Talk:Monkey King

Some Changes

I know these edits are probably going to start a flame/edit war, but the article really did need to be re-written. I removed most of the Trivia relating to Journey to the West (put that stuff in the Journey to the West Article.) I nixed some of the obscure anime trivia if it was poorly written. Obviously, the character is a major inspiration for various video game and anime characters. Maybe someone should make a list article or something, so it doesn't clutter up the page as much. Keep in mind that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia article, not a fansite. Its about a character in Journey to the West, not the story itself. I moved the political section to a more sensible place. I scrapped some of the fan art. Cleaned up a few things, etc. The article still needs a whole lot of work, though...I didn't even touch two large sections. Vorago 07:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I just think you should have left his origin picture on there. Dark Rain.

Grammar errors and Un-encyclopedic language

The entire section "making trouble in heaven" is chock full of odd language. This sentence especially "He proved to be an incorrigible monkey, however, after Jade Emperor looked down at him and didn't invite him to a royal banquet, he was scarfing down the Empress's Peaches of Immortality and popping Lord Lao Tzu's Pills of Indestructibility like they were Tic Tacs. Feeling guilty, but not that guilty, he became the biggest headache for everybody in heaven." I don't think the expression "popping them like tic-tacs" is considered good form. Any thoughts? --Akajune 03:42, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

"Snacks"? --Maru (talk) 04:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that any exaggeration expresion is need. Son Goku22

I fully agree. I made a couple very minor changes, and removed the Tic Tacs line. Vorago

Xuan Zang

I'm not entirely happy about linking the Tang priest to the article about his historical model; it seems like a situation ripe for confusion.

Incidentally, in all the English-language versions of the story I've encountered, the Tang priest has been called Tripitaka. Has anyone else

1. also encountered this?
2. got any idea why?

--Paul A 14:43 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Please say more about how the link to the historical person might lead to confusion; I'm new to wikipedia so I may not be aware of the various ways things get messed up. I found the connection useful as I wasn't aware that Tang Priest character was rooted in an actual person -- as a reader I personally like this type of link.

My translation is Journey to the West, translated by W.J.F Jenner, published by Foreign Language Press, Beijing, 1982, ISBN 7-119-00987-7. The names this author uses are: Sun Wukong, Sanzang, Zhu Bajie (Pig), and Sha Wujing (Friar Sand).

--technopilgrim 18:07 22 May 2003 (UTC)

I agree that it's interesting that he's based on a historical person, and should be mentioned – but not here, and not by linking "Sanzang" to Xuan Zang without further explanation. To do that is to imply that Xuan Zang is the article about the fictional monk, not the historical one, and is only going to confuse people. A more sensible tack would be to link the mention of Sanzang here to an article about the fictional monk, and in that article have a link saying something like "Sanzang is based on the historical monk Xuan Zang."

Of course, before we can have an article about the monk, we have to settle on what he's called.  :)

Arthur Waley's abridged translation (ISBN 0140441115), David Weir's paraphrase (ASIN B000066CSH), David Kherdian's paraphrase (ISBN 1570625816), and Anthony C. Yu's complete translation (vol 1 ISBN 0226971457) all call him Tripitaka. (I suspect that Waley started it, and the others followed his lead; the Waley translation was pretty influential.) I think, in fact, that "Tripitaka" is a kind of translation of "Sanzang", but I'm not sure; I brought it up here in hopes of finding somebody who was sure.

-- Paul A 02:57 23 May 2003 (UTC)

It appears that "Sanzang" and "Tripitaka" are two different names for the same thing, so that's all right. (I like Google.) --Paul A 04:49 23 May 2003 (UTC)

OK, now I see your point -- that would be a nice way to do it. But even more than we need an article on a fictional Sanzang, we need an article on Journey to the West. That would be really grand. That would be wonderful. I'm going to Guatemala tomorrow for 10 days which is fortunate because it would take me at least that long to write such an article. But I can't help thinking -- Journey to the West is a really important work. Sure, articles on Sanzang and Monkey King are nice, but a real encyclopedia would have a JTW article.

