Journey of the Monkey King

The Monkey King is back and I’m sure he’ll have no issues taking orders from a lifelong vegetarian pacifist monk. This episode features animal death around 12:00 to 13:50, human death around 26:00 and torture/corporeal punishment around 35:00 to 36:30. Links: “Āyatana” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āyatana Episode artwork from A Modern Journey to the West by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi: htt...

Let’s get this show on the road. Tripitaka heads out on his pilgrimage. This episode features death and cannibalism as well as animal death. Links: Black Myth: Wukong - Official 13 Minutes Gameplay Trailer on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2nNljv0MOw Episode artwork is an illustration of a tiger from Song era medical textbook, 1159 CE: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shaoxing-Ti...

Caoimhe is recovering from a concussion so instead of doing a normal episode she decided to read an automatically generated transcription of the previous episode. As such it covers the same topics as the previous episode, including death, suicide and corporeal punishment. Alcohol, alcoholism and drug use also come up. Links: Podscribe, the automated transcription service whose transcript we are re...

We finally hit the road! This episode features death prominently and the suicide mentioned in the previous chapter continues to be central plot for this chapter. Corporeal punishment is also mentioned at about 14:20. Links: “Fu Yi” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Yi “Xiaou Yu” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao_Yu “Wu Daozi” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

This week: ghost capitalism. Death is not even a way to escape it. This episode features the torture of the souls of the dead, particularly starting about 14:45, and a story that involves suicide and abuse at 33:30. Links: “Xuanwu Gate Incident” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanwu_Gate_Incident Monkey (TV Series) Opening Song (Monkey Magic) on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch...

This week we return to the plot, but not to the Monkey King or Xuanzang. We head to Chang’an to meet a fisherman, a woodman and an emperor. This episode features death, threats and capital punishment as part of the plot for the whole chapter as well as a couple gruesome ways to die at about 1:30 and the topic drifts to drugs briefly and 9:30 and 19:30. Links: The tweets about Emily Dickinson and m...

M.J. and Caoimhe talk about some differences between the real and fiction monk Xuanzang and his relationship to the Tang dynasty. Links: “The First Woman to Translate the ‘Odyssey’ Into English” from the New York Times : https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/magazine/the-first-woman-to-translate-the-odyssey-into-english.html Episode artwork is a Tang-era portrait of Emperor Tang Taizong: https://en.w...

We take a break from chapters to give you a clip of Caoimhe on M.J.’s show, They Did What Now , where we talk about the real life monk Xuanzang, who this novel is fan fiction of. Yes really. Links: The map we reference is from ”Chinese Pilgrims to Central Asia, India and SE Asia” from Ancient Buddhist Texts : https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/Maps/Silk-Routes/Chinese-Pilgrims.htm You can watc...

Today we meet a monk named Xuanzang and find out the circumstances of his birth and early life. It’s not a particularly happy story. This episode is quite a dark one and features murder, suicide, attempted infanticide, capital punishment, dismemberment, disembowelment and forced marriage. In addition it’s all humans doing this to each other rather than godly beings, which may make it feel a bit mo...

Sun Wukong is not happy about some poetry about him. This episode features discussion of punishment throughout, including corporal and capital punishment. It also explicitly mentions torture at about 12:00 and features mention of sexual assault, primarily at about 23:35. Links: Episode artwork is a 16th century painting of Guanyin by Qiu Zhu: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:白衣大士像.jpg...

This episodes highlights the long and ongoing tradition of Caoimhe not being able to pronounce anything correctly. The episode starts off with capital punishment including attempts to burn someone to death. That lasts up until about 06:00. Urination features at 14:35 and 15:05. Discussions of caffeine withdrawal and sensory overload lead to jokes about cannibalism between 7:30 and 9:35. We had tro...

A battle of the gods, a shapeshifting duel and avian slut shaming. Links: “Erlang Shen” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_Shen “Bustard” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bustard Episode artwork from Gujin Tushu Jicheng via Wikimedia Commons : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Imperial Encyclopaedia - Animal Kingdom - pic026 - 鴇圖.png Journey of the Monkey King...

Caoimhe & M.J. discuss the finer points of how to work with narcissists as the Monkey King continues to cause trouble in Heaven. This episode features repeated mentions of alcohol and a character getting drink between about 16:30 and 22:00. Links: “Kumis” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis “Barefoot Immortal” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_Immortal Episod...

In which Sun Wukong demands a promotion from God. As usual expect fights and violence throughout the episode and the episode also has some digressions that briefly touch on phrenology between 20:15 and 22:47 and a joke about BDSM sex practises at 26:08 and 28:00. I forgot about it while recording the episode but embroidered balls specifically as a courtship ritual will show up again in a future ch...

Sun Wukong demands to see the manager. Of Hell. Content warning for intimidation and threats of violence throughout the episode and for brief mentions of alcohol and drinking between about 23:00 to 23:40. Links: “Yu the Great” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_the_Great “Great Flood (China)” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_(China) “How the Milky Way Got Its N...

Journey to the West chapter two, featuring immortality, unwholesome meats and the Epic of Gilgamesh being gay. Spoilers for The Good Place between 3:18 and 04:45 when we discuss some existential issues. Links: “Epic of Gilgamesh” from In Our Time by BBC Radio 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b080wbrq “Chinese units of measurement” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chines...

Caoimhe & M.J. discuss the first chapter of Journey to the West and get side tracked by laser eyes and what exactly the word “unicorn” is a translation of. Links: “Qilin” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qilin “Ming treasure voyages” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages “Buddhist cosmology” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Budd...

Caoimhe and M.J. talk about the novel Journey to the West and why they wanted to make a podcast about the incredibly famous novel that no one has heard of. Links: “List of media adaptations of Journey to the West ” on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_media_adaptations_of_Journey_to_the_West Episode artwork from A Modern Journey to the West by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi: https://yoshitosh...