Production Notes - Episode 5 | Subscription/Gods and Treasures

Journey to the West an audio drama series. Production notes, episode 5. Hello, dear listeners. This is Lynn the voice of the fit monkey before we begin, you may have noticed that we didn't update for three straight weeks between chapters, four and five. That's mainly because I took a vacation and that's also kind of why we never promised on any update frequency. We just cannot guarantee anything given how small the team is.

And when we say we are a multinational team, we mean no two members in the team, even live in the same time zone. So, how fast we can produce the next episode, depends on a lot of factors. However, they are a lot of things. You dear listeners can do to keep this journey going. Our website is www.pevs.com Unk e.com, where you can find all our social media accounts.

We are on YouTube, Twitter Tumblr, Billy Billy and weibo among other places. If you listen to the episodes on podcast, our YouTube channel has every episode Foley subtitled and ready for your reference. We are very thirsty for comments. So, those are always welcome to. We also have an email address in case you're more old-school.

Our Twitter handle is 5th, underscore monkey, with the five being the number five, we have put it in the description of this episode if you want to give us a follow. So yeah, go follow us there and get the latest news on why we are slow on our next episode. And going forward, we do intend to set up subscriptions for this series because it would be impossible for the project to sustain without any income.

Our entire team has basically been volunteering for six months by now, but we do also want to make sure the story is as accessible to readers around the world as possible. So the subscription will not be very costly. We're aiming at about three US dollars per month, And we only intend to make the latest episode locked.

Which means as soon as the next episode comes out, whenever that is the previous episode will be publicly available. That's the plan and chapter 6 would be the first chapter that require subscription to have Early Access. Just as a test run we will upload chapter 6, part 1 about a week from whenever this episode comes out but only for subscribers for nonsubscribers. You will just have to wait until part 2 comes out to get free access to part 1.

I hope I explained it clearly. And you may also remember that we have a patreon page right now, all our patrons, regardless of tear already have Early Access plus some other perks. So that won't change if you feel like contributing to the project a little more, you're more than welcome to become a patron.

You have her me giving shoutouts to patrons before the next one could be you. So to summarize one follow us on social media if you want the latest updates or to interact with the team and to the project will set up a subscription soonish. You're welcome to either contribute or simply wait a little longer for the next episode. Our goal has always been to make the story of Journey to the West accessible to as many people as possible and that hasn't changed.

Finally, got that out of the way. Now, let's jump into the meat of the episode. First of all, we would like to clarify the relationship between Lady Queen Mother and the Jade Emperor, despite what some Modern adaptations may have let you to believe they're not a married, couple in the Taoist Cannon and pardon me for repeating myself. But remember how the stories and characters in Journey to the West, are the products of?

Yes, the collective imagination. It is the same for the queen mother and the Jade Emperor who are in fact, two figures developed independently from each other and only became somewhat related much later in history. The origin of the lady queen mother goes all the way back to Shanghai, Jean classic of mountains and seas which is a Chinese classic texts and a compilation of mythical places and creatures. It is believed to be written over 2,000 years ago and it documented a being named see wamuu. Now even though we can directly translate the name, c-110 to West Queen Mother.

Her earliest image was not at all like a conventional Royal lady in Shanghai Beijing suyama was described as a creature with a leopard tail and tiger fangs, she could how like no other and had messy hair and Edition. You was the Fearsome deity of natural disaster, disease and Punishment. So what you get is a very primitive and ferocious image of a powerful goddess created during a time before humanizing supernatural beings, became the norm, note that c, Wahoo's, earliest images, formed, when taoism as a religion was still in its infancy. It wasn't until later when her image was absorbed into the Taoist Canon, and it's also during her interaction, with Dallas, Legends and teachings,

that the figure it became connected. Add 2 pi and how Divine peaches and other female deities in the mythical system. See wamuu was believed to hold a secret to eternal life. If you're familiar with the legend of goddess Chung Hua the Mortal woman who stole a magic palette and flew herself onto the moon know that this magic palette believed to Grant one eternal life came from none other than see one more herself. And during all this time, you wonder where is the Jade Emperor?

