Ape & Essence: China's Monkey King

by Frederick highland

Imagine, if you will, a being who is all at once a renegade superhero, a trickster, and an eternal fool and you will most likely come up with a character resembling the irrepressible Chinese Monkey King, Sun Wukong, lord of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, self-proclaimed Sage Equal to Heaven, and hero of Wu Chengen's famous novel, Monkey or A Journey to the West.

Monkey rules on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit.

Monkey was not the creation of Wu's literary imagination but a hero of popular folktale and legend, a feisty character dear to the common folk not only because of his outrageous shenanigans but also because of his subversive personality.

As for the writer who collected the tales of Sun Wukong and wove them into a rip-roaring adventure story, it might seem strange that a staid magistrate and sophisticated man of letters would stoop to writing a popular novel.

But even though Wu was among the scholarly elite of 16th century China, he retained a fondness for the Monkey tales of his childhood when to be caught reading "pulp fiction" was to risk a beating from one's teacher.

No doubt there was a subversive streak in Wu himself for we know that he was imprisoned for a period on a trumped-up charge of official corruption. Such charges were commonly made-even as they are in today's China-- against officials who deviated from the party line. And he took a daring step by writing his Monkey novel in the Chinese vernacular as opposed to the elevated Mandarin of his scholarly peers.

The spirited, mischievous Monkey we see portrayed in this set of 8 stamps issued in 1979 by the People's Republic of China (Scott 1547- 54) are taken from a number of episodes in Wu Chengen's classic novel.

One of the first things we notice about these images is that they are not only comical but look inspired by comic book art. The stamps' designer, Li Dawei, has rendered his subject in a unique visual style that combines the vibrant edginess of popular comics with the costume and make-up of the Beijing opera.

The stamps fall into two groups.

The first four stamps trace Monkey's career up until the time he is imprisoned beneath a mountain by the Buddha, events that take up the first third of the novel.
The last four illustrate Monkey's heroic role as he champions the monk Tripitaka on his journey to India in search of sacred Buddhist scrolls-the Journey to the West of the book's title.

Monkey's supernatural origins are established at the outset of the novel because he is born from a cosmic egg.

Discovering a cavern hidden by a waterfall, he immediately establishes himself as king of his kind on the Mountain of Fruits and Flowers, as shown in the stamp at the beginning of this article.

But his gleeful reign soon turns to gloom when he fears he is merely a mortal and goes forth in quest of immortality.

His travels take him to the very gates of the Celestial Kingdom where he succeeds in offending nearly everybody, including the Jade Emperor himself. When the Emperor sends the powerful Prince Necha against him, as seen to the right, Monkey handily defeats the hosts of heaven with the aid of a magical wand and his shape-shifting powers. The Fight with Prince Necha
	When the Jade Emperor relents and allows Monkey back into his realm as a "Sage Equal to Heaven", Monkey turns once more to mischief by stealing the peaches of immortality, getting drunk, and stealing rare elixirs from heaven's alchemists. Stealing the Peaches of Immortality
Captured at last with the aid of the goddess Kuan Yin, Monkey is placed in the Furnace of Alchemy to "warm" his fur. Impervious to the flames, Monkey then demands to be made the Emperor of heaven himself, a bit of hubris that brings in the Lord Buddha to administer punishment to this obstreperous upstart. Monkey does not remain incarcerated forever, though.
	After five hundred years of hard time, he is released from prison on his promise to aid the monk Tripitaka on a perilous journey to the West. Accompanied by additional traveling companions Pigsy and Sandy, Monkey and the monk set off on their adventure. Monkey leads the Journey to the West.

In short time, Monkey proves his mettle by outsmarting the formidable assortment of monsters that lurk along the way, including

White Bone Dragon

the Ghosts of the Flaming Mountains

and the Spider Women of Cobweb Cave

Subduing the White Bone Demon

From a princess, Monkey obtains the magical Palm Leaf Fan to save his fellow travelers

Monkey fends off monsters in the Cobweb Cave

In recognition for his services and coming over to the side of Light, Buddha confers unexpected sainthood on Monkey, proclaiming him the "Buddha of Victorious Strife."

While some scholars argue that the real meaning of Monkey is a dense allegory on Taoist themes, Wu's masterpiece has remained a classic because it is accessible, a product of popular culture easily understood by the common reader.

This does not mean it is a shallow adventure tale either, for the many sides of Monkey make up for a complex and elusive character, a Chinese Don Quixote of sorts who is not afraid to taunt authority and challenge tradition.

For this reason, the release of these stamps by Chinese postal authorities in 1979, seems to have a symbolic significance, especially for a culture very conscious of the meaning of symbols.

Throughout the 1970s, China was rocked to its foundations by the cataclysms of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a movement sparked by Mao Zedong designed to rid China of her ancient heritage in order to embrace the proletarian future. Coming at the end of this decade, these colorful stamps on an iconoclastic theme reaffirm China's great traditions even as they embrace the literature of the common people.

If so, that's a very clever way of making a bold statement without appearing to do so. And that would be entirely in harmony with the legacy of Wu Chengen, who published his controversial masterpiece anonymously. Only centuries later, in the 1930s, was his authorship confirmed.

Monkee Kong Fu

Ape & Essence: China's Monkey King

credits

by Frederick highland