In the Orient Read Online Free PDF

British government to return all of Hong Kong when the ninety-nine year lease expired in 1997. In fact, the Chinese had been successful, and the Sino-Soviet Joint Declaration had recently been signed. Under this agreement, Great Britain agreed to transfer sovereignty for all the Hong Kong territories to the People’s Republic of China on July 1, 1997.
    Just as Mrs. Chen had predicted, Journey to the West, the classic Chinese epic comedic folk novel written by Wu Cheng’en during the Ming Dynasty in the sixteenth century, was the sole topic of Archibald’s Chinese Literature class. Since the novel was comprised of one hundred chapters, the class studied both the abridged English translation of Arthur David Waley’s Monkey, published in 1942, and the supplemental texts taken from the authoritative four-volume edition written by Anthony C. Yu and published in 1977.
    Mrs. Wang originally selected Monkey because Waley had translated thirty chapters almost word for word, rather than briefly summarizing all one hundred chapters, as was the case in previous translations. In reading Monkey, Archibald learned about the origin of Sun Wukong, who became the legendary Monkey King, together with the most important episodes of his western journey, including what happened when Sun Wukong and other pilgrims finally reached their destination.
The Monkey King
    The more he read, the more Archibald became fascinated with the story of the Monkey King. Not always a powerful king, Monkey was born from a stone on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. After joining a clan of other monkeys, it didn’t take long for his stature to rise, particularly when he found the clan a new home at the Water Curtain Cave located behind a large, beautiful waterfall.
    Soon after being honored as the clan’s leader, the Monkey King recognized that he was still mortal. Wanting to obtain immortality, he mastered the ancient art of Tao. From that point on, he became almost invincible in combat, having perfected shape-shifting and the cloud-somersault that allowed him to travel thousands of miles in a single flip. He also learned how to transform each of the hairs on his body into, among other things, clones of himself.
    When the Monkey King cheated death and defied an attempt to take his soul, wiping not only his name from the “Book of Life and Death,” but also the names of every monkey known to him, he was reported to the Jade Emperor of Heaven. That was the final straw.
    Hoping to control the troublesome monkey, the Jade Emperor invited him to Heaven. There, the Monkey King was first named the Protector of the Horses, which he thought was a very important position. Upon finding out that it was the lowest job in Heaven, the Monkey King rebelled and set all of the Cloud Horses free. The Heavenly powers tried one more time to subdue the unruly monkey by making him the guardian of the Heavenly Garden, a position that the Monkey King once again mistakenly thought was very important.
    Events spiraled out of control for the Monkey King when he learned that his name was not included on the invitation list to a royal banquet that included every important God and Goddess. Enraged at the perceived unforgivable snub, he once again rebelledagainst the Jade Emperor, this time by conniving his way into the banquet hall and eating the “peaches of immortality,” stealing the “pills of longevity,” and drinking the royal wine, all of which had been reserved for the banquet.
    Monkey King
    One of Archibald’s favorite passages described how the Monkey King had plucked a few hairs out of its tail after becoming tired of fighting one hundred thousand celestial warriors from the Army of Heaven. After he put the hairs in his mouth and chewed them into bits, he recited a spell and spit them out as newly created hordes of fighting clones. Those clones fought on while the clever Monkey King sat back and rested.
    However, it turned out that the Monkey King wasn’t clever enough to