Daily writing prompt
If you had to switch lives with a fictional character for a week, who would you choose?
Sun Wu Kong. Unmitigated mischief might make a nice change. It’s obviously not for the immortality.
PROMPT: Fictional Character
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Tag Archives: Chinese Literature
BOOK: 齐天大圣 by Yinuo Wang
齐天大圣 Monkey King: A Bilingual Chinese Storybook (Pinyin & English) with HSK Vocabulary by Yinuo WangMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Amazon Page
This book collects episodes from the classic Chinese novel, Journey to the West, and condenses each into a page or two. Specifically, these are episodes from early in the story of Journey to the West, before the protagonist (a.k.a. Sun Wu Kong / the Monkey King / the Great Sage Equal to Heaven) actually departs on his journey to the west with a monk to get Buddhist scriptures. It is Sun Wu Kong’s origin story in a highly condensed form.
The illustrations of the book are aesthetically pleasing and are colorful and non-threatening (i.e. suitable for young readers.) Also, the book has quizzes and vocabulary building exercises at the back.
My biggest criticism of the book would be that it bites off more than it can chew. With single pages for major events and no room for transitions, the plates are a bit incongruous and don’t feel like a story as much as like viewing someone’s scrapbook. A lesser criticism would be that with a loose translation style (which is fine,) it sometimes translates the same characters in two different ways. (As it does with the title card which it translates quite literally as “The Great Sage Equal to Heaven” and the opening page where it translates the same four-character phrase quite loosely as “The Great Monkey King.”) This would not be an issue if the book were not a book for learning to read.
As I said, this is more like Sun Wu Kong’s scrapbook than his life story, but it is a nice way to practice beginner level reading. I’d recommend it for those beginning to read Chinese, particularly if one already knows the Journey to the West story.
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DAILY PHOTO: Great Chinese Warriors in Incheon’s Chinatown
Peach Blossoms [Lyric Poem]
I see the Peach Blossoms of Spring,
And think of old Li Bai’s answer.
In wordless replies, the world sings;
In unpeopled worlds, there’s a dancer.
The referenced poem by Li Bai [李白] is entitled Question and Answer in the Mountains [山中问答] and is crudely translated as:
I'm asked why I live in mountains.
I laugh while giving no reply.
Peach Blossoms flow from sight & mind;
Beyond men, another Earth & Sky.
Or, in Chinese:
问余何意栖碧山，
笑而不答心自闲。
桃花流水窅然去，
别有天地非人间。
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“Drinking Wine, no. 5” [饮酒·其五] by Tao Qian [陶潜] (a.k.a. Tao Yuanming [陶渊明])
I live amid a busy town,
But traffic sounds are never heard.
How can this possibly be true?
Deep in the mind, all is remote.
Picking 'mums by the eastern fence,
I peer at distant South Mountains.
Sunset flares in garish color.
Birds flock home in lines and clusters.
The scene conveys some great meaning,
But words to express it fail me.
NOTES: “Drinking Wine, no. 5” [饮酒·其五] is one of Tao Qian’s [陶潜] “Twenty Poems on Drinking Wine” [饮酒二十首.] It is the best-known piece from the collection. The original poem in Simplified Chinese script is:
结 庐 在 人 境,
而 无 车 马 喧.
问 君 何 能 尔?
心 远 地 自 偏.
采 菊 东 篱 下,
悠 然 见 南 山.
山 气 日 夕 佳,
飞 鸟 相 与 还.
此 中 有 真 意,
欲 辨 已 忘 言.
I’ve started reading a review copy of Arthur Sze’s Transient Worlds (from Copper Canyon Press, due out April 14, 2026.) The first chapter discusses this poem and various translations of it, encouraging readers to make their own translation. This is mine. For more information about the book, see: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/transient-worlds-arthur-sze/
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BOOK: “The Emperor in Hell” [Book 5 of the “Journey to the West” Series] ed. by Jeff Pepper; trans. by Xiao Hui Wang
The Emperor in Hell: A Story in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin, 600 Word Vocabulary Level by Jeff PepperMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Site – Imagin8 Press
This is the fifth volume in a series that abridges and simplifies the classic Chinese novel, Journey to the West, so that it can be read by a language learner with about a HSK 3 grasp of Chinese. It tells the story from Chapters 10 and 11 of the original novel. Like the preceding volume, this one doesn’t deal with Sun Wu Kong (i.e. the Monkey King — protagonist of the novel overall,) and doesn’t even deal with the monk Xuanzang — the protagonist of the true story on which the novel was based.) These chapters tell a story that feels like a diversion, though it will be involved in the segue back to the actions of the main cast.
