you may have heard of Wukong from the famed 80s TV show monkey magic
or the numerous video game franchises
Dota, League Of Legends, Smite, Paragon
or the 2014 film 'The Monkey King', only the world's highest grossing film at the time
Which had even stronger follow-ups
No? maybe you're more familiar with his derivative Goku from Dragon Ball Z
No? maybe you didn't know he influenced Chewbacca either
or Rafiki
but to some he's a lot more than just pop culture or mythology
I travel to the Hong Kong Monkey King festival find out
The Monkey King OR Monkey God
is a very chinese deity, it has a lot of different origins
When we mention about Monkey God, nearly everybody knows about who is the Monkey God
It's often been confused that The Monkey King only first appeared
in 16th century novel 'Journey to the West'
however turned out that Daoists
told his legends even before Buddhism
People in China, even if they can't write,
no matter old or young
everyone knows about Sun Wukong. He was so naughty
They know many stories about how brave and how strong and how powerful he is to
protect his master
Even before he was in 'Journey to the West', he was already being worshipped
every faith promotes surrendering to its central deity to overcome hardships
I found the same sentiment here towards the Monkey King
The Monkey has the appearance of being very jumpy, very agile, very active ]
and need to have a character like that
to highlight the ability of self discipline
and the willingness to change
so that is very important
so even in the 'Ramayana' you pay a lot of high respect to the Monkey King
partly because of those reasons as well
He is more than a Monkey!
He's just more than a Monkey!
The Understanding of the Monkey God
comes from the original Buddhism and the 'Ramayana'
and all these different deities have travelled East really.
and have come to China and have become deities that have been accepted by the Chinese and worshipped
a popular theory states that Sun Wukong is actually the same as
The Indian Monkey deity Hanuman
and that Journey to the West is a sequel to the Indian novel
Ramayana where Sun Wukong's early life is a summary of Hanuman childhood
with a few exaggerations added by the author
I wondered what the locals and followers thought of this
I think there is a missing link between Sun Wukong and Hanuman
What service they do for their master, the attitude is actually the same
Some artists may sculpt more or less of some details but there is only one Monkey King
Hanuman is actually Sun Wukong
and Sun Wukong is actually Hanuman
as we know from Ramayan Hanuman is so brave
and he did a lot of service to Rama
For Sun Wukong, after he meets the master Tang Sen,
He protects Tang Sen anywhere, he did a lot of service too.
similar way Hanuman is very loyal to Lord Ram
helping Lord Ram to look for Sita, by all means
these Taoist practices are called 'Jiaobei' and 'Kau Cim'
I shall go into them in my full documentary later
this festival was on for an entire week
I came to find that I had missed the first and most spectacular day
like I wasn't mindblown enough
Some easily believe Darwin's theory of evolution, but struggle with an ancient talking monkey
I found it interesting that more than his name's they prefer to call him by his title
'the Great Sage Equivalent of Heaven' or 齊天大聖 'Cai Ding Dai Seng'
each evening opera was performed to entertain The Monkey King
which His followers could watch with Him