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JTTW Chapter 37 Thoughts

Chapter 37 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

Plenty of creatures this time as well!

Obligatory deer check! It is a Chinese Water Deer again. At this point whenever an undescribed deer is mentioned it is probably [獐 zhāng] in the Chinese Original, which is a Water Deer.

As for the other animals in that poem, in comparison to the Chinese Original with the help of some Googling finesse I can confidently say that there is no jaguar mentioned only a bear.

Hare yes indeed and fox too. Antelopes not so much however, that is once more a Père David's deer also known as Milu. Antelopes, while they are confused as deer sometimes, aren’t even native to Asia, so whenever there is mention of them in any Journey to the West translation you can be very certain it’s some kind of deer with antlers instead.

Pheasant again yes, to be a bit more precise it might either be a Syrmaticus reevesii a Reeve’s Pheasant, which fun fact is also called King Pheasant in German.

The hen is not quite as colourful, but still pretty in my opinion.

Or it might be a Phasianus colchicus a Common Pheasant.

Same goes for the hen as with the other species of pheasant. Still rich in pattern, just not so much in colour.

Both are in the family Phasianidae and native to Asia with the Reeve’s Pheasant being endemic to forests of central and eastern China specifically. If I were to translate [山雉 Shān zhì] literally though it would just say Mountain Pheasant.

“It's a good thing that I am young and I can be somewhat tolerant.” Oh can you now? A couple of minutes ago you were about to seize a guy just for not getting up. What if it had really just been a regular monk, perhaps hard of hearing? Or so engrossed in a task they genuinely didn’t notice the prince? Doesn’t sound very tolerant to me to just jump to conclusions and not inquire if it might have been a misunderstanding or accident first.

Though it is a nice divergence to have some more close interaction with humans after the many instances of demons and celestials and what have you.

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Goodest Boy In The Whole Underworld

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pets for our special boy!

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Goodest Bois

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HADES : Zagreus × Thanatos

HADES : ザグレウス × タナトス

Dec/2022

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i'd like to think that they were childhood troublemakers

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The Boys™ By Hikari Toriumi, a story artist at Walt Disney Animation Studios

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JTTW Chapter 36 Thoughts

Chapter 36 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

We’ve got creatures galore this time around!

Why can’t you give us the slice of life, huh? Why can’t you, the people want to read fluff too! I know I’d love to.

So as I’m attempting to keep track of the passage of time stated in the text there seems to have been a timeskip of multiple years. The changing of seasons up until last chapter only indicated around one and a half years passing, so either Tang Sanzang is exaggerating and only half a year to one year passes, so definitely one Winter since the narration mentioned frost, or it’s really been a couple of years.

Deer, deer, deer! No fallow deer, those are muntjac deer in the Chinese Original. Cute in the silliest way.

River deer basically yes, our lovely goofy Chinese Water Deer.

Now hold it! Those are not wolves! In the Chinese Original they are either Dholes or a kind of jackal. All three are in the family of Canidae. The wolf shares the Canis genus with jackals, while dholes and jackals are of the same tribe Canini.

I’m leaning more towards Cuon Alpinus so Dholes, which range throughout Asia and are also called Red Wolf or Mountain Wolf, but that might also be personal bias for I watched the Wild Kratts episode on them.

They are really social even more so than wolves and just overall very sweet. However they are classed as endangered!

They also come in a fluffy variant.

Jackals are really neat too though, here it might specifically be the Canis Aureus commonly known as Golden Jackal, which are native to Eurasia.

From Anthony C. Yu’s notes I concur the Vajra-guardians definitely do not look like cherubs neither the modern version nor the biblically accurate one. But they might be somewhat similar in function! Cherubim are assigned to protect special places as one of their jobs, so that guardian function might be the similarity that led to the comparison.

Tang Sanzang getting pouty is so endearing, much more than any ‘scared of demon’ instance.

Though in my opinion the monastery should have been able to kick out those guys that were causing needless trouble over multiple years. Give aid to fellow people yes, but if they knowingly and wilfully act out like that they rescind their right to stay.

Again with the property damage, Sun Wukong might have already cut down on violence against people, but no door is safe from him still.

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 35 Thoughts

Chapter 35 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

This chapter is starting off very strong with gender shenanigans and this go about we are in for a doozey.