(I've only been involved in this wiki thing for 48 hours but already I'm developing article avarice).

Of course, you're already completely addicted and I suspect most of your friends have given you up for lost. You also have all those translations on hand. You could write the JTW article... or maybe just START the article, in wiki fashion

Just a suggestion... a hopeful suggestion --technopilgrim 05:45 23 May 2003 (UTC)

I've been meaning to do a Journey to the West article for a while now, but kept putting it off until I found time to do it "properly". This is a silly approach to take to an infinitely-re-editable encyclopaedia article, I have now realised — so Wikipedia is Journey to the West-less no more.
--Paul A 09:10 23 May 2003 (UTC)

(PS. I don't actually have all those translations to hand. I've read them all at various times — except in the case of the Weir, which is a television series, and I've watched that — but the only one I actually own a copy of is the Yu. Which isn't a bad "only", all things considered.)

My compliments

To the author(s) of this piece: the article has the same breezy, energetic style of its subject, and is informative to boot. --Italo Svevo

I totally agree. Excellent! --Kent Wang 14:32, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I like this piece. However, the information is inaccurate in many aspects. -Aven

Thank you for your suggestion regarding [[: regarding [[:{{{1}}}]]]]! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to…) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. --Maru (talk) 03:37, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Pears of Immortality?

In the Chinese novel, he ate the peaches, not pears. Can someone clarify the difference between the English version and the Chinese original?

It's peaches in every English version I've ever encountered. I'd have changed it long ago, but I somehow never noticed - my brain's been going "fruit beginning with pea, good" without ever realizing it was the wrong fruit... :/ —Paul A 11:09, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ditto- I've never seen pears either. --maru 15:04, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Definitely Peaches. Normal peaches themselves symbolise long life to the Chinese. --Yiren

Weren't pears what were used by Susanoo, the similarly wild Japanese storm-deity, to defeat Orochi? I figure if one has both of these on the brain at the same time, it might cause confusion. Afterall, Susanoo and Sun Wukong had rather similar personalities from what I can tell. ~ SotiCoto 195.33.121.133 11:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Invulnerability

I thought he became indestructible, along with his discernment eyes, after they put him in Lao Tzu's furnace not after eating the elixir.

No, it wasn't the furnace that made him indestructible. The whole point of putting him the furnace was that he'd already proved resistant to all less extreme attempts at simiacide, and although IIRC he's said to have been hardened by the experience, he would have just died had he not been indestructible to begin with. --Paul A 08:23, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's true. It was actually the immortal elixir-pills and peaches that made him invulnerable. (!Mi luchador nombre es amoladora de la carne y traigo el dolor! 00:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC))

Staff or cudgel?

The wikilink to cudgel says it is a short cone shaped club. Sun's weapon was actually a pillar he robbed from the dragon king's palace. It is supposed to be cylindrical shape so it should be called a staff instead of a cudgel. --Kowloonese 19:05, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's actually neither. A staff is supposed to have some sort of decoration or 'head' at one end, as to signify some sort of 'holy powers' or such. In chinese, it's actually called a bàng (sorry cannot type the chinese on this eMac at skool), and a crudgel is exactly what you say it is, short club usually made of wood.

This bàng, when not in use, it's the size of a tooth pick and can be stored in his ear, and it is certainly made out of a fancy metal. When expanded to full size, it looks and works identical to the pole used by people who does the sport of pole vaulting, except the coloring at both ends, the fact that it is indestructible and have magical powers.

But calling it a pole just doesn't quite cut it, can anyone think of a proper english name for that? --LG-犬夜叉 00:41, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

A staff doesnt need a 'head' at one end. See staff and quarterstaff. Staff is absolutely fine.

猴 王

sandbox, I needed some place to compare characters I found on chinese text.

