Monkeying Around in China

Article by: Kate James, December 2006

Last year I travelled through northwest China, researching a book about three English women who crossed the Gobi desert on a donkey cart in the 1920s. I had never been to China before, and most of what I knew about that part of the world came from Monkey. Filmed partly in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia in the late 1970s, the dubbed English version of the Japanese TV show Monkey was hugely popular in Australia when I was growing up. My brother and I used to watch it after school; my mum would admonish us by quoting it: 'Monkey, no fighting!' Pigsy, Sandy and the priest Tripitaka

Monkey was based on the 16th-century book Journey to the West, one of the four classic novels of Chinese literature. Based on earlier stories, it describes the journey of the Monkey King (known as Sun Goku in China), Pigsy, Sandy and the priest Tripitaka. The four pilgrims travel west from the ancient Chinese capital of Chang'an (now Xi'an, in Shaanxi province) to collect Buddhist sciptures from India.

I discovered that the recognition factor for Monkey in China was roughly equivalent to that of Mickey Mouse (or possibly Coca-Cola) in the West. With his fighting staff and gold headband, he was everywhere. I saw him in paintings and statues, illustrating half the book covers in childrens' sections of bookshops, and in cartoon form in TV ads and on billboards. He's so engrained in the culture that Mao Zedong had even compared himself to Monkey, wielding his cudgel against capitalism.

Monkey was based on the 16th-century book Journey to the West, one of the four classic novels of Chinese literature.

My first Monkey site was the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an. It was built to house the sutras that the real pilgrim priest Xuan Zang - the original inspiration for Journey to the West - brought back from India in the 7th century. From the top floor you can look out over Xi'an, one of the few Chinese cities that has retained its ancient city walls and gates. Nearby, my guide pointed out dark-red painted archways that looked as if they had been erected in the same era as the pagoda. 'They were built last year,' she said. It was typical of the strange melding of old and new that I found in China, where Monkey is both an ancient legend and an animated fast-food-store mascot.

From Xi'an I travelled by train to Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, where an oversized, modernist statue of the four pilgrims stands by the Yellow River. Pigsy's naked stomach is particularly exaggerated, spilling from his robes. I moved northwest to Dunhuang and the nearby Mogao Caves, where Buddhist scrolls from India were stored away for centuries before being discovered early last century. Murals showing Xuan Zang's travels were painted on the cave walls. On the other side of Dunhuang, as I was driven through empty, desolate desert, I unexpectedly encountered another incarnation of Monkey. A massive mudbrick fortress loomed up, and the driver suggested I take a look. There was nothing about a fortress in the most recent Lonely Planet guide, yet it looked like an (amazingly well-preserved) ancient site. I paid an entrance fee and stepped inside the crenellated walls, into a room full of framed photos. In one picture, a man with enormous glued-on sideburns and a gold circlet around his head posed next to some beaming Chinese tourists. I finally realised that this was a movie set, and some of Monkey's adventures had been filmed here.

I discovered that the recognition factor for Monkey in China was roughly equivalent to that of Mickey Mouse in the West.

Further northwest in Xinjiang province, outside the oasis town of Turpan, I was driven through a barren, red-tinged mountain range known as the Flaming Hills. I had seen an unrealistic version of these hills literally bursting into flames in an episode of Monkey, where the pilgrims had to obtain a magic fan from a demon queen in order to put out the mountain of fire.

There have been film, television and cartoon adaptations of this popular story. Some versions have Monkey burning his bum in his attempt to cross the hills, which explains why monkeys have red bums.

Hidden in the Flaming Hills are the Buddhist temple caves of Bezeklik. Outside the caves, plonked next to the parking lot and souvenir stalls, is another life-sized statue of the four pilgrims, with Monkey carrying the magic fan. The Japanese tourists whose car I was sharing didn't even bother going inside the caves to see the ancient murals. They just posed for photographs in front of Monkey. He was all they needed to see.