The Monkey King

 The Monkey King occupies an interesting place in Chinese culture.  He has fantastic powers and successfully challenged the King of Heaven.  Every Chinese child knows him from numerous cartoons.  He is also always a key performer in any celebrations of the Chinese Near Year.
His Chinese name is Sun Wukong.  He became famous because of a Chinese classic written about a thousand years ago called The Journey to the West. In this story, the Monkey King is released from captivity (where he has been for five centuries) in order to help the famous monk Xuan Zang on his quest to bring Buddhist scriptures from India to China.  On the right is the Wild Goose Pagoda.  This tower was originally built on the return of Xuan Zang, victorious after his 17 year journey along the Silk Road, through Afghanistan to India and back, to house his precious Buddhist writings.  He was welcomed as a brother by the Emperor.  Then, with the help of some other monks he spent the next 12 years translating his documents into Chinese.  The tower has been repaired numerous times, but its basically over 13 centuries old.

 With all this notoriety of the journey of Xuan Zang you would think there would be some knowledge in Xi'an regarding the content of the writings.  What was the gist of the knowledge that he strove so hard to obtain?
He wrote a treatise with a title including the words "Consciousness Only".  His main idea is that the whole world is really a representation of the mind.  In India this is not a strange idea, but in modern China I'm sure the vast majority of Chinese and visitors to the Pagoda have no idea of the knowledge of Xuan Zang.  I felt sad that he is remembered so enthusiastically, but that the main point of all his efforts is not communicated in the place which was built for that purpose.

The above camel is an actual relic from the Tang dynasty (the time of Xuan Zang). The one on the right has a proud place in a shopping area called "Da Tang Xi Shi" which means the Great Tang West Market Place.  Ironic that the camel that carried Xuan Zang has survived better than the treasures it carried.  Must be one of the jokes of the Monkey King who evidently carried out his mission very well.