The class is actually Chinese lit, but I got them to approve it for my reading/comp requirement (win!). And I'm so glad that I did, because it was way more chill and interesting than any other actual writing class. We had readings each day, but they were actually doable (since it's summer) and interesting. Obviously, we're reading the novel 西遊記, but there were also other readings, like related works, commentaries, supplements, and stuff like that. Most of the stuff was in English, though there was always the Chinese version of it for reference.
Oh yeah, so forgot to mention that since this was in the Chinese dept, a reading knowledge of classical Chinese was desirable though not required. It might as well have been anyway since all like 12 of us were at or around that level. For me it was definitely a challenge, since I never had that much literary Chinese (okay Chinese school really doesn't count. Seriously.). Thankfully, our professor was very enthusiastic about the material, and knowledge of Chinese wasn't as important as the material itself. And I had my fair share of preliminary knowledge from history classes and just what I learned on my own up to this point. Honestly didn't realize that humanities build up on what you learn from other classes to the extent that technicals do--no offense here.
Grade was based on participation and three relatively short essays. Participation was no problem; no one wanted to participate (no arrogant students in the small class), so I often felt bad and spoke up when the situation looked hopeless. One essay every two weeks, and they were just two 4-5 page and one 6-8. They were also open-ended, which made writing them that much easier. I chose topics that were relatively easy to talk about, and one interesting one with which I wanted to experiment. Grade in the end was a solid A :D
As for the content itself, we looked at background readings, different episodes and different themes in the actual novel, commentaries and criticisms, and finally supplements and modern adaptations. In addition to reading the abridged translation by Wiley (which only includes a few episodes plus beginning/end), we had a couple of (rather nice) readers with other episodes and texts. Background readings were interesting; my historical knowledge helped a lot here, esp. Tang politics and religion from the spring semester. Commentaries were a bit tedious, as the Chinese at this point became more difficult to comprehend. As for the text itself, it's always great to read about Monkey and his group's exploits, as well as following the translation in the original Chinese.
Naturally, this class also contained film screenings. One was Stephen Chow's A Chinese Odyssey, 大話西遊. It was pretty awesome, I have no idea why I haven't seen it before. We watched it in mandarin, because their faction won out (lol), but I borrowed it afterward to rewatch in cantonese. If I had watched it outside of class, I probably would've missed a lot of the things that we discussed afterward. Definitely worth it.
The other film we watched was The World, 世界 by Jia Zhangke (apparently really famous on the mainland, I had no idea). This wasn't explicitly about the Monkey King, though it also pushed the theme of undertaking a journey. It was also cool to be able to watch a film that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. It's one of those bittersweet post-modernist mainland films that are pretty good if you follow. Check it out.
Oh yeah, we also had a "field trip" to the Berkeley Art Museum to look at hell scrolls and demonic art pieces. Overall this class was awesome, definitely worth my summer and >$1k, and a great addition to the list of classes for my Chinese Studies minor. It also got rid of my R&C requirement :)
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