好個孫猴子! (I) (Literary figure)

(from RoamAure flickr.com)

I recently read a review on the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, where the critic mentions how Mad-Eye Moody insists upon replicating Harry sevenfold so that the Death Eaters won’t know which the real one is when they come after him. Wow, did Rowling ever read Journey to the West 西遊記 (xi you2 ji4), a Chinese classical novel and get inspired?

In my previous writing豬八戒照鏡子in Feb, I talked a little bit about this novel. Aside from the pig豬八戒, the monkey 孫悟空(sun wu4 kong), is also a household name in the Chinese world. Of the three pupils accompanying the monk to the west, he ranks the first. We certainly have lots of daily expressions that are related to him.

One of his famed “kung-fu” is that he can replicate his own figure by pulling off his own hair, chewing them and spitting them out. Then he’s surrounded by hundreds, even thousands of “himself,” depending on how much hair he has pulled off. Each of this figure is called his分身(fen shen), clone, or incarnation, who is at his service. Imagine several of you working at the same time when you’re juggling around. How nice will it be?! Sometimes we’ll praise someone who just waltzes around finishing many things at the same time by saying that he’s 分身有術(fen shen you3 shu4). On the contrary, when you’re tied up, you can say you’ve been 分身乏術(fen shen fa2 shu4) to mean you can’t take more tasks or show up in two places at the same time.

In the past when people were more conservative, when kids asked the birds-and-bees questions, lots of Chinese parents would tell them, “You just popped out from a stone.” 從石頭裡蹦出來(zong2 shi2 tou2 li3 beng4 chu lai2). I think the parents were inspired by the way孫悟空was born.

In the beginning of the novel, the author introduced to us a very big rock on the top of a beautiful mountain long long ago, which absorbed the essence of the sun and the moon and would glimmer in the moonlight. One day, a thunderstorm hit and the rock was stricken by a thunder. It split open and a stone monkey emerged. The monkey just opened his eyes and became alive. Strong golden lights shot from his eyes that even Emperor of the Gods 玉皇大帝(yu4 huang2 da4 di4) in the heaven noticed it.

Originally the monkey lived happily as the chief of a community of monkeys. Like a lot of protagonists in the wuxia novels, he decided to get far away from home to a master to learn 法術(fa3 shu4), jutsu, supernatural abilities, after some bullies outside invaded to his territory. (But in wu-xia novels, it’s usually kungfu that the protagonists resort to.)

One of the monkey’s well-known jutsu is 七十二變(qi shi er4 bian), the seventy-two transformations, with which 悟空 has transformed into objects such as a bug, a tree, an old man etc. The jutsu has now often been used to refer to unpredictable tactics or strategies. Or sometimes it refers to a changeable situation such as a policy or a law.

In kungfu movies, you often see those kungfu fighters striding across the plain or above the water swiftly and lightly at an amazing speed, which is called 輕功, qinggong. What 悟空 does is to ride a “somersault cloud,” 觔斗雲(jin dou3 yun2), on which he travels a hundred and eight thousand li (里(li3), a unit of distance which equals about a third of a mile) with a somersault.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

好個孫猴子=好个孙猴子

西遊記=西游记

豬八戒照鏡子=猪八戒照镜子

孫悟空=孙悟空

分身乏術=分身乏术

從石頭裡蹦出來=从石头里蹦出来

七十二變=七十二变

輕功轻功

觔斗雲=觔斗云