Well, he wasn't in the game until over 1,000 years later before he came around. People have designed a husband figure for c 1 mu to fulfill the yin-yang balance. This husband was named the wankum literally East King father just to make things obvious. But he soon became obsolete, when the Jade Emperor Rose to power in the Mythical system during the Song Dynasty before Song Dynasty the name UT or Jade.

Emperor didn't even refer to a particular God. It was more often used as an umbrella term for powerful and Noble deities. But so Empress were very keen worshippers of this Jade, a figure. So they not only canonize the Jade Emperor as one individual deity. But also solidified his role as ruler of the Taoist heaven. All this time, the worship of C1 rule continued and so naturally, the top female guard and Top Male got in the Taoist religion, began appearing alongside each other. But even then, people didn't just go ahead and declare them married.

It wasn't until Ming and Qing dynasties. When you start seeing the two characters become more worldly in folk stories. Portraying deities in ways that make them more like humans, it's kind of the overall trend here. So God's will go from distant primitive frightening, creatures to very conventional matriarchal or patriarchal figures.

This is why somehow C1 will became one Moon young or lady queen mother, who may or may not be the Jade emperor's wife, or sister and may, or may not have enforced a taboo against God's falling in love with humans. At this stage, people are just throwing in what they think a powerful matriarch should be like into a pot to create this more recent image of the lady queen mother which should be familiar to you if you watched any Any drama from the last 50 years.

Featuring this character. Meanwhile, the Jade Emperor was well, the Emperor of Heaven, he is a much younger God given how much later His Image solidified. He does have some backstory to toe to, but there are over all much less fascinating than that of the Queen Mother. Till this day, many people still worship these two figures separately and I think the Queen Mother enjoys more offerings than the Jade emperor in general because she has been around solo longer.

That means this awkward marriage though present in some folklore, it's far from being Cannon consensus in the religious context. So I guess you could just consider them colleagues. We're only touching the surface of their Legends here. For we simply don't have time to dig too deep. Moving on. There are a couple of vocabularies from chapter 5 that requires some elaborating first, is the word jade.

You'll hear a lot of things being described with Jade in the story. But if you read the original text, you will realize that the word jade is being used as a cure-all word for many, many different concepts and objects, We can roughly divide these words into to barge categories. The first category consists of items that are actually made of the mineral. We call Jade.

So, if we are describing jewelry ornaments or some solid item, you can, physically touch and hold. Then the word. Jade, most likely is an honest description of its material. However, in Chinese, we have separate characters used to refer to different items made of Jade. So, in theory from the character alone, you're supposed to differentiate its shape and usage on top of the fact that it was made from Jade.

I'm going to give you an example. In the earliest, surviving Chinese dictionary are. Yeah. Roughly meaning approaching correctness written. Over 2,000 years ago, we can find the following entry on J discs. if the ring is wider than the whole we call it be, if the hole is wider than the ring we call it un If the ring is the same width as the whole, we call it 1. So 4 J discs with a pole at the center. You already have at least three names based on its actual appearance.

Be yeah, one the same goes for other Jade items but unless a particular item is super important to the story. We would not go this far to name and describe them and will only call them Jade something. What you need to know is that there is always more to the Jade that a mere description of the material. And the second category of words consists of everything else. Meaning anything that's described with Jade but not actually made of Jade Jade.

Do you see as a symbol of class nobility Beauty and virtue in Chinese culture? So in theory, you can literally describe anything nice with Jade. The Jade Emperor is obviously not made of Jade, but he is a powerful god with Noble titles. A jade girl is also not made of Jade, but a beautiful young and possibly Divine virgin.

The jaded liquid is not Jade liquefied, but Divine wine made by and for God's and so on. feel free to revisit previous chapters and see if you can figure out what each Jade we first do Next. So in chapter 5, part 1, when describing the dishes, served in the grand Feast, we mentioned the lips of a mysterious beast in the original text.

