Monkey King

The Monkey King, Sun Wukong (孫ফ空, pinyin: sun1 wu4kong1), is perhaps the most famous and beloved character in all of classic Chinese literature. He is the main character of Journey to the West, a story dating back to the Tang dynasty. Through a series of audacious stunts he acquires immortality, shape-changing ability, cloud travel skills, and ownership of a handy as-you-will resizeable cudgel which can be nestled behind the ear for easy carrying or resized to tree-trunk size for pounding the sense out of dragons. Above all he has monkey chutzpah.

He is invited to the Heavenly Kingdom by the Jade Emperor in the hopes that a promotion and title will make him a little more manageable. He proves to be an incorrigible monkey, however, and soon he's scarfing down the Empress's Pears of Immortality and popping Lord Lao Tzu's Pills of Indestructability like they were tic-tacs. Feeling guilty, but not that guilty, he becomes the biggest headache for everybody in heaven. Only with great effort and teamwork are the eminent beings in heaven able combine forces and stuff him into Lord Lao Tzu's eight-way trigem oven which is hot enough to reduce anything to cinders. After a good long cook and then some, they lift the lid to peek -- and out jumps Monkey King, completely unharmed.

All other options exhausted, they finally appeal to Buddha himself who arrives in an instant from his temple in the West. The Buddha effortlessly defeats Monkey and places him under a mountain. There he must remain imprisoned under rock until he can offer serve the future Sanzang, the Tang Priest, who is destined to make the journey to the West to retrieve the Buddhist scriptures for China. The bodhisattva Guanyin helps Sanzang by giving him a magical headband which Sanzang puts on Monkey's head. With a special word Sanzang is able to tighten the band until Monkey cannot bear the pain. In that way he is brought to his true calling as a disciple of Buddha. Sanzang gives him the Buddhist name Sun Wukong ("aware of emptiness").

For the rest of the epic Sun Wukong faithfully helps the Tang Priest on his journey to the west. The are joined by Friar Sand and Pig, two other monsters who have been tamed in advance by Guanyin and woven into Sanzang's destiny. The group gets into many scrapes and must learn many Buddhist lessons before they return safely to the Tang empire with the treasure of the Buddhist scripture.