So one can either see Nüwa as a separate entity or go with Laozi being kind of genderfluid. Both options are delightful in my opinion, but personally I prefer the version that is not a desperate attempt to retcon Nüwa being a woman and a goddess.

Love the little fiend hand waving the sexes for they do not contribute to each gourd’s capabilities, that’s a great attitude to have! As much as the story has problems with some old fashioned ideas, it still has positive notions like this even if they weren’t originally intentioned to be read this way.

At least that’s what I would like to say if it wasn’t for the next bit messing it all up again. It could easily be rewritten as one gourd being older, that would work just as well and not have these problematic implications.

In fact that work around would not just work as well, but better even by making more sense! As it is the gendering of the gourds makes no actual sense since it is about the fruit and not the flower. Depending on the species of gourd they are either monoecious where they have both sexes in one flower, which would make gendering irrelevant. Or they are dioecious where they are separated into female and male flowers, but only the female flower has the potential to develop into a gourd, so there couldn’t be a ‘male’ gourd.

Bottle gourds, which might be the kind of gourd here, specifically are dioecious. They have pretty white flowers and it is easy to distinguish male and female flowers since the female one already has a little fruit attached.

For comparison here are the flowers of melons, which can have all three kinds of flower sexes. And yes, if a flower contains both sets of reproductive organs it is called bisexual!

Also here’s an extra plant fact! The first flowers to grow on some vine crops are predominantly male for two or three generations. Something interesting for gardeners.

First a mountain and now fire, Sun Wukong really can’t catch a break from traumatic callbacks this Arc.

He’s such a loot goblin, very relatable.

Hm, this chapter contains a fine description of depression actually. Much sad makes you much sleepy, that is very true.

They’re more of a footnote here, but it is nice to see the female demons be combatants as well and treated much like the other fiends in that regard.

The demons in this Arc were depicted in a very sympathetic light, which I appreciate since they are clearly people and not just pure evil. Then again in the end it is revealed that they technically weren’t demons to begin with.

Though I do feel a bit like Tang Sanzang might have some double standards, after all he usually preaches not to kill people, but he doesn’t seem very bothered about the killing of so many creatures this time around.

I very much agree with Sun Wukong that Guanyin can be quite devious. And I love to see it!

Also a neat little bit of trivia at the end from the German translation! Laozi, his two youths and the five treasures seemingly represent the “Great Oneness”, the duality of Yin and Yang and the Five Phases. Please correct me on the oneness part though, I did not know how to translate it or rather which specific thing it was referring to in English.

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JTTW Chapter 34 Thoughts

Chapter 34 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

As was the case for the last chapter, in the other two translations it is made much more clear which one is Silver Horn and which one is Gold Horn.

The demons in this Arc in particular are some of the most casual and sympathetic ones yet, with the Great Kings having their sibling dynamic and being very lenient with their little fiends even when they make a mistake. Also they are actually quite reasonable in their consideration of just returning Tang Sanzang and the others.

Plus they are nice to their mother and their mother is also rather kind. Though oddly enough she is somewhat harsh with the girls that tried to tag along as her attendants. That might just be another small men writing women detail.

It is very clever writing for Silver Horn to know the spells that come with the yellow-gold rope and using that to turn the tide of battle in his favour precisely when Sun Wukong was trying to turn the tide in his favour with the rope himself. It is not out of left-field either, it makes a lot of sense, so very nice!

The chapter overall was very fluent to read, as in I only took notes afterwards when I usually jot down anything that comes to mind right away when reading.

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 33 Thoughts

Chapter 33 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

The German translation has some neat trivia for this chapter and its title! The “Heresy” [外道 wài dào] here refers to anything external, for example taking certain substances like the flesh of Tang Sanzang to become immortal.

Hey, an actual recipe instead of the usual ‘let’s steam him’. Nice!

Something I really appreciate the other translations for, they make it a little clearer who Silver Horn and who Gold Horn are, at least at the start of the chapter. Meanwhile the Anthony C. Yu version jumps right in with just referring the them as old fiend and second demon and such making it a little hard to discern who’s who if you don’t pay utmost attention or go back to the where it is first mentioned who’s who to double check.

