The Journey to the West, Books 7, 8 and 9

This book contains the full text of the 7th, 8th and 9th stories in our Journey to the West series for people learning to read Chinese. The three stories told here are unchanged from our original versions except for minor editing and reformatting. The Monster of Black Wind Mountain tells the story of the first few months of the journey itself. The monk Tangseng is accompanied by his disciple, the short-tempered Monkey King Sun Wukong. They run into serious trouble while staying in the temple of a 270 year old abbot, and their troubles deepen when they meet the abbot‘s friend, a terrifying black bear monster. In The Hungry Pig we meet the pig-man Zhu Bajie, who becomes Tangseng‘s second disciple. In a previous life, Zhu got drunk at a festival and attempted to seduce the Goddess of the Moon. The Jade Emperor banished him to earth, but as he plunged from heaven to earth he ended up in the womb of a sow and was reborn as a man-eating pig monster. And in The Three Beautiful Daughters, the band of pilgrims arrive at a beautiful home seeking a simple vegetarian meal and a place to stay for the night. Instead, they encounter a lovely and wealthy widow and her three even more lovely daughters. This meeting is, of course, much more than it appears to be, and it turns into a test of commitment and virtue for all of the pilgrims. The story is written, as much as possible, using the 1200-word vocabulary of HSK4. It is presented in Simplified Chinese characters and pinyin, and includes an English version and complete glossary.