In this book, the Jing River Dragon King gets in trouble when he makes a bet with a fortune-teller. The Dragon King has to cheat to save his pride, but this runs him afoul of the Jade Emperor. The Dragon King appeals to the human Emperor, Taizong, who agrees to help. When wires get crossed, Taizong ends up in the underworld for judgement. With the help of others and with promises made, Taizong is allowed to return to earth.
It’s an interesting story and gives some insight into Chinese mythology. As is always the case with a book such as this, events of the story must be cut or rushed. Readers may vary in their views about whether the right material was cut or thinned.
I continue to enjoy this series. This book was a little more challenging to read than earlier volumes, not because the vocabulary was harder. I think it was more that contextual cues were fewer, owing to it not being so tightly tied to the overall story.
If you’re just learning to read Chinese, I’d recommend this series as an interesting story made readable to a language learner.
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BOOK: “Stories and Myths of Eight Immortals” Trans. by Li Yanjia and Nathaniel Hu
Stories and Myths of Eight Immortals by AnonymousMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Available online – Internet Archives
This is a fine collection of stories about the adventures of the Eight Immortals (mostly as individuals, but with a few stories that feature the whole group.) There are twenty-eight chapters, but a few less than that of stories because the first chapter is an introduction to the Eight Immortals, and there are a couple of chapters at the end that discuss the origins of cultural artifacts associated with the Eight Immortals.
The stories are pulled from varied sources. I would give the stories a five, but this edition is loaded with grammatical mistakes — to the point of being distracting and unpleasant to read. It reads not like a present-day Google Translate translation, but rather as if it was being spoken by someone with an uneven (remedial to elegant) grasp of English. [Not everywhere, but enough to be problematic.]
The stories themselves are engaging, often have moral, and are quick reads (mostly a page, a few more than three pages.)
If you can tolerate reading through patches of bad grammar, this is not a bad collection of stories and information about the Eight Immortals, but if it’s too much to stomach, you might want to look elsewhere. The stories themselves are widely available, though not necessarily in English and, if so, not necessarily collected into a single volume. With editing, this would be an excellent collection of stories.
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BOOK: “The Dragon King’s Daughter” Trans. by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang
The Dragon King’s Daughter: Ten Tang Dynasty Stories by Gladys YangMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Google Book Site
This thin anthology contains ten stories from varied writers of the Tang Dynasty. The stories include a mix of speculative fiction, political fiction, and love stories — some being cross-genre pieces that mix elements of more than one of these categories.
I found a wide variation in how engaging the stories were. The best of them were quite good. The Spendthrift and the Alchemist, The White Monkey, and the titular The Dragon King’s Daughter were among my favorites. Each of those stories included a supernatural element, but also a thought-provoking premise.
If you enjoy Tang Dynasty literature and would like to try some of this golden literary age’s short fiction, this book is a quick and pleasant read.
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BOOK: “The Young Monk” [Vol. 4 of the “Journey to the West” Series] ed. by Jeff Pepper / trans. by Xiao Hui Wang
The Young Monk: A Story in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin, 600 Word Vocabulary by Jeff PepperMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher Site — Imagin8
This book, Volume 4 of the Journey to the West series, takes a turn from the books thus far. While the first three volumes (Ch. 1-7) focus on Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, this volume leaves him under the mountain where the last volume left him, and — instead — focuses on the origin story of Xuanzang — the monk who is sent by the Buddha to India to get scriptures in the original book — based on the real-world monk who did travel to India to complete the selection of Buddhist scriptures available to Chinese Buddhists.
The monk’s story might not sound like it would be as thrilling as that of the superpowered immortal monkey, but it’s a gripping tale. The story begins before Xuanzang is born and ends in his eighteenth year. So, before he is assigned to travel West to get scriptures.
As I’ve said in earlier reviews, I really like the approach of this series. It has Simplified Chinese script, pinyin, an English translation, and a full glossary of terms used, and it’s organized so as to facilitate reading by a language learner.
I continue to recommend this series for language learners who need a linguistically simplified text to be able to read.
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BOOK: “The Ruins” by Ye Hui [Trans. by Dong Li]
The Ruins: Poems by Hui YeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher Site — Deep Vellum
This is a Chinese-English bilingual edition of Ye Hui’s first poetry collection. The poems use stark imagery with occasional instances of philosophizing and surreal statements to create a vivid and provocative set of poems.
As I’m learning Chinese, it was nice to have the original poems in Simplified Chinese script next to the English translations. While I’m not up to a reading level sufficient to taking on Modern Poetry (any poetry for that matter,) it was useful to peruse the Chinese text. I did appreciate how much vibrance the author wrings out of a relatively simple vocabulary.
I’d highly recommend this collection for poetry readers.
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