Reading Notes: The Monkey King, Part A

This story is part of the The Monkey King unit. Story source: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

The Great Sea Notes:

• The King of the Apes starts to fear the fact of death while at dinner
• He started to cry, and his fellows were asking what was wrong
• He then explained to him that death will come from all of them
• Once the apes heard, they all cried as well
• One of the wise apes comes out to talk and explain that there is a way to avoid death if you are one of three types of people: the Buddhas, the blessed spirits and the gods.
• He explains that they escape death and lives as long as they want
• The King asked where these people lived, and the wise ape explained in caves on holy mountains in the great world of mortals
• The King packed, the apes threw a parting party, and then the King took off down the Great Sea to go find these people the wise ape talked about
• The King came across a human; he knocked him down and took his clothes
• He hid in this disguise for 9 years walking around and wondering where these buddhas and gods were located
• He then figured they had to be on the other side of the Western Sea
• So he set off to cross that sea
• As he finished and crossed, he saw those high mountains his wise ape had talked about, and he went up to approach it as he heard beautiful singing coming from there

(Ape; Image from Pixabay)