Can someone provide the English meaning to the Taiwanese and Cantonese names? My friends in yau ma tei pronounce it "how ze wong" and used characters similar to the ones in this section title. Difference?

it sounds "how ze" is an informal expression of monkey, and "wong" stands for king. But I never heard anyone use this expression. Sun Wukong is the most common name of him. ----

"How ze wong" is the title that Sun took on when he became king of "Fa Gwau San" (Flower and Fruit Mountain) He retains that title whenever he is at "Fa Gwau San". However, when traveling with the priest, he does not use this title. He is also called "How gur" which means Brother Monkey by the other disciples.:: Aven

Actually, "how ze wong " (or "hou zi wang" in Mandarin) is never used in any Chinese version. When he became the king of Flower & Fruit Mountain, he called him self "mei hou wang". "Mei" = Handsome, "Hou" = Monkey, "Wang" = King. --Yiren

Corrections

I made some corrections regarding some of the figures and i want to see if anyone can verify them

• he was burned in the cauldron for 49 days
• he could flip 108000 miles, not 18000 as stated before (108000 is also the number given for how far they have to travel to get to the west)

Incorrect. Sun Wukong is stated to be able to flip "Yu Man Ba Chin Li" which translates into One "Yu" Ten-Thousand "Man" Eight "Ba" Thousand "Chin" miles "Li". The distance for the journey is in fact equivalent to three flips, calculated out to 54000 miles. -Aven

In all the books and dramas produced by China, the standard statement of his range in one flip was "shi wan ba qian li". "Shi" 10 x "Wan" 10,000 + "Ba" 8 x "Qian" 1000. 108,000 miles. --Yiren

Clean-up

There are some dodgy bits of style and grammar, some incorrect Wiki-formatting, and the general organisation of the article isn't clear. I placed the tag not to much to get others to do the work as to mark the fact that I intend to do it (but others are free to pitch in). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I just rearranged the Misc. part a little according to types of work that Sun Wukong appeared in. Maybe instead of all the details it'll be better to just have a list of the works? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.175.13 (talk • contribs) 09:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Another suggestion: cut off all the different names of Xuanzang in the opening paragraph, it's not really necessary in an article devoted to Sun Wukong, and that info can be transferred to his section in Journey to the West article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.175.13 (talk • contribs) 09:19, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Why not go ahead and clean up all the explanatory descriptions about the monk from the opening paragraph? Have there been any opposition? --LittleTree 00:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

surn vukorn?

The first sentence of the article says that Sun Wukong is also known as "surn vukorn"? What is the origin of this pronounciation? There's nothing to indicate this. --Hong Qi Gong 16:26, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. It came from an anon IP years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=S%C5%ABn_W%C3%B9k%C5%8Dng&diff=1848621&oldid=1586293. --maru (talk) contribs 00:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Another modern reference

I'm also seeing a lot of parallel to the current anime/manga, "Inuyasha."

1. A supernatural being is compeled/coerced into aiding a human a quest to retreive some Mcguffin
2. Inuyasha is fitted with a necklace, prayer beads perhaps. Should the human, Kagome become displeased with Inuyasha, she simply says, "sit boy." and the necklace's weight increases astronomically, slamming Inuyasha into the dirt, usually face first.
3. Like Sun Wukong, Inuyasha starts as fairly disreputable character, who through the experiences of the story becomes a true hero.

Nkuzmik 00:01, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, Inuyasha has more than one similarity to Sun Wukong. Observation 06:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Source for the "untraditional" pic?

It's not from any comic, manhua, or manga that I'm aware of.

Quality of the article

Frankly this article is appalling. I was quite disappointed with the journey to the west article but there is so much wrong with this article that it probably needs rewritten. The article is messy, there are random modern images and more traditional images and no justification of their relevance.

The more fundamental problem is that there is little content that relates to any areas of academic interest in the character. In total all I noticed in the article was the sentence "Some scholars believe he is based upon the legend of Hanuman, the Indian monkey hero from the ancient Ramayana epic." While an appealing theorey it is one which has a lot of flaws. The introduction to Anthoney C. Yu's translation sites Glen Dudbrigde's book "The Hsi-Yu-Chi : A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel" saying that the later half of the book is almost entirely about the origin of the Wukong character and summarising some of the arguments. In contrast to the scantness of reference to such issues a lot of space is dedicated to what is basically trivia, in fact with the exception some of the first paragraph the entire article is trivia.

