Journey to the West

I was watching ‘Monkey’ over the weekend, and thought how cool it would be to have a LARP based in that world. See www.greatsage.net for clips.

This would be a Chinese period combat larp, like Monkey, or Water Margin. It would be a world without Monkey, where Buddha decided to send multiple people to get the scriptures from India rather than just Tripitaka, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy. Thus all the players would be Buddhist pilgrims of some sort, and would battle with various demons and situations.

Players could be Priests (human, must folow buddhist precepts, but granted great respect and can pray)
or Humans (like priests, but dont have to be so strict, can fight, but cant get such good prayer results)
or Animal Spirits (like humans, but must have residual animal appearance and characteristics).

Would be lighthearted (like Monkey) and a bit combat-heavy. Magic would be restricted to the badguys. Weapons would be staff weapons or swords, no shields, maybe bows as well.

Problems? Well, it would require a fair amount of new costuming. People would have to learn some buddhist stuff, as priests that go around killing arent holy enough to collect scriptures.

Would work well with day events as you’d have each day as an encounter on the road from A to B. Very openended.

Other problems - I have absolutely no time to organise this. But I’d love to play it.

It sounds fun.

I approve, but I already have two games to run.

Oh, that sounds really nice! And would be interesting to try something obviously non-european, as our current larps mostly use the european culture settings.

Unless you decide to go with Saiyuki instead :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:
I so love Genjo Sanzo… He’s my favourite buddhist monk ever :blush:

Well, if it were me running it, I’d make priests have to be like Tripitaka, and deviating from holiness would weaken their praying ability.

Animal spirits should be able to do temporary disguise spells, too, by turning widdershins (as they do in Monkey) but probably cloudflying and higher magic is out…

Assorted Monkey quotes…

Monkey:“Let battle commence! Wine and… bananas! Bring on the dancing girls!”

Monkey:"ooooh! Thats pretty impressive!"
Princess:“Oh yes… and if I stroke it, then it grows even bigger…”

Monkey:“Oy, demon! Pooftah!”

Villager:“The King of Youth lives in a large semi-detached palace up on the mountain!”

Narrator:“The eunuch should not be proud of his chastity…”

Narrator:“The Jade Emperor was visiting his… good friend… the Star goddess Vega, on… ah, business matters.”

Oh dear, I need to see that one day… :laughing:
Really nice quotes, thanks, Steve 8)

Classic. I had no idea that priestess in white & yellow was from Monkey, when I saw her it gave me total childhood flashback - I think I may have been in love with her as a wee boy.

A lot of the costumes remind me of what we have (baggy pants and tunics) but with a flamboyant accessory like a cravat, belt, or hat added. And lots of crazy facial hair, which is very doable.

If only we weren’t totally drowning in larps and ideas for them already. The tongue-in-cheek humour would totally suit a lighthearted larp.

I have the complete series on DVD.

It really is excellent, although the dubbing is atrocious and it is very much 1970s. The humour, acting and script are wonderful.

Watch the first episode, and you can see the bit of Monkey urinating on the Buddha’s hand (and yes, this actually happens in the original legend).

Monkey: I’ve been under there for 500 years!
Tripitaka: 500 years! Are you immortal, then?
Monkey: Well, you know - just a bit…

Monkey: Hah, this won’t hold me!
Buddha: OM MA NE PAD ME HUM
Monkey: Hey! No fair!

I just had a total “hold on a sec” moment. Upon reading a bit more I realised the priestess Tripitaka is actually a priest, it’s supposed to be a boy. But he’s played a woman and voiced by another woman. Colour me confused. :blush:

Oh yeah, I watched Monkey religiously when it was on Sundays at 4pm (back in the mists of time before Sunday Advertising, when most things on TV - both channels - was utter crap on a Sunday).

And before he pissed on Buddha’s fingers, he tagged them with “Monkey was here” or similar. Very cool, and I didn’t particularly mind the dubbing.

You know, you could do the Cloud Chariot thing - it wasn’t as if he had any particular control over it, it was always crashing IIRC.

Nice one Steve, I’d be up for this.

