Reading Notes B: The Monkey King

The incident with the monkey king in the peach garden could be transferred into a modern story in which the girl gets cocky when her business becomes successful. Maybe she is in fashion and she starts to become successful and begins to have people wanting to wear her clothes, but she does not want to mentor other girls and give them the opportunities that someone gave her. She does not invest in her brand but just spends the money on material things, and does not respect the people in her field who have been there far longer than she has and try to give her advice. Possibly she is invited to do a small fashion show and she kind of thinks it is beneath her so she does not prepare, and it ends up being so-so and the reviews are not great but she does not care because she is enjoying her material wealth and her house and her business. The peach banquet could be turned into a grand gala, where all the big names in fashion are invited but the girl is not invited because of how she has not cared and the fact that she has not yet earned a reputation in fashion. So she sneaks in and embarrasses herself in front of all these big names by getting too drunk. All in all, the monkey king is careless and arrogant and does not have any regard for the gods, and I want to make the girl not have any regard for anyone else. Except her children of course, who she will always care for. There will of course be redemption at the end but it will be a classic story of getting everything she ever wanted and realizing she is not handling it in the generous and humble way that she thought she would.

Story source: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

The Immortal Dongfang Shuo Stealing a Peach