mengshagong

Journey to the West – Chapter 4.4

Assured of the Great Sage’s victory, the monkey army was withdrawing from the battlefield when Prince Nezha appeared in front of Shuilian Cave. The army was shocked to see such a fierce child on his cloud, the bones of his skull not even fully closed, the hair on his head still soft and not evenContinue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 4.4”

JttW Headcanon: Lotus Lantern

The 1964 and 1998 Journey to the West cartoons weren’t my only experience with animated versions of these beloved characters. Other places they appeared include The Legend of Nezha series, a “prequel” telling of Nezha and Lord Li’s story before they ended up in Heaven trying to capture Sun Wukong, and Lotus Lantern, a “sequel”Continue reading “JttW Headcanon: Lotus Lantern”

Lotus Lantern Script: Part 2

Little monkey almost falls over the waterfall CHENXIANG: Little monkey! Tudi finds Sun Wukong in the desert TUDI: Great Sage! Great Sage! Where in the world are you hiding? WUKONG: Hehehehe! TUDI: Ow! That hurt, you monkey! WUKONG: Old man, what are you yelling about? TUDI: Jeez, Great Sage. I’ve struggled so much looking forContinue reading “Lotus Lantern Script: Part 2”

Lotus Lantern Script: Part 1

Intro NARRATOR: This is an ancient folktale. Heaven’s Madam Sansheng fell in love with a mortal scholar named Liu Yanchang. She ignored her older brother Erlang‘s opposition and decided to go to the human world to search for the Xingfu (happiness and good fortune) of human life. This is where the story begins. A smallContinue reading “Lotus Lantern Script: Part 1”

Journey to the West – Chapter 4.3

Early the next morning, when the Emperor’s court opened, the first to present themselves at the imperial courtyard were Marshal Zhang leading the Imperial Stablemaster and Deputy Stablemaster. “Long live your majesty.1 The new Horses’ Fortune, having objections to the low rank of his position, returned to the Lower Realms yesterday.” As they were speaking,Continue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 4.3”

JttW Literal Translation: The Imperial Stables

Don’t you love it when your reference text has a footnote calling the text “exceedingly difficult to translate”? I was depending on you, Prof. Yu! The poem that describes the heavenly horses depends heavily on both real and fake famous horses throughout Chinese history, and, for my translation, I threw most of it out. IContinue reading “JttW Literal Translation: The Imperial Stables”

Journey to the West – Chapter 4.2

The Wood Star left a happy Wukong introducing himself to the deputy stablemaster, the assistant stable master, the recordkeeper, the stablehands – officials in positions big and small at the Imperial Stable. He toured the stables and found heavenly horses numbering in the thousands: chestnuts, bays, piebalds, thoroughbreds – each and every one spirited andContinue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 4.2”

JttW Literal Translation: What does Heaven look like?

Since I am taking a few more liberties translating Chapter 4 than I did previously, I thought it might be kind of fun to take a look at what a literal, direct translation of the description of Heaven in the Journey to the West looks like.1 So, maintaining as much of the original structure andContinue reading “JttW Literal Translation: What does Heaven look like?”

JttW Chapter 4: Translation? More like Adaptation.

I’m slowly realizing that “translating” Journey to the West into a modern novel style is much more like making an adaptation, and thus, is taking a lot longer than expected. At the same time, trying to stay faithful to the original is extremely limiting. For example, the original JttW almost never tells us what charactersContinue reading “JttW Chapter 4: Translation? More like Adaptation.”

Journey to the West – Chapter 4.1

I am experimenting with narration style, so hopefully you’ll find that things are different in this chapter. The Handsome Monkey King and old Gold Star Taibai1 ascended their clouds bound for Heaven. Wukong’s somersault cloud was especially swift. He quickly left the Gold Star behind and arrived alone in front of the South Heavenly Gate,Continue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 4.1”