What is „Journey to the West” about? (Part 2)

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Journey to the West (西游记, Xīyóu Jì), is a Chinese novel written in the 16th century by Wu Cheng’en (吴承恩, Wú Chéng’ēn). In part 1 of our article, we have already learned the basic storyline. Let’s continue.

How about the Monkey King and other famous characters?

Tangseng could never survive the journey on his own. Fortunately, he acquires three powerful but deeply flawed disciples.

First is the monkey king Sun Wukong (孙悟空, Sūn Wùkōng, his name means “ape awakened to the void”), who he frees from a 500-year imprisonment under a mountain in punishment for creating havoc in heaven.

Second is Zhu Bajie (猪八戒, Zhū Bājiè, “pig of the eight prohibitions”), a gluttonous pig-man who is constantly fighting, and often succumbing to, his desires for food and comfort.

And third is Sha Wujing (沙悟净, Shā Wùjìng, “sand seeking purity”), a reformed man-eating river demon.

All three have been converted to Buddhism by the monk, but they often slip back into their bad habits and cause Tangseng a great deal of trouble. Fortunately, they all have great magical powers which come in handy for battling demons and monsters and saving Tangseng from all sorts of trouble.

The story of this journey is described in this epic novel.

How long is the original book?

The original Journey to the West is a very long book. It contains 100 chapters and is 588,000 Chinese characters long. It uses a very large vocabulary of 4,500 different words, over 90% of which are not included in HSK Levels 1-6, making it quite difficult for most non-native Chinese speakers to read.

The novel is also available in English translation, the best one being by the scholar Dr. Anthony Yu. His version fills four volumes and runs over 2,300 pages.

Is the book suitable for Chinese beginners?

Fortunately for people learning to read Chinese, there is now another way to read this book. There are books available that retell the Journey to the West story in language that is accessible to anyone learning to read Chinese at the HSK 3 level.

The stories in these books are told in a way that matches the original as closely as possible, but because they are graded readers, they are much easier to read. The first book, Rise of the Monkey King, is relatively short and uses just 512 Chinese words. Each book adds more new words and slightly increases the length of the story and complexity of the writing, leading step by step to the longest and most challenging book, Book 31, The Final Trial. All told, the entire series uses about 2,200 different Chinese words excluding proper nouns.

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