I misread “Elder Gold Cicada” as Elder God. Reminds me of the artistic depictions of him as an actual cicada being, as someone who enjoys creatures and creature designs those are really cool.

I wonder if Sun Wukong knew they were being watched and did that little demonstration of his abilities because of that. Wouldn’t put it past him that’s for sure.

Also there is some character development making itself clear here! Last time they had trouble with a demon in disguise was with the Lady White Bone and that ended disastrously. So this time around Sun Wukong learned from that instance and plays along a bit instead of going for the kill right away.

He seems to just have really bad luck with mountains getting dropped on him. Aaand there’s the mountain trauma.

Though he used the mountain Sumeru, no? Shouldn’t Lingji from Chapter 21 be on there? Or is it a different mountain with the same name?

In general moving whole mountains like that prompts a lot of worldbuilding questions. How do the inhabitants of the mountain, be they human, spirit or animal, take that trip? What kind of damage does that leave in the landscape and does it get undone when the mountain is returned? We do at least get that the spirits taking care of the mountains are sort of under the command of the summoner, so that makes sense why they would allow it.

Love the use of star terms here, very fitting given it’s called the Sword of the Seven Stars!

Huh, so he doesn’t do thieving. Technically that’s classifiable as thieving since he made the little fiends hand them over willingly without the use of force or fear, whereas to commit robbery you have to take something with the use of those. Anyway fraud is fine apparently.

Also there is this illustration in the German translation for the storing up Heaven scene, which I want to show because one of the fiends looks a little like a bug, which I really like.

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 32 Thoughts

Chapter 32 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group! CW: Bugs under the cut!

Like a grandpa reassuring his worried kid. Tang Sanzang might technically be his Shifu, but he’s also still technically younger than him.

Love to see the woodcutter also get a fashion poem!

From the little note by Anthony C. Yu that Mars is revered as the God of Fire it is interesting to see that different religions can bring forth similar deities and associations.

I wonder if they couldn’t just have lied about where they are from or where they intend to go.

The Day Sentinel feels so like a player who was put on the role of an NPC after the reveal.

Thank you Sun Wukong for stating how fragile Tang Sanzang is. Or rather how whiny. Like in the very beginning it was understandable, everything was new and scary, but by now he should have gained at least some confidence in his disciples.

Half the journey you say? Looking at the chapter number, are you sure about that?

Yippie, bug! I’m not certain it is a mole cricket specifically though. Attempting to figure out the species from the Original Chinese once again with Google translate has yielded the term cricket as a translation, though the image search presents the family Cicadidae, so a type of cicada instead.

I’d say both kinds of bug may be possible, but specifically a mole cricket I’m sure it is not. Those may be native to Asia and they can fly, very well even, but they are nocturnal and hardly outside spending most of their life in tunnels underground. They do look pretty adorable though with their mole claws looking appendages and big ‘ol eyes.

And next a lovely birb! I’m quite partial to these little animal poems and transformation shenanigans.

Once more my translation comparison effort has yielded the general family of woodpecker, but no specific one, so let’s see what we have on details for this specimen and if we can’t wager an educated guess.

We have a red beak, black feet and approximately green feathers from the Original Chinese. Except no woodpecker has a red beak, so what is probably meant is red colouration on the head! It may also be a relatively small species of woodpecker as mentioned later in the text. My best guess is that it might be a Gecinulus rafflesii aka Olive-backed Woodpecker, who are native to Southeast Asia and can be found in mountain forests.

This small fine fella.

Though note it is specifically the males that have a red crest, females have a black crest. They’re still very pretty though.

But that guess is very flimsy at best, there is a huge variety of woodpeckers and just not enough detail in the text to really pinpoint something even remotely definitive.

Wow, not sure how to see this. On the one hand Tang Sanzang shows such trust and confidence that Zhu Bajie wouldn’t lie to him, but on the other hand that’s just because he believes him too dumb for that.

Awww, Gold Horn and Silver Horn remember and count the horse!

Whenever I read ‘little fiends’ I imagine a variety of DnD goblin-sized little guys.

Ah, Zhu Bajie can be quite clever! It really shines a light on how the nickname Idiot can be interpreted ‘cause he’s not stupid as such. He’s just weak-willed.

