Production Notes - Episode 8 | Meet the Disciples

The 5th Monkey is a teammate of volunteers from around the world. We do not receive any outside funding. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to keep the series going. Thank you, Journey to the West, an audio drama series. Production Notes Episode 8. Hello dear listeners, this is Lynn, the voice of the 5th Monkey.

First a hi to our patrons and pay subscribers. I hope you enjoy this early access. We've got lots to cover in Chapter 8, so I highly recommend that you go listen to the story before coming back to this episode. And as usual, we'll cover things in the chronological order. First of all, I wonder if any one of you noticed but China is referred to in the story as Land of the East. When you get names that carry relative rather than absolute information like this one, it is very important to consider from whose perspective you are speaking because depends on where you are.

Land of the East may mean different things, but fortunately in Journey to the West this name is used exclusively to refer to Tang Dynasty China. Because for Silk Road merchants, Central Asian States and Sindhu monks, China is quite literally Land of the East. As our protagonists go on this journey westward to everyone they meet on their way. China would indeed be in the East, but then you would ask why is Land of the East located in Jambudipa, continent of the South?

One thing our listeners should keep in mind as we venture into the human world in the next few chapters is that as folk literature, Journey to the West should not be taken too seriously as a source to learn about history, religion, geography, and so forth. This is a story created by the grassroot by people with limited resources and knowledge about the world, so it's very sloppy on a lot of details, which would throw you into a Whirlpool of confusion if you attempt to understand it from a Canon perspective.

Don't use the story this way. Instead, what it should be used for is learning how history, religion, geography and other elements are perceived by the Ming Dynasty Chinese public. This is the perfect story to learn how they saw the world, not how the world was back to the topic of Jambu Dipa. To put it simply, the four continents that make up the Journey to the West story should not be understood as a reference to the real world map, but instead a Buddhism influenced point of view. Imagine a world where there are these four continents that are separated by oceans but not impossible to cross. Wukong was born in Pura Vidaha continent of the East. When he sought immortality he first reached Jambudipa and had a taste of the human world and

remember how disappointed he was. That was our first hint that Jambudipa was a relatively unenlightened place. Then he moved on to Aplakadania, continent of the West, and eventually found Patriarch Pouti In Buddhist cosmology, Jampu Dipa is where ordinary human beings like you and I live, so we could see Jampu Dipa as the continent where Ming dynasty Chinese people saw themselves in. Other continents are inhabited by different types of people and they may have different lifestyles. But Jampu Dipa is our world, and the people on this continent live in ways that we understand and are familiar with. And within Jumbo Depot there is the nation of China, also known as Land of the East, because for

a long part of our history, most foreigners in China did come from the West, and that's how they called us. So the seemingly contradictory ways of naming places is the result of mixing real world names with a fictional setting. Moving on, in Chapter 8, we finally met our team of disciples for the upcoming journey.

First we have Xiao Jing. So remember how he said he ate a ton of people who tried to cross the river? But the skulls of nine scripture seekers just won't sink, so he kept them as toys. In upcoming chapters, we will learn that the monk who eventually was selected to take on the journey to the West has been reincarnated many times before, so some readers perceive it as Xiao within killing and eating previous incarnations of his future teacher.

I guess we can't disprove what they're suggesting, but there is no evidence in Journey to the West that connects these nine dead scripture seekers to the monk's previous lives. There's just nowhere in the novel. That said, the Monk's previous lives were also dedicated to scripture seeking. So while this is a valid way to interpret the story, it is not official, so to speak.

It is very much a head cannon, but not supported by anything you can find within the original text. I guess we'll just leave it at that. Next up, we have Junan the Pig. One thing we can learn from his back story is that despite disastrous HR decisions like assigning a monkey to the Peach Garden, the Heavenly Palace actually has some solid anti sexual harassment policies, corporal punishment, and banish to the mortal world.

When nobody even follows up when you mistakenly got reborn as a pig. No wonder this is a fantasy story. So in the original text, Juwanan confessed that he was punished for flirting with Chang Lu. If you recall, as I explained in an earlier episode of Production Notes, in folklore, Changlu was a mortal woman who flew onto the moon and became the Lunar Goddess.

And in most if not all adaptations of Journey to the West, the lady harassed by Marshall heavily reads was indeed the Goddess Changlu. But the Goddess Changlu is actually not in the novel of Journey to the West at all. To understand how this functions in different contexts, we need to 1st know that a lot of figures who originated from very, very early days of the Chinese civilization are not known by their given names, that is, the names given by their families. Instead, they are more often known by their age, gender, occupation, place of origin, ranking within their siblings, or even a postmortem title.

So these names start out as very generic descriptions of this person, but once they become historically important, they end up owning this name. Future figures sharing similar features would no longer be able to use this name and have to be known as something else. Basically, the earlier you trace, the more people you would find who have a name like this.

At the same time, their actual given names are often lost in history. So that is the thing that happens to figures from very very early days of Chinese history and mythology. Coming back to Changlu, the goddess has always been known as Changlu or some variant of this name. So it is understandable to think that Changlu must only refer to this one single goddess.

But The thing is, Changlu is also quite obviously not a given name and has retained that generic implication of beautiful divine maiden journey to the West in fact reversed the generic to personal transfer of names and expanded the meaning of the name Shanga to no longer refer to one particular goddess, but a group of immortal maidens. You won't be able to fully appreciate this context until chapter 95, which is, I don't know, maybe eight years away from now.

But then you will find out that in the Journey to the West story, Changla refers to a group of maidens who work under Taiyin Xingjun, officer of the Great Star of Yin. The star of Yin, of course, is the moon, and there is no mention of the goddess of Changla, who supposedly would be the deity in charge of the moon. So Junan did not harass the goddess named Changla, but one of the maidens on the moon.

