ABC Storytime

In this episode, a fisherman and a woodcutter get into a sing-off. (Don't worry, we don't sing.) We chat about one of our favorite topics - food!

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⁠⁠In this episode, the young Tang monk, newly named Xuanzang, seeks to avenge his parents, and we discuss dreams, premonitions, and superstitions in Chinese culture.

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Who will undertake the Journey to the West? We get into the backstory of the Tang Monk and chat about why education is so highly valued in Chinese culture with our friend Felicia Tang.

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Welcome to Season 2 of Journey to the West. It's been 500 years since we left off in Part 12. The Buddha and Sun Wukong are both back, and the Boddhisatva Guanyin is sent to China to find a faithful pilgrim to undertake the Journey to the West, and on the way, she recruits the rest of the crew.

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Sun Wukong has been captured, but it's not the end of the line for this Monkey King. We wrap up Season 1 with conversation about Wukong's bet with the Buddha and the culture of humility with our very first guest, Vicky Liu.

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The Jade Emperor's nephew, Erlang Shen, is brought to have a battle of transformations with Sun Wukong. It seems that he is still not quite powerful enough to capture the Monkey King, but maybe the founder of Daoism can help?

*Our conversation afterwards contains a few words not appropriate for younger listeners that we did not censor. Apologies, parents! We were tired.

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The bodhisattva Guanyin arrives to attend the Immortal Peach Festival and finds Heaven upturned over a stone monkey. We discuss the portrayals of Buddhism and Guanyin in the media that have made the deepest impression on us, given that we both have very little personal experience with Buddhism, as well as the propensity of Journey to the West to write fight scenes as poetry.

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The heavenly army is back to try and capture the Monkey King, but what makes them think things will go differently this time around? Join us as we discuss the siege of Mount Huaguo and Wukong's famous cloning ability.

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The fox is asked to guard the henhouse as the Monkey King is made caretaker of the Immortal Peach Orchard. The Jade Empress was growing those peaches for the upcoming Immortal Peach Festival, which Wukong was not invited to!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

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Heaven sends an army down to arrest Sun Wukong, the self-appointed Great Sage Equal to Heaven, but it turns out the title might be well deserved.

See all of the Spider-People as Journey to the West characters

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The Monkey King is invited to Heaven and the Jade Emperor appoints him as the Bi Ma Wen of the imperial stables, but what is a Bi Ma Wen?

Poem describing the heavenly stables

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Sun Wukong goes to hell and makes all of the monkeys immortal. Then the Dragon King and King Yan report to Heaven about a certain monkey king. What are heaven and hell like in Chinese mythology, and how do you get there?

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Wukong bullies the Dragon King into giving him his signature weapon, the Will-Abiding Gold Banded Staff, or 如意金箍棒. Where does this legendary weapon come from, and what powers does it have? What is a Chinese dragon? Does it breathe fire?

Pictures of the Dragon King, Will-Abiding Staff, and Great Sage outfit: Journey to the West – Chapter 3.2 – Etymology Adventures

Journey to the West – Chapter 3.3 – Etymology Adventures

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Wukong gets into his first fight and hey, why does the fight scene kind of suck? Why does this story sound so odd to our modern western ears? What is a demon, or 妖怪, in Chinese mythology anyway? (Hint: It's not what you think!)

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Where did the nimbus cloud in Dragonball originate? What about Naruto's clone ability? Airbending? Most importantly, what is the secret to immortality? In this chapter, we see why the Wukong-like character has become such a popular trope as he becomes one of the most powerful characters in fiction.

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Language shouldn't be a barrier to connecting with your heritage. We hope that by telling these traditional Chinese stories in English (sometimes Chinglish), we can explore Chinese worldviews and help ABCs connect with their roots.

We start off with a classic - Journey to the West - a Chinese mythological epic that inspired Sun Goku from Dragonball and Saiyuki, Mori Jin in the God of High School, Tiansheng in Animal Crossing, and many others.

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