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 31 Thoughts

Chapter 31 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

You can practically hear the sarcasm seething when Sun Wukong says “O, Master is so just and kind!”. In the other two translations they make it clear in the text that it’s meant sarcastically, but Anthony C. Yu managed to really bring across the sarcasm without a need for spelling out that it’s meant sarcastically. Very neat and pretty difficult to pull of so well!

Excuse me, those children are only eight to ten years old?! Lady Baihua Xiu, what have you been doing making them out as some monsters?! They are still little!

Also not cool at all for Sun Wukong to treat the young children like this. Especially because it is him, he of all people should be more empathetic towards children. He’s a communal grandpa for crying out loud! And it’s not like those two even did anything either.

On a lighter note it’s very cute how Sha Wujing really encapsulates the little brother role, particularly with his interactions with his eldest brother like we see here.

Ah, the return of sexism. This time the lady in question is proving otherwise though, a good step in the right direction. But of course immediately backtracked by blaming her for something inherently out of her control and a hefty case of Men Writing WomenTM.

Old monkey is condensed silly.

Yellow Robe is a decent husband, I give him that. Not without fault as we’ve already seen, but he does care.

That portraying the fights through poems is a good way to do it should be clear from the start, but why it’s so good just came to me now that I think about it. They are snappy, so the tension is carried well and they basically go in a blow by blow manner with the alternating lines. They carry the speed of fighting while also being quite clear and easy to follow. Writing good combat is hard, so writing it like this is smart!

Honestly there would have been a way to at least somewhat fix up the loophole of the jade girl and the Wood Wolf Star ordeal. Just say the princess forgot her previous life. It would still be a little odd that the Yellow Robe fiend didn’t just explain things to her, but you could technically claim that if he spoke out what was going on someone could hear and report him, so he kept it an unspoken, but what he believed known, deal.

Last but not least the jade girl does give me some Ariel vibes with her wanting to see the world, in this case, ‘below’.

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Self care is watching this with sound

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JTTW Chapter 30 Thoughts

Chapter 30 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

So this fiend is pretty smart to deduce the situation this quickly and accurately.

I do wonder if Baihua Xiu has ever asked to visit her parents sometime. The fact that her husband said “Why do you still think only of your parents […]” makes me believe she might be talking about them at least once in a while. Though in all seriousness it is only natural for her to miss them and you can’t get by with only a single person to rely on for social interaction. Does she even have any friends? No human ones, I’m pretty sure about that.

Ah domestic abuse, not cool buddy. It appears this was the first time he did something like that, but he better take action to make amends and that it never repeats.

And he does take action, that’s a good start. Nevertheless the mere fact that she doesn’t feel like she can openly talk with her husband already shows that this marriage isn’t all that. She’s putting up a front from what we’ve seen and heard thus far.

Now it wouldn’t surprise me if Baihua Xiu thought ‘Damn, why can’t he change into this form more often.’.

Oooh, foreshadowing in what is deemed a tall tale, very clever on the writer’s part!

Though how can the king believe this so easily? He has the letter from his daughter after all, which tells a whole different story!

I do very much appreciate that the poem said ‘tiger scary, but also really cool’!

Awww, Bailong Ma called Sun Wukong his Big Brother! While calling the other two by their nicknames, we can clearly see who he’s more attached to.

Also hey, the horse is doing something for a change!

That combat poem is a bit confusing in which line belongs to which individual. I think the first of every pair of lines refers to the demon and the second to the dragon until “The silver dragon flew and danced; The yellow demon flipped and flopped.” when it becomes the other way around for the last two pairs of lines.

While Zhu Bajie is still cowardly here, he is not without reason. After all it already showed that he can’t win on his own, so getting backup is the best course of action.

Though insulting the horse, who has shown greater initiative than him this Arc. Tsk, tsk.

Hehe, he totally forgot Bailong Ma was a dragon, didn’t he?

Once again, awww! Makes sense Bailong Ma would vouch for Sun Wukong like that. He likely took great care of the horse all this time after all.

I do really enjoy stories making use of unique character traits and anatomy.

Sun Wukong really said ‘Where’s your business card?’.

HA! Cloud-scraper instead of skyscraper, now that got a laugh out of me!