This is actually a Japanese cultural thing (although SunWuKong (Monkey) is a Chinese legend, the japanese also have it as SunGoku). Traditionally, since Tripitaka is supposed to be a prepubescent boy priest, he is played by a woman. This confused the cheese out of me as well when I first saw the program.

Its a bit like the way the leading Boy in pantomime is always played by a girl in European tradition.

According to someone with the abilty to read chinese (IE, Meiling) what he writes is “Great Sage Equal of Heaven was here”, although the ‘was here’ is literall ‘one time exist here’ I think.

The look on his face when he remembered the urinating and realised where it must have been was priceless.

[quote=“Steve Shipway”]This is actually a Japanese cultural thing (although SunWuKong (Monkey) is a Chinese legend, the japanese also have it as SunGoku). Traditionally, since Tripitaka is supposed to be a prepubescent boy priest, he is played by a woman. This confused the cheese out of me as well when I first saw the program.[/quote]Back in the day (ie when I first watched this), I was entirely oblivious that Tripitaka was played by a woman. Oblivious Is Me.

Although I got quite confused earlier in the year reading Journey to the West, and I got the impression that in the text version Tripitaka is an old frail guy by the time he makes the big journey. Or maybe I just read it wrong.

I seem to remember it took many many years for the journey to complete. I’ll have to read it again (I have a copy of the translated book).

When I taiwan, there was a beautiful bound book containing the original text of the story for sale at a bargain price in the bookshop. Meiling woundlt let me buy it though cos I could only read the first character (‘west’).

More quotes –

Monkey:“You’re the Buddha? I thought you were a fella!”

Sandy:“Sorry, Kuan-yin, my lady… I mean, my lord, err…”

This makes more sense when you know that Buddha is normally depicted in Male aspect, but in the TV series manifests in female aspect because ‘gentleness is required’. Kuan-yin the Mercy goddess, on the other hand, manifests as a poofy male because ‘strength is required’

One might think that the Japanese have a thing for cross-dressing. In fact, after watching Ranma and other Anime, one might be right.

But he/she is hot? And not in a boy way. :confused:

The way my 9 year old niece described it to me - and I admit this isn’t exactly a reliable resource - Tripitaka was actually a woman deliberately disguising herself as a boy/priest.

Not in the Wu Cheng En version, he’s not. There’s a whole chapter full of murder, river dragons, and babies floating down the river in baskets to explain where Sanzo (Tripitaka) came from.

EDIT:

Hang on - I think I got the river dragon from the fisherman and woodcutter’s poetry contest chapter mixed in there. My bad. And somewhere an Emperor takes a trip through Hell, but I can’t remember where that goes. This is all before the actual Journey starts, mind. It’s a fairly lurid book.

In the TV series, Tripitaka is a boy priest.

In the book, Tripitaka is a male priest and exceptionaly young but not a child. He was a foundling I think.

In reality, Tripitaka was 21 when going to get the scriptures and it took him 3 years. He was a prodigy (accepted into noviciate at 5 years old instead of 6) and not a foundling in a basket.

Tri-Pitaka is the Indian translation of San-Zo. Both mean ‘3 baskets’ referring to his complete knowledge of 3 areas of Buddhism. Apparently, this sort of level of knowledge was so rare that only 10 monks in 10,000 could reach it. He was only given the name Tripitaka on his arrival in India - when he left China (sneaking out without a passport against the emperor’s wishes) he was just Sanzo.

But he/she is hot? And not in a boy way. :confused:[/quote]I was eight, alright? And I’ve never exactly been the world’s poster child for observational skills.

Also, as your free guide to female psychology, eight year old girls don’t think about ‘hot’, they think about ‘pretty’. I remember way back when A-Ha put out “Take On Me” the character in the music video I identified with was the girl going on a cool adventure, not the eminently easy-on-the-eye Morten Haarket.

TEN year old girls on the other hand are definitely beginning to see the hotness. :slight_smile: I remember being jealous that Morten Haarket ended up at her place instead of mine! hahaha :stuck_out_tongue:

Unfortunately that doesn’t help with the current discussion as I am absolutely clueless about this thread. WTH is Monkey? lol.

Kara