 A
thousand and three hundred years ago a Buddhist monk named
Xuan Zang made arduous travels and brought back Buddhist
scriptures from India. He left after him Records of the
Western World in Tang Dynasty that recorded his journey.
In the Ming Dynasty, however, his journey was evolved
into a wondrous book known to every household. It is Journey
to the West.
The novel has four major characters: the incompetent
Monk of Tang or Tang Seng, who is the mentor, and his
three disciples, the witty Monkey named Sun Wukong,
the greedy Pigsy or Zhu Bajie and the honest Monk of
Sand or Sha Seng. During their journey the four with
different dispositions and mentalities run into various
monsters and face all kinds of internal conflicts.
In the story of a pilgrimage for scriptures, not the
Monk of Tang the mentor, but the Monkey is the leading
character.
As the Monkey beats the White Bone Demon and borrows
the Palm Fan to conquer different evil spirits, he conquers
the readers. In him the public see their hope. He is
loyal and righteous and always does his best to champion
the oppressed and help the poor. He is staunch and unswerving
and faithful to his mentor. He is the saviour in people's
mind.
What is more praiseworthy is that the Monkey seeks
an absolute freedom. He loves his care－free life in
the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. He cancels the Book
of Life and Death in the hell. He wreaks a havoc in
the Heavenly Palace and frightens the Jade Emperor in
it. As the symbol of authority and order, the Buddha
puts a tight band around his head so that he can not
get free. But as the scripture is acquired and he himself
has become a Buddha, the Monkey demands his mentor to
take off the band and smash it. Obviously, what the
Monkey looks after is not truth in books, but freedom
in the world.
 The
Monkey's subjectivist attitude reflects the eternal
ideal of human kind. His fellow Pigsy may be accepted
by the reader in another way. Pigsy has joined the pilgrimage
and at the same time he cannot resist the temptation
of secular desires, so that he often makes him a laughing
stock. In him one sees foibles in human nature.
The sincere and resolute but weak and incompetent
mentor Monk of Tang should lead three mischievous disciples
in a pilgrimage for scriptures. This endows the whole
story an inherent comic nature. When the book was written,
joking literature was prosperous. That gives account
for the colourful humorous language in the Journey to
the West.
Free imagination, light－toned narration, interweaving
of humanity, divinity and animality, all these invest
in the Journey to the West an open and liberal way of
thinking that encompasses everything in the past, present
and future, in the world and Heaven.
Journey to the West presents an enchanting world where
fantasies and reality
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