attractive Penguin Classics edition of the text, extensively simplified and translated with a pleasingly light touch by Arthur Waley, and with the inevitable picture of Masaaki Sakai on the front – more than just a very shrewd marketing move, I think, for the immediate context it gives to the browser for what is unarguably quite an obscure text – not unlike going into a bookshop and picking up Beowulf. It traces Monkey’s ascent from a simple primate and the small act of bravery that makes him The Monkey King through his quest for Illumination and his residence under the Jade emperor in Heaven. But even when elevated to the rank of Great Sage Equal of Heaven, he still has a monkey’s nature, and he wreaks havoc up there. The early chapters of the book trace his journey and his havoc, until eventually Buddha tires of him, and imprisons him under a mountain for five hundred years.
At this point we switch tack and learn about the antecedents, birth and upbringing of the priest Hsuan Tsang, who takes the name Tripitaka when he accepts his quest from Bodhisattva Kuan-Yin, in reference to the three baskets of scriptures he seeks. We also see how the Bodhisattva prepares the way, priming a number of disciples to expect the young priest’s coming. He sets out, The Monkey King is freed from under his mountain, the party is assembled and the rest of the book chronicles the journey and its (perhaps guessable) outcome.
The tale reminded me strongly of Cervantes’ picaresque novel Don Quixote as it winds its way along, taking digressions and side-turnings in order to cover all the ground it needs to. The translation I have makes it entertaining, human, enjoyable and easy to read. I was struck by the fidelity of the TV series to the actual text – it explains, for example, why Sandy wears skulls around his neck, why Tripitaka needed the Headache Sutra to control Monkey and how Yu Lung could simultaneously be a human, a dragon and a horse.
Now I just need to work out where that old video cassette of Monkey episodes went…