Journey to the West – a beginning?

Journey to the West is my childhood. My first memory of it was probably this 1963 Chinese cartoon – 大闹天宫 – a movie adaptation of one of the first major episodes in Journey to the West¹. Growing up, I read abridged children’s versions in Chinese manhua, watched the 1999 cartoon religiously², studied a simplified version in Chinese school, and once had my dad try to read and explain the original text to me from the beginning.

We didn’t get very far.

For a story that I feel is woven into the very fibers of my being, I have never read the original text. And that is a tragedy. It’s just so intimidating, and there is so much history and poetry and religious symbolism that I would be missing altogether. But I feel compelled to give it a try again. All because I saw a game trailer for Black Myth: Wukong recently on IGN’s Youtube channel that feels like it was made by people so passionate for the original text that I want to know everything about it. I want to dive in and make this my life’s work³.

So… I might take you on that journey. I guess. No promises, really, except that I’ve just bought the first volume of Professor Yu’s translation – the revised edition – for 30 bucks. Sigh.

^{1 It has since been subbed into English.↩
2 I found a English dub version here, but I’m unsure of the quality.↩
3 I definitely should not do this – I should be writing my thesis right now.↩}