A Chinese Odyssey
There’s a 500 year old book from China called “Journey to the West” or “Monkey“. It’s a folk tale that wraps in a lot of historical and cultural elements, while being very entertaining. Like Frankenstein, it was authored under a false name and the real author remained unknown for about 300 years. It has become one of the Four Great Classics of Chinese Literature.
Monkey has made its way into movies, operas, books, video games and is referenced in entertainment throughout the world. For example, the image you see is of Jet Li, from a recent adaptation, The Forbidden Kingdom. The image below is from a newly created Circus done by a collaboration of British and Chinese entertainers. It is currently playing in London.
The story is similar to The Odyssey with the hero being on a journey to a distant land and has to deal with a great deal of trials and monsters along the road; while he can never quite reach his goal along the way. The main character, Monkey, is very intelligent and his curiosity ends up getting him in lots of trouble. After becoming powerful he starts to get into bad situations constantly and doesn’t know when to stop. Eventually he is reformed and in the end becomes enlightened after he wages war with every possible person and god along the way.
During the book, there were bunches of places where it said “An old saying goes..” or “The ancient proverb states…” I thought I’d save all of these and share a few to shed some light on some of the old Chinese colloquialisms in the book. Enjoy!
- A poorly drawn tiger looks like a dog; an ill carved
swan looks like a duck.- Ie. An ambitious undertaking which, if not done
properly, maybe be worse than inaction.
- Ie. An ambitious undertaking which, if not done
- A court must not, even for a day, be without a sovereign
- To be virtuous without instruction is
superhuman. To be virtuous after
instruction is reasonable. To be
instructed and remain incorrigible is to be a fool. - Magistrates err, clerks
err, the man with the warrant never errs - He who fails to avenge the
wrongs done to a parent is unworthy of the name of man. - Clear wine brings a blush to the cheeks; yellow gold moves even a philosophic heart.
Jet Li Image from Screen-Power.com
Image courtesy of the Amazon Page selling an audio cd from a British Opera adaptation from the book
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