The Monkey King jumped off the bridge, muttered an incantation, and dove right in. The waves parted before him forming a path that lead straight to the bottom of the East Sea.1 About halfway, a yaksha2 on patrol suddenly blocked his way, and said, “You who command the waters, what manner of immortal or god are you? Identify yourself so I may report your arrival and arrange a proper reception.” Wukong said, “I am the sage of Huaguo Mountain: Sun Wukong. I’m your old king’s next-door neighbor; how do you you not recognize me?” Hearing this, the yaksha immediately reported back to Dragon King at the Crystal Palace: “Majesty, outside there’s a sage from Huaguo Mountain named Sun Wukong, who says he’s your next-door neighbor. He’s on his way to the palace.”
The Dragon King Aoguang quickly roused himself, and with his children and grandchildren3, shrimp soldiers and crab generals, (for the palace was run by sea creatures of all kinds) received Wukong at the palace gate, saying, “Master Immortal, please come in.” They seated themselves before the throne and tea was poured. “When did Master Immortal find the Way?” the Dragon King asked. “What powers have you cultivated?” Wukong said, “Not long after I was born, I left home to cultivate myself, and have since obtained immortality. Recently, I have been training my children up to protect our lair. However, I do not have a weapon, and thought that my old neighbor might have weapons to spare, so I came to beg one from you especially.”
Shrimp soldiers and crab generals
Somehow, the phrase 虾兵蟹将, shrimp soldiers and crab generals, has become an idiom meaning “useless troops”.
The Dragon King did not see an easy way to refuse, so he ordered a perch footman to bring forward a large steel dao.4 Wukong said, “Old Sun doesn’t know how to wield a dao. Please grant me something else.” With another order from the Dragon King, a mackerel Captain and an eel Guard entered bearing a nine-pronged fork upon their shoulders.5 Wukong took the fork and swung it around a few times before putting it down, saying “It’s too light, too light! It doesn’t suit me. Please grant me something else.” The Dragon King laughed, saying, “Master Immortal, look closely. That fork weighs 3600 pounds.”6 Wukong said, “It doesn’t suit me. It really doesn’t suit me.” The Dragon King was frightened. He ordered a bream Commander and his whole squad to bring out a gilded halberd weighing 7200 pounds. Wukong ran forward and took it, tried a few forms, and stuck it blade-first into the ground, saying, “Still too light!”7 The Dragon King was really frightened now. “Master Immortal,” he said, “this halberd is the heaviest weapon in my palace. There isn’t anything else.”
Wukong laughed. “And the ancients say, “Never fear that the Dragon King lacks for treasure!” Go search some more. Bring out anything remotely good!” “I’m afraid there really isn’t anything,” the Dragon King said.
As he was speaking, the Dragon Queen and Princesses8 passed by behind the throne and said, “Your majesty, you mustn’t underestimate this sage. The past few days, in our sea vault, that piece of mysterious Milky Way iron has been flashing with multi-colored light. Perhaps it is fated to meet the great sage?” The Dragon King said, “Back when Yu the Great tamed the floods, that piece of iron was used to regulate the depth of the waters. It’s just a piece of magical iron, how could it be a weapon?”9 The Dragon Queen said, “Regardless, just give it to him get him out of here. He can figure out how to use it.” The Dragon King agreed, and told Wukong about this piece of iron. “Bring it out then,” Wukong said. “Let’s have a look.” The Dragon King declined with a wave, saying, “It’s much too heavy, we couldn’t possibly. Master Immortal needs to go in person to see it.” Wukong said, “Where is it? Take me there.”
With the Dragon King leading the way, they went to the sea vault. A thousand beams of golden light were shining out from the center of it. The Dragon King gestured to the light and said, “That is it, the source of the light.” Wukong walked up to it and felt it, and realized that it was an iron pillar, as wide around as a bucket10 and almost 30 feet long.11 Wrapping both arms around it, he pulled at it with all his strength. “It’s a little too thick and a little too long. It would be easier to use if it was shorter and thinner.”12
As he said it, the pillar grew a few feet shorter and a bit thinner all around. Wukong tugged again and said, “Even thinner would be even better!” That piece of iron really did get a bit thinner. Wukong was delighted. He lifted it out of the sea trove and saw that both ends of the pillar were wrapped with gold. In between these was a length of black iron.13 A single line was engraved into the iron near one end which proclaimed: “Will-Abiding Gold-Banded Staff, 13500 pounds.” Pleased, Wukong said, “This staff seems to mold itself to your desire!” As he walked, he dandled the staff in his hands and said, “Even shorter! Even thinner!” By the time he stepped outside, the staff was the width of a rice bowl and no more than 20 feet long.14
The width of a rice bowl
Of course, you can say 碗口那么粗 to mean “the width of a rice bowl”, but the measurement-dimension structure used by the text here is much more fun. 二丈长短，碗口粗细 literally means “2 ten-feet long-short, bowl rim thick-thin”. The next time you compare measurements in Chinese, try it!
1 Yup, also a water-bender. ↩
2 This is a Chinese loan word from Sanskrit. A yaksha is a nature spirit that appears in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, as well as in South and Southeast Asian folklore. ↩
3 The literal translation is ‘dragon sons and grandchildren’, presumably grandsons. As you’ll later see, there is quite a bit of gender segregation at the palace. These dragons have dragon forms but also human-with-dragonish-head forms. ↩
4 Unclear if this is a scimitar-type knife or a knife-on-a-stick (see previous episode’s images) ↩
5 I couldn’t find an example of a historical nine-pronged fork. Imagine a pitchfork, but with nine prongs. Yes, it probably did look ridiculous. ↩
6 The measurement is jin. The modern jin is half a kilogram, around 1 pound. ↩
7 A form is a (now standardized) set of martial arts skills that are strung together to be used as a drill or for learning purposes. ↩
8 the direct translation is ‘dragon wife and dragon women/daughters’ ↩
9 The King is referencing the story of a maybe-real Chinese emperor who reigned around 2100BC. The country was plagued by floods at the time, and Yu developed a system of irrigation canals to divert the floodwaters into the fields. He spent 13 years living in the fields with the workers and not seeing his family during the flood project. Since this all happened about 1000 years before the oldest written Chinese records, there’s no way to say what mix of fact and fiction is in this story. He probably didn’t take a piece of iron from the Milky Way and place it into the ocean to prevent floods though. ↩
10 A ‘dou’, a container that holds around 2 gallons of grain ↩
11 the text says ‘over 20 feet’, but the measure used is a zhang (10 feet). It probably means somewhere between 20 and 30 feet long. ↩
12 That’s what… she said? ↩
13 Interestingly, the staff is almost always portrayed as gold and red. ↩
14 The word that I’m translating variously as ‘pillar’ and ‘staff’ is actually 宝贝, meaning ‘treasure’. Here, 宝贝 is referring to an incredibly powerful magical object. There’s not a great English word for this. Artifact tends to refer to something old, small, and not particularly powerful. Treasure implies value, but again not really power. Fantasy stories often make up their own names for these kinds of objects, such as Hallows or Horcruxes. Is there a more general term I’m just missing? Does it say something about how Western stories think about powerful magical objects? ↩
Etymology Adventures 