Journey to the West
Monday, Sep 20. 2004 – Category: ChinaBlog
A long time ago, Steve introduced Erik and I to the wonder that is the movie A Chinese Odyssey, Part 1: Pandora’s Box, or as we called it simply: The Monkey King. Throughout high school, college, and up to present time, we often made references to the movie. I ended up buying it, along with Part 2, and watched it countless times. I dragged other friends to my house to watch it too.
We’ve spent many years making Monkey King jokes, and quoting brilliant quotes from the movie (”You can’t hurt me. I’ve got a super body!” “The world is unfair, I am as beautiful as flower, how can I got pregnant with this ugly man?” and Erik’s and my favourite classic: “”BOYIIIII BOLLOMIIIIIII!!!!!! WOW! BACK IN TIME!”.) Trust me, the quotes are a lot funnier with the context of the movie surrounding them.
Anyway, I was at a Chinese bookshop a few days ago (funny thing…there’s a lot of those in Beijing, go figure), and saw English versions, “Journey to the West: Volumes 1-3″ on the shelf, which is the original title of the Chinese epic that became those two movies. I couldn’t help it, I bought it. Considering how much humour and joy those two movies brought to my life, I feel I have to at least read the original epic.
So far it’s great. I’m only 150 pages into volume 1, but it’s great to read more of the story glossed over by the movie. For instance, I’ve now finally learned WHY the Monkey King was imprisoned in the mountain. I highly recommend it…the translation can be a little stiff sometimes, but overall, it’s good so far… 
Erik: read this book. 
3 Responses to “Journey to the West”
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September 21st, 2004 at 09:44
Only you… can make (blah blah blah in Chinese).
I gotta pick up that book sometime. The Chinks love it; that’s why there are so many tv series about the monkey king and the pig and friends.
September 21st, 2004 at 11:41
awesome - are the translations (i’m assuming the book is in english unless you’ve suddenly advanced your chinese skills) as bad as the movie? because that would make it PERFECT =)
September 21st, 2004 at 18:51
Haha…the translations are serious, but as I said, somewhat stiff in some parts. For the most part it’s pretty good though… I’d really like to hear how some of the poems sound in Chinese, as I don’t think they necessarily translate well to English.
It’s definitely written in more of a serious style than the ‘Chinese Odyssey’ movie we saw. I did, however, see at least 4 different versions of the story in movie form on DVD at the local DVD/VCD store. I’m tempted to buy one…but well, I’ve no idea if it has English subtitles, and my Chinese isn’t good enough to watch a whole movie.