148A-Monkey King: Good Little Monkey

Myths and Legends

Jason Weiser, Carissa Weiser

Fiction, Arts, History, Books

4.8 • 25.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2019

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sun Wukong, the (Handsome) Monkey King, is both an actual monkey and an actual king…and presumably handsome according to whatever standard that is judged. One of the most famous anti-heroes of Chinese literature, we start his story, and the story of the extremely famous “Journey to the West” at the beginning, with the story of the monkey’s rock mom on the Flower-Fruit mountain.

The creature this week is the ningyo, the human fish. It’s neither human nor a fish, but it is a tired introvert who just wants some me time.

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Music: “Rice” by Chad Crouch “Peanut Shells” by Chad Crouch “Dim” by Chad Crouch “City Lights” by Chad Crouch “B-Roll” by Chad Crouch “The Gloaming” by Chad Crouch “Lunette” by Blue Dot Sessions
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Transcript

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0:00.0	This week on Myths and Legends, it's the much anticipated, much requested story of the Monkey King
0:06.3	from Chinese mythology, and you'll learn all about the shocking effectiveness of spitting
0:10.8	chest hair at your enemies and you'll see why you should be considerate of rocks, because they
0:15.4	might be expecting. The creature this week is a little introverted fish who just wants to be left
0:21.0	alone, but since it cries pearls and its meat grants immortality, it's not looking like that's
0:27.3	gonna happen. This is Myths and Legends, Episode 148A. Good little monkey.
0:42.5	This is a podcast where I tell stories from mythology and folklore. Some are incredibly
0:47.0	popular stories you think you know, but with surprising origins, of those stories that might be
0:51.4	new to you, but are definitely worth listening. Today's story is that of Sun Wu Kong, the Monkey King,
0:58.0	and it's an extremely famous story from Chinese Myth. The version I'm going with comes from the novel,
1:03.0	The Journey to the West. Published in the 16th century, it's one of the four great classical
1:07.8	novels of Chinese literature. It's about a dangerous and kind of funny journey of one monk,
1:13.2	as he travels west to obtain sacred Buddhist texts. And he gets together four companions,
1:19.2	plushed paulpers, to atone for their mistakes. Today, we're not starting with the titular
1:24.2	journey to the west, because the journey to the west doesn't start with the journey to the west.
1:29.1	The next two episodes are dedicated completely to the origin story of the journey's most famous
1:34.1	guardian, the intelligent and violent Sun Wu Kong, the Monkey King, and we'll see all the stuff that
1:40.3	he did that he needs to atone for. There is a place that has existed since the dawn of the
1:58.3	universe itself. A mountain, a land beyond the sea. It's called the Flower Fruit Mountain,
2:05.2	and Phoenix's fly around it, singing in pairs. Massive sea serpents churn the ocean around it.
2:10.9	Dragon stride in and out of lost and lonely caves, deep within the heart of the mountain,
2:16.3	and in the shade, unicorns rest. Of all these things, however, the most important,
	...

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