I have no intention to rewrite any part of this article; I know enough to know that this is not my field of expertise. I'm leaving this comment mainly as a warning to anyone using the article.

Sun Wukong in History

According to the foreword to the translation I have by Anthony Yu, there are no clear known antecendents to Sun Wukong, and certainly none before the Buddhist period, which contradicts the claim that "In spite of its popularity (or perhaps because of it) legends regarding Sun Wukong have changed with the ebb and flow that is Chinese culture. The tale with Buddha and the "Pillars" is a prime example, and did not appear until Buddhism was introduced to China during the Han Dynasty. Various legends concerning Sun Wukong date back to before written Chinese history. They tend to change and adapt to the most popular Chinese religion of a given era." Unless someone can cite a source for this, I suggest it gets deleted.

Xingzhe (行者)

The article says "Xingzhe (行者): Meaning "traveller", a common name for a travelling monk in the old days." I thought a 行者 is a monk who works in a temple doing chores, and who does not have to have his head shaved? (see eg. zh:佛教制度) The word must have come not from traveling (旅行) but from training/practices (修行). --LittleTree 22:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

My revert/addition under Modern Media - Dragon Ball

Someone had changed the adjective "largely" to "partially" describing the influence of this character on that of Goku of Dragon Ball fame. I changed it back, and added a bit more test expounding on that. There is much more info to back it up, but most of it is more related to "Journey to the West" in general and not so much on Monkey King in particular. For example, the initial story arc of DB was conceived as a loose retelling of JttW, with Bulma in the priests role on a quest for the Dragon Balls instead of the sutras, and the roles of Pigsy and the Sandy Priest filled by Oolong and Yamcha respectively. --Reverend Loki 18:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation & Redirects

I'm surprised to find this article here in Wikipedia. I have problem with the fact that I never knew that this article existed. The main reason's because Sun Wukong is known to people of other nationalities as well, such as Koreans and Japanese.

I'm assuming that the correct pronunciation in Chinese is Saun Woo Kong. Right? I'll create more redirects according to that combination.

And as for Korean and Japanese pronunciations, Korean: Son Oh Gong. Japanese: Goku.

(Wikimachine 00:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC))

Actually, I think Chinese is Song WuKong. ddcc 02:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Traditionally, Romanization of Chinese language has been hit and miss. Many of the systems employ what most would consider to be non-intuitive pronunciations (Q- as ch-, for example). As such, the same Chinese word could be written 20 different ways using the English alphabet, and none of them would be wrong. So, it's hard to say that it is definitivel pronounced one way or another, but we can try and make sure the most popular variants all point to the same spot. --Reverend Loki 19:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Forced to leave.

I read the story and saw that Xuanzhang useully forced Sun Wukong to leave when he killed brigands and demons disguised as man(useully women). Do we need this infomation in this article?

Other related material

Hi just noticed that other manga's not mentioned are Orion by Masamune Shirow. This book contains a Monkey deity known as Songoku - who fights Susano. Also in the Naruto Manga/Anime the third Hokage has a indestructable staff Enma that can transform into a monkey king.

Peace

Jayrei —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.30.13.91 (talk) 14:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

birthday

i know he's a fictional character, but the same as probably every god in the chinese culture, there's a birthday associated with the god so people could celebrate it's birth. There's many websites that indicates his birthday, such as http://www.wrsn.com.tw/a1-1.htm . His birthday is said to be Chinese calendar's Oct 12th. Z3u2 23:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Regarding this, that date is actually his Day of Enlightenment (齊天大聖佛辰). I don't really think that he actually has a birthday, nor do I think that it was important in traditional East Asian culture. --A10203040 05:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)