The Journey to the West: Volume I

Chapters 1-5

Reading Check

1. The Jade Emperor (Chapter 1)

2. Metal weapons (Chapter 3)

3. The Garden of Immortal Peaches (Chapter 5)

Short Answer

1. Yin represents the dark, negative, and feminine principles, while yang represents light, positive, and masculine principles. (Chapter 1)

2. He sneaks into Patriarch’s home at night and waits. (Chapter 2)

3. He crosses out all of their names from the list of those who will someday die and go to the Underworld. (Chapter 3)

4. Wukong initially feels honored by his new position as the head of the imperial stables, but when he learns he is the lowest-ranked employee in heaven, he is humiliated. (Chapter 4)

Chaptes 6-10

Reading Check

1. Erlang/the Emperor’s nephew (Chapter 6)

2. Distant pillars (Chapter 7)

3. A golden carp/the Dragon King (Chapter 9)

Short Answer

1. He can’t hide his eyes from the smoke that the Emperor’s forces try to use to burn the immortality from him. (Chapter 7)

2. Guanyin tells Wukong that if he is sincere then when the pilgrim she is seeking passes by his prison, the pilgrim will free Wukong in return for Wukong agreeing to serve him. (Chapter 8)

3. Guanyin warns Wenjiao that if she does not protect her baby, Liu Hong will kill the child. Wenjiao floats the baby downriver, where he is found by monks at the Temple of Gold Mountain and raised under the name Xuanzang. (Chapter 9)

4. The fortune teller should give him a weather forecast. If the forecast is correct, the Dragon King will reward the fortune teller, but if it is wrong, the Dragon King will ruin him. (Chapter 10)

Chapters 11-15

Reading Check

1. Tripitaka (Chapter 12)

2. The warden of the mountain/Liu Boqin (Chapter 13)

3. 500 years (Chapter 14)

Short Answer

1. He promises to send fruit to the kings of the Underworld when he returns to the land of the living and to hold a spiritual service in honor of those whose lives were unjustly taken so that they can be reborn. (Chapter 11)

2. After his horse trips and causes him to fall into a pit where a demon waits to eat him, an old man appears and shows Tripitaka how to escape. The old man disappears into the sky, dropping some lines of poetry that reveal his true identity: Venus. (Chapter 13)

3. Guanyin casts a spell that forces Wukong to return to Tripitaka and allows Tripitaka to control Wukong. (Chapter 14)

4. At Eagle Grief Stream, a dragon tries to eat Tripitaka. Wukong fights it but cannot defeat it, so Guanyin intervenes. She turns the dragon into a horse for Tripitaka and Wukong to ride. (Chapter 15)

Chaptes 16-20

Reading Check

1. His cassock (Chapter 16)

2. Old Gao’s (Chapter 18)

3. Guanyin (Chapter 19)

Short Answer

1. Tripitaka does not like the idea of showing off his cassock, but Pilgrim assures him that everything will be fine. Tripitaka is right and Pilgrim is wrong: The abbot starts a fire to try to steal the cassock and then tries to kill Pilgrim, and then a monster from the Black Wind Mountain steals the cassock. (Chapter 16)

2. Guanyin approves a plan for the monster’s defeat that can succeed without killing the monster. After the monster is defeated and begs for his life, Guanyin spares him in return for a promise to reform himself. (Chapter 17)

3. The hermit tells Tripitaka that his journey will be a long one and that he will face many dangers but, ultimately, he will be successful. He also teaches Tripitaka a heart sutra that will help protect him from the dangers he will face. (Chapter 19)

4. The tiger wind’s master finds out that Tripitaka has disciples. He is afraid that these disciples will come looking for Tripitaka and cause trouble. (Chapter 20)

Chapters 21-25

Reading Check

1. Smaller version of himself (Chapter 21)

2. Husbands (Chapter 23)

3. Ginseng (Chapter 24)

Short Answer

1. Guanyin tells Hui’an to take a gourd to the river and tell Wujing, the monster, that Tripitaka is the man he is supposed to be a disciple to. Then Hui’an is to give Wujing the gourd to use as part of a raft of skulls to carry Tripitaka across the Flowing-Sand River. (Chapter 22)

2. The women never actually intended to marry anyone. They were bodhisattvas and were testing Tripitaka’s and his disciples’ virtue. (Chapter 23)

3. He is disgusted and refuses the gift. He does not understand how anyone could eat something that so strongly resembles a human baby. (Chapter 24)

4. When the Zhenyuan Immortal threatens to fry Tripitaka in a giant pan of oil, Pilgrim offers himself instead, as he is really the one that killed the ginseng tree. (Chapter 25)