Reading Notes: The Monkey King, Part B

Photo of peaches by Ewan Traveler. Web source: Creative Commons.

People:

The Great Saint
 Lord of the Heavens - orders two architects to build a castle east of the peach garden of Queen-Mother of the West.

The Saint really liked this setup. He could live his life and peace, walk in the heavens and visits the gods up above whenever he wanted. He had anything anyone could wish for. Basically, he spends all of his time in the heavens. Which sounds pretty cool, if you ask me.

So back to the Lord of the Heavens, who charges one of the wise people to guarding this peach garden. Apparently, there are 3,600 trees in the peach garden. Wow that is a lot! The fruit only ripens every few thousand thousand years, so it is a big deal that it is kept safe. Of course, the fruit has magical powers and whoever eats it is kept safe and healthy. The last row of peaches ripens every nine thousand years and whoever eats the pit will live eternally.


The Saint takes it upon himself to eat all of the peaches he wants... I can sense that this won't end well. A group of fairies comes to harvest the fruit only to find one half-eaten peach in the last row. I can only imagine what kind of trouble he will be in now!

This story might be fun to retell in the context of a candy shop. It kind of reminds me of the the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.




Bibliography:  The Queen-Mother of the West from "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921). Web source: the UN-Textbook.