Week 6 Reading Diary, Continued: The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung

For the second part of my reading diary I decided to read about Asian mythology. I read The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung. Story source: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921). Below of the two stories from my reading that I found to be the best.

Handsome King of the Apes: I enjoyed this story because it shows how the monkey came to be and his beginning. The story begins by being extremely detailed and allows the reader to really envision the island and what it is like. The the story takes an interesting story when it says that the ape was hatched from an egg. Obviously I was very surprised by this because I have never heard of such a thing. I liked that even though this ape was special that he still got along well with the other tribe of apes. I feel like this story continues on with a theme I’ve been reading in stories where there is some sort of competition between animals to decide who becomes king.

(the waterfall)

The Great Sea: this story jumps forward the ape who was hatched from an egg already became king and was now respected. I found myself wondering what it was like when he first became king and how he coped with that new responsibility. I think overall this was a very good story and I think it was told in a very detailed way.