So far I am enjoying this book immensely, especially in comparison to our previous text. The work starts with an introduction to a piece of Chinese folklore called the Monkey King. This immediately caught my eye for two reasons, the first is because I am fascinated by folklore in general, and the second is that I realized I had seen incarnations of this “character” before in popular culture, so I wanted to learn more about it. The monkey king apparently originates from a novel written in the 16th century called The Journey to the West, and it is considered something of a national treasure. Indeed this story has been told many times in different ways over the last few hundred years, and some of them I have managed to absorb even on a casual basis. He is known in the west as the Monkey King, but in China he goes by Sun Wukong, and in Japan he goes by Son Goku. The flying nimbus, the magical red staff, and the tail are no coincidences; the main character of the famous DragonBall is the Monkey King himself, told with heavy creative license of course. I can’t say I see a great deal of paralell beyond the superficial but my experience with both subjects is limited. Perhaps someone more familiar with the imagery could point out more deeply running themes. Goku seems to be more human than monkey and any mischief he shows in the early series stems mostly out of the fact that he is a child, rather than being a deity of mischief.
Another little factoid was that in the 2008 film The Forbidden Kingdom Jet Li plays the monkey king, and a few aspects of his character are shown throughout the film. Also the nerd in me would like to point out that you can play as the Monkey King in little big planet, and an incarnation of him in Marvel vs Capcom 2.
I find it interesting that we see the Monkey King in popular culture, considering how steeped in popular culture the work American Born Chinese is. Has anyone else seen a a version of the Monkey King out and about?
Monkey King,
So far I am enjoying this book immensely, especially in comparison to our previous text. The work starts with an introduction to a piece of Chinese folklore called the Monkey King. This immediately caught my eye for two reasons, the first is because I am fascinated by folklore in general, and the second is that I realized I had seen incarnations of this “character” before in popular culture, so I wanted to learn more about it. The monkey king apparently originates from a novel written in the 16th century called The Journey to the West, and it is considered something of a national treasure. Indeed this story has been told many times in different ways over the last few hundred years, and some of them I have managed to absorb even on a casual basis. He is known in the west as the Monkey King, but in China he goes by Sun Wukong, and in Japan he goes by Son Goku. The flying nimbus, the magical red staff, and the tail are no coincidences; the main character of the famous DragonBall is the Monkey King himself, told with heavy creative license of course. I can’t say I see a great deal of paralell beyond the superficial but my experience with both subjects is limited. Perhaps someone more familiar with the imagery could point out more deeply running themes. Goku seems to be more human than monkey and any mischief he shows in the early series stems mostly out of the fact that he is a child, rather than being a deity of mischief.
Another little factoid was that in the 2008 film The Forbidden Kingdom Jet Li plays the monkey king, and a few aspects of his character are shown throughout the film. Also the nerd in me would like to point out that you can play as the Monkey King in little big planet, and an incarnation of him in Marvel vs Capcom 2.
I find it interesting that we see the Monkey King in popular culture, considering how steeped in popular culture the work American Born Chinese is. Has anyone else seen a a version of the Monkey King out and about?