It was actually specified as seen Tuan, Tuan means lips and sing in contemporary Chinese refers to gorillas and chimpanzees. Yes. The animal gorilla and chimpanzee from Africa but that's just modern Chinese, keep in mind. And in classic text the character seeing refers to a number of human like creatures that may or may not be monkeys or Apes. That are endemic to the region.

On top of that, there is no evidence suggesting that Cintron actually refers to the lips of Apes. One Theory suggests Just that Signature One in fact, is made from the face of a type of deer and the end product resembles the shape of an ape slips. But we haven't been able to find conclusive documentation to prove that which means we can't quite figure out what's in turn, refers to exactly.

But because it's a dish, served to God's, we know it must be something rare and precious and probably not found in the human world. Hence, the lips. It's of a mysterious Beast if you know what that is, please let us know. Moving on to the dish, the palace. A couple things first. If you're Rhett, the you and Jen are translations.

You might notice that they often use the word Elixir to refer to the Divine products made by lots of something we call Tintin in Chinese. But without Elixir is more, often associated with some sort of liquid or soup and doesn't quite fit. What's in done is, which is golden pills or pellets in the shape of tiny particles.

Boss. That's why we used pellet instead of Elixir, didn't then it's solid not liquid. Speaking of touch the palace there was once a debate on how to pronounce the name of this place in mentoring. The written name is not in dispute, but the second character is a hetero atom. It has two pronunciations, which means the Chinese translation for to stop.

Alice can either be do legal or social cycle but of course, given the fact that it's a transliteration of the Sanskrit, word to stir it is. Now consensus, that the place should be called those Go and in Journey to the West that which the palace is located at the grief, less Heaven Lee hung kyun. Lee beings to leave be separated from and hen means pain. Hatred can just means sky.

So according to its Buddhist Origins, the name is understood as heaven. Where one is free from all pain and suffering? Hence, the translation reflux heaven, However, in theater and folk literature around the time Journey to the West came into being. The name was granted, a new interpretation Ed instead became known as Heaven of Separation pain and was used to describe an extreme state of despair from being separated from a loved one. So depending on whether Lee is a verb or now, the namely hand-hewn can convey completely different meetings here in the novel.

We went with the translation that aligns with his religious Origins but know that you may encounter the latter meaning in other works from the same period. And finally, we will briefly talk about the new deities introduced in this chapter. So in the original text, the list of gods who participated in the battle against.

So, Macomb is actually much longer. But of course, we don't have time to introduce them all. Instead, we picked out four groups of reoccurring deities who are showed up again down the line and they actually have pretty important roles on the Journey to the West, but we will get to them later. On the group, I want to talk about a bit more is Joe. We are seeing want officers of the nine, Celestial, luminaries They in fact, originated from Hinduism under the title of never blah, roughly meaning, nine planets. And these nine deities, represent Sun Moon, Mars Mercury.

Jupiter Venus, Saturn La KU and ketu rahu or lower housing in Chinese is not an actual Celestial body, but the ascending node All of the Moon. T2 or T2 sing in Chinese, is also not a real planet but the descending node of the Moon. This explains why we have the great white ghosts are with the ghosts are meaning planet. Venus but also another officer representing the same Planet within the nine Celestial luminaries because they literally come from different mythical systems. That's why and you will learn later. The great white ghosts are possessed much greater power and was heavily involved in the Journey to the West whereas chapter 5 is pretty much the highlight of the nine. So Last show luminaries as a

group. We went a bit longer than usual but we finally reached the end of it. I would like to thank dear Patron. Lydia for sponsoring this episode. Yes, just like that. Maybe we will eventually get to a point where we have too many patrons to credit and your name will just show up on screen in the long list right now.

We can still credit you one at a time and isn't that delightful? Again, our patreon page is in the descriptions. And you're more than welcome to follow us on social media before you leave. Don't forget to subscribe. This is the fifth monkey, and thank you for listening. Journey to the West in Audio. Drama Series is a production by the fifth monkey. If you enjoy our work, please support us on, patreon.com slash the fifth monkey or had to www.wymt.com to support us on social media shares, comments, emails, all are welcome. This is Lynn.

See you in the next episode.

Production Notes - Episode 5 | Subscription/Gods and Treasures

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