Very wise of Zhu Bajie to go with the local cuisine. Something people should do in general if they travel to a different place. It brings new experiences and if you are so clever as to go out of your way to see where the locals dine you tend to get the best and tastiest version of said experience.

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 29 Thoughts

Chapter 29 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

First up why did the parents name her Hundred Flowers’ Shame though? I’m inclined to believe they meant it like she puts even a hundred flowers to shame with her beauty. Both the J. F. Jenner and German translation confirm this as well. Given the track record of the novel so far though it was only natural for me to squint a little and stop to think about it for a moment. This is likely a case of things having become a little unclear in translation with the Chinese name probably being very clear in its meaning when you understand the language.

Precious Image Kingdom is called Elephantia in the J. F. Jenner translation, which I find quite hilarious.

This chapter’s creature feature is the scorpaenid. They probably mean scorpaenidae which is a fish! They’re better known as scorpionfish though fishes called Dragonhead also fall under that family!

This is one of these beauties!

However from what I could gather from the Chinese Original with the help of Google Translate and images specifically looking at [鰲魚 Áo yú] it seems to be a mythical fish with the appearance of a dragon, so this was likely the closest translation available.

Yet in the J. F. Jenner translation it is a turtle instead of a fish, which makes for a decently cohesive image as well. And if you only take the character [鰲 Áo] it can refer to a mythological turtle, so this can be seen as a plausible translation as well.

Moving on to some place names, personally I prefer the J. F. Jenner translation here for the Halls and Palaces. They just sound a little too silly for the grandeur they are meant to portrait in the Anthony C. Yu translation.

Hehe, Tang Sanzang is collecting those seals like loyalty stamps on a stamp card. That’s a pretty decent metaphor as to how it works since he gets one in every place with his grand price at the end when he collected them all being the scriptures.

Green hair you say? Why that sounds like an anime character! Also yes, golden eyes, blue face and green hair all checks out in terms of accurate colour translation.

Now the other two translations specify that in the letter she means her two sons are bad, which makes me wonder if she even tried to raise them to be good. Like the father’s influence is undeniable since he probably had a hand in raising them as well, but nobody is born bad and they did also have their mother sooo. I’m just saying. It would understandable if she has a difficult relationship with them given how they came about, but flat out condemning children like this is not okay.

On a lighter note I really hope he actually means a couch looking like a dragon that would be so cool! It probably isn’t, but the mental image of it is still nice! Tang Sanzang should really start mentioning upfront oh yeah, they are demons so they look really scary, but they are good guys so you need not fear them. Just calling them ugly sets incomplete if not false expectations.

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 28 Thoughts

Chapter 28 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

Starting off strong with some creatures! So I was curious and looked up where seagulls are native to and indeed they are native to China. Specifically the Larus Crassirostris or Black-tailed Gull, though mentioned in the Chinese Original seems to be only the general family of Laridae, which gulls are a part of.

This is a Black-tailed Gull that already looks like it’s plotting to come after your fries.

The thought of a potential seagull yaoguai is hilarious to me.

Erlang didn’t seem to have ordered the burning of Huaguoshan in chapter six though. I would have liked a hint to that at least, like a scene where something is vaguely implied to happen but there’s a cut just before the reveal.

So way back in chapter six I did the math and…“more than half” is a mild estimate. If you go through the numbers backwards 42000 monkeys had to have died in the fire. 420 blazin’ for real huh, but make it times 100. Since half went away right after, should they manage to return, the troop could get back up to maybe 3000 to 3500 again, but that’s about it. Around 1100 to I estimate 1500 were taken by the hunters. I am not okay.

Also do the hunters perhaps harken back to the lesser gods Erlang brought with him in chapter six? They too had bows and crossbows as well as dogs and birds of prey.

On a lighter note love to see Sun Wukong use multiple colours for the banner. Probably in reference to the Wuxing, but a guy can dream about it being at least a little queer.

Not very responsible to just leave the horse there. I mean Bailong Ma will be fine, but it’s still kind of rude to just leave him there.

The way those little fiends and their Great King talk about the handsome monk sounds so fruity. He wants him to submit you say?

Casserole Mountain?! That’s the funniest name for a place I have heard yet! I cannot not think of an actual casserole dish. In the J. F. Jenner and German translation it’s called Bowl Mountain.