Typical portrayal of
Journey to the West

In my previous post, I mentioned that it is of no surprise why more people seems unable to act, or simply refused to do the right thing. After all, if doing something comes with the risks of taking the rap when it goes wrong, then it is best to just do nothing. It reminds me of Pigsy (or Bajie [猪八戒]) in the Journey to the West story, which often did nothing and is the fastest to take credit. Meanwhile, Wukong [悟空] often gets the rap and punishment from the monk Tripitaka (or Xuanzang [玄奘]) for doing what is right and necessary, and in the best interest of the party.

That comment was inspired by an article in Chinese which I read sometime ago, which made comparison to the Chinese classical fiction Journey to the West [西游记] to the present political plight of Singaporeans. Unlike the original article, I find that it describes pretty well what generally goes on in life at the present right here. One of my drinking buddies even pointed out that it is actually a parody good for all time.

There are five main characters in that story – the monk Tripitaka, his three disciples namely: Wukong the Monkey god, Pigsy, Sha Wujing [沙悟净] (or the ‘Sand Monk’ [沙僧]), and the often forgotten White Dragon Horse [白龙马].

The central figure would be Xuanzang. Though of humble birth, Xuanzang became the sworn brother of the Tang Emperor in the story. He is also the central authority of the party, as all the disciples defer to him for decision. Yet he is also the most helpless in defending himself, even though the reader is often convince about the importance of his objectives, so they are led to believe in the sacrifice he is making for the good of everyone and the generations that comes after. Even so, he would have been long dead – eaten by demons craving for his flesh which supposedly will grant them immortality – if not for his three powerful and capable disciples. Because Wukong is rash and often disregard Xuanzang’s authority in the beginning, the bodhisattva Guanyin [观音] (or Avalokitasvara) gave the monk a magical headband whereby Wukong was tricked into putting on. The monk would activate it by chanting which will cause Wukong an excruciating headache and thus forced Wukong to obey and submit. In the real world, Xuanzang maybe a government scholar who got parachuted into a position of authority, or some so-called foreign talent who got employed by merit of his qualifications with none of the experience or the capabilities he boasted about. At times they have powerful backers which sort of act like the magical headband which forces even the more capable subordinates into submission. In a certain sense, the monk would also describe some ministers perfectly, since propaganda would often refer to their… *erhem* humble beginnings.

A not so typical portrayal of
Wukong as a great ape

Wukong is the most powerful character in the whole story. This is the monkey god that run amok in the Chinese heavens without any regard of the Jade Emperor’s authority nor any fear of the heavenly soldiers. In spite of his quick temper and often rash and unthoughtful actions, Wukong only overriding priority in the entire adventure is to see the monk (or teacher) Xuanzang complete his mission – i.e reach his destination safely to obtain the Buddhist scriptures, and then return to China. As it is often said, with great powers comes great responsibilities. Wukong does most of the unpleasant tasks – fighting demons, or running about to get help when the tasks are too much for him to handle alone. He is also the best equipped to do so, since he also has a pair of eyes which can spot a demon in disguise. Yet, he often gets the most blame and punishment simply for his manner of executing his tasks. However, no matter how many times he has been wronged and cast out, the immensely loyal Wukong never hesitates to return and save his teacher once he hears that Xuanzang is in danger. This is a character we often do not see in a company, or in government agencies or departments. Such a character ceased to exist in real life because there is no appreciation and compliments when things goes well, but the axe would be quick to fall when things go wrong.

Pigsy womanising

Pigsy has great powers too. In spite of the traditional Chinese image of pigs being stupid, Pigsy is in fact the smartest. In general, Pigsy’s order of the day would be that of “No pain! No pain!”, since as long as he does nothing there will be no blame and no punishments when things goes wrong. Furthermore, there is always the more capable Wukong to put things right. Above that, Pigsy often rushes to curry favor with his teacher and take credit for things he didn’t do. At times, he even carry tales to his teacher causing Wukong to be punished. That is typically what we often see in government agencies and departments as shown in the movie Just Follow Law. I am sure we will all find some of those possessed by the Pigsy spirit hiding at a cubicle in a dark corner of our own office too. Unfortunately, many Pigsys are also in position of authority. So they are able to made someone take the fall when they screwed up. Worst of it all, Pigsy is also easily swayed by physical beauty which are often demons in disguise. I can’t help but to draw comparison with the recent sex scandals surrounding the SCDF and CNB chiefs.

Sha Wujing acting
as a human pack horse

Sha Wujing, is a character difficult to write about. He is a sharp contrast to both Wukong and Pigsy. With Wukong being the superhero, and Pigsy the idle bum, Sha is often overlooked and treated as a character the story can possibly do without. It doesn’t help that Sha is portrayed as carrying the luggage in drama series or movies based on the story, which further reinforces the impression that he is simply a character created to perform the mundane tasks that are beneath the notice of his fellow disciples. In a certain way, Sha Wujing is just like any other employee working quietly to do their part in a company. While there are generally considered dispensable and easily replaceable, everyone often felt a sudden sense of loss and helplessness without this person around. Basically, Sha Wujing is like many of those who just do their job without excelling in what they do. He keeps a low profile, but not so low where he would shirk from his own responsibilities while expecting someone more capable to take up the slack. Fortunately for him, at least no one tries make him the scapegoat when things go bad in the story. The same cannot be said of the modern day Sha Wujings in the corporate world.

The most pitiful of the whole lot would be the ‘White Dragon Horse’. People often talked about the monk and his three disciples but forgot about the origins of the horse and an important role it played in the entire story – as a ride for the delicate monk. Originally a dragon princeling who was cast out of heaven as punishment for arson, it also ate the monk’s original horse by mistake. Ultimately it chose to turn into a replacement horse to atone for its earlier misdeeds and lost its ability to speak throughout the journey. Its job is hardly enviable, since the monk rides on it most of the time. When not serving as a ride, it is the pack horse which carries the luggage. The fact that the dragon princeling chose to turn into a horse is that it believes it is serving a higher purpose. It fulfills its role without much fuss, while everyone completely overlooked its contribution. Typically, the white dragon horse which suffers in silence but has no voice is most alike to the Singaporean worker, because the trade union which presumably should be its voice no longer speaks up for it and sings a completely different tune to remind it why sacrifices are necessary.

Sadly, in most situation at the work place, there are probably no Wukongs but a small lot of Xuanzangs and Pigsys. The rest of the workforce of Sha Wujings basically slog on like the White Dragon Horse without a voice. When this blog post was originally conceived and posted as a status update on my Facebook wall, a friend asked me what I consider the heavenly soldiers and the Jade Emperor. In my opinion, they would fall under the same category of the PTB (powers that be) which tries to enforce their authority upon us. In extrapolation, the Buddha and Guanyin would be the equivalent of “foreign talent” in the Singaporean context – used by the PTB to beat down any monkey god among us with its abilities and news ideas which proved too challenging for them.

It is my considered opinion that the PTB would prefer no Wukongs at all, and would replace us with all the arhats or bodhisattva aka “foreign talents”. Unfortunately, in singing the praises of the “foreign talents”, it failed to see how that also demonstrated their own inadequacies and inspired an awakening among the people. The irony that all the traditional Taoist deities are incompetent, clueless and completely inept in the dealing with the challenges Wukong presented at the beginning of the story is not lost on me. That said, while I was doing a bit of researching on the Journey to the West story, I noticed that even the character Wukong is borrowed from the concept of the Hindu deity Hanuman. Again, the irony is not lost on me that the PTB often tells us that our ancestors were immigrants too.