That's why we call her a lunar maiden, even though the original text did not mention that she was from the moon. This instead is a reference to what we will eventually find out in chapter 95. So I guess stay tuned. Moving on, we come to our little Dragon Prince Journey to the West never gave us the full name of the Dragon Prince who later became the Monk's Horse. So whatever names you're hearing from other works or adaptations, those are not from the Journey to the West novel. Throughout the story he is either called Third Prince of the Dragon King or Young White Dragon. And here we would like to point out the distinction between the Dragon Prince and the other three disciples in chapter 8. Notice how Bodies Atwa did not

read him any commandments or do anything that would indicate he was converted to Buddhism. That's because he wasn't converted to Buddhism. He did not become a monk. Dragons, you see, are a rather curious species of creatures in Journey to the West. On one hand, they seem to be born with incredible powers that allow them to manipulate water.

On the other hand, now they a longer life span. They appear to be mortal beings with very limited choices in life. That is to say, the cultivating path towards immortality that is open to humans, monkeys and other animals does not seem to be open to Dragons. The Dragons in Journey to the West are very much stuck to doing dragon stuff and nothing else, and that includes joining any religion. In other words, and what is after asked the young white dragon to be the monk's horse.

That was pretty much his only mission and sole responsibility on the journey. There was no expectation for him to read any Buddhist scriptures or follow the monk's teachings or even protect him in moments of crisis. Those were the disciples job, not the dragon horses. Later on in the story you will see how joining religion is sometimes referred to as leaving the family, where you move away from the roles of children, parent or spouse and become a disciple of Buddha or whatever duty that has your religion.

In that context, the young dragon actually never left his family. He has always kept his Prince title and is expected to retain this secular role when he completes the journey. Naturally, he would be awarded new titles by Buddha, but at no point would he be a monk. That's just not a career choice for Dragons at all.

When bodies Atwa traveled to land of the East, she's moving from West to east. So the order she meets all these disciples would be reversed for the monk who would travel from east to West. So the monk will meet Wukong first, then the White dragon, and then the other two. Supposedly, the order by which they become their teacher's disciple would determine their ranking.

So if Wukong joined first, he would always be Dashisung, the eldest brother of the same teacher. But you will notice throughout the novel that the young white dragon, despite joining the monk right after Wukong, was nobody's elder brother. Instead, he would call all the disciples elder brothers. Why?

Because he was never an official disciple. He was just transportation, A laborer so to speak, someone who worked under this team of teacher and disciples. The ranking doesn't apply to him and he will always be considered the most junior member. Next up, in case you don't already know the city of Chang'an of Tang dynasty, it's the modern day city of Xi'an where you can still find yourself surrounded by the glory of that golden age of Chinese history. Mark on your To Go list or something. And believe it or not, this episode is not over yet because we have not yet covered our most important issue why the next chapter isn't Chapter 9.

So because you listen to this episode of Production Notes, you will be relieved from the shock of finding out that the next chapter is called the Addendum and not Chapter Nine. Let me explain why. First of all, Journey to the West, being folk literature and all, has always had multiple editions of itself circulating in the market.

The editions differ in many smaller ways, but one of the biggest differences is whether they included the origin story of the monk and his family. If you look at the You and Jenner versions, they're both based on an 100 chapter edition with the entire origin story assigned to Chapter 9 at the same time. The most well regarded edition of Journey to the West, known as the Shudatang Edition published by the Shudatang Printing House in Mid Ming Dynasty, is an 100 chapter edition without the origin story.

OK, you may ask if both editions have 100 chapters, but one edition is missing an entire chapter worth of story, what are they filling that gap with? The answer is the rest of the story is actually very much the same, but just got divided up differently into different chapters. So basically in the Yuan General versions, Chapter 9 is the monk's origin story and then chapters 11:50 would explain why and how he was chosen to go on this journey.

Whereas in the Shuda Tongue edition there is no origin story and chapters 9 to 12 are all dedicated to explain why and how he was chosen to go on this journey. The content in the two editions is almost identical, it's just that in one edition it's split into 3 chapters and another edition is split into four chapters.

That's why if you compare the two, the titles for these chapters in question would be different because each of them begin and end at different points of the plot line. Up until the end of chapter 8, the different editions aren't that much different. And then you get this major difference between chapters 9 to 12 and by the end of chapter 12, everything realigns and the story moves on pretty much the same across these editions. So now the choice becomes, which version are we going with? In 1979, the People's Literature Publishing House made the rather innovative decision to take the entire chapter of the monk's origin story and insert it into the Shuda Tang edition as the addendum right between chapters

8:00 and 9:00. And that practice has become the norm thereafter. That way, readers are able to fully understand the monk's family history and also enjoy an addition that is most regarded by academia, And this 100 + 1 edition of Journey to the West is the basis of our audio drama. The content of the addendum will be identical to chapter nine of the Yuan General translations. In short, you're not going to miss out on anything. You will get every piece of what Journey to the West has to offer and the next chapter will be called the Addendum Okay. That's production notes for you here. This episode is sponsored by our patrons and dear subscribers on podcast.

Thank you all so very much and please comment, comment, comment before you leave. Don't forget to follow us and subscribe. This is the fifth monkey and thank you for listening Journey to the West, an audio drama series. It's a production by the 5th Monkey. If you enjoy our work, become our paid subscriber of Patron to gain access to the latest release and other exclusive content.

Head to www.thefithmonkey.com for links to all the platforms we're on and support us on social media. Shares, comments, emails, All are welcome. This is Lynn. See you in the next episode.

Production Notes - Episode 8 | Meet the Disciples

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