The Journey to the West, Books 1, 2 and 3: Three Classic Stories in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin, 600 Word Vocabulary Level (Journey to the West (in Simplified Chinese)) (en Inglés)
Reseña del libro "The Journey to the West, Books 1, 2 and 3: Three Classic Stories in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin, 600 Word Vocabulary Level (Journey to the West (in Simplified Chinese)) (en Inglés)"
This book contains the full text of the first three stories in our best-selling Journey to the West series for people learning to read Chinese. The three stories told here – The Rise of the Monkey King, Trouble in Heaven, and The Immortal Peaches – are unchanged from our original versions except for minor editing and reformatting.These three stories all focus on the adventures of Sun Wukong, the Handsome Monkey King, one of the most famous characters in Chinese literature and culture. His legendary bravery, his foolish mistakes, his sharp-tongued commentary and his yearning for immortality and spiritual knowledge have inspired hundreds of books, television shows, graphic novels, video games and films.The full story of Sun Wukong’s adventures is told in Journey to the West, an epic 2,000 page novel written in the 16th Century by Wu Cheng’en. Journey to the West is probably the most famous and best-loved novel in China and is considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature.Here is a summary of the three books contained in this volume.Book #1, "Rise of the Monkey King": Thousands of years ago, in a magical version of ancient China, a small stone monkey is born on Flower Fruit Mountain. Hatched from a stone egg, he spends his early years playing with other monkeys. They follow a stream to its source and discover a secret room behind a waterfall. This becomes their home, and the stone monkey becomes their king. After several years the stone monkey begins to worry about the impermanence of life. One of his companions tells him that certain great sages are exempt from the wheel of life and death. The monkey goes in search of these great sages, meets one and studies with him, and receives the name Sun Wukong. He develops remarkable magical powers, and when he returns to Flower Fruit Mountain he uses these powers to save his troop of monkeys from a ravenous monster.Book #2, "Trouble in Heaven": With his powers and his confidence increasing, Sun Wukong manages to offend the underwater Dragon King, the Dragon King’s mother, all ten Kings of the Underworld, and the great Jade Emperor himself. Finally, goaded by a couple of troublemaking demons, he goes too far, calling himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven and sets events in motion that cause him some serious trouble. Book #3, "The Immortal Peaches": Trying to keep Sun Wukong out of trouble, the Jade Emperor gives him a job in heaven taking care of his Garden of Immortal Peaches, but the monkey cannot stop himself from eating all the peaches. He impersonates a great Immortal and crashes a party in Heaven, stealing the guests’ food and drink and barely escaping to his loyal troop of monkeys back on Earth. In the end he battles an entire army of Immortals and men, and discovers that even calling himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven does not make him equal to everyone in Heaven. As punishment, the Buddha himself imprisons him under a mountain.These stories are written, as much as possible, using the 600-word vocabulary of HSK3. They are presented in Simplified Chinese characters and pinyin, and include an English version and complete glossary. Free audiobooks are available on YouTube’s Imagin8 Press channel, and on our website, www.imagin8press.com.
