我在看《西游记》。/ I'm reading "Journey to the West."

我最近忙着看一本中文书。
书就是《西游记》，可是我在读的版本是为儿童改写的。
虽然如此，我常常需要查词典 （比方说：樵夫），所以我看得很慢。
还有些地方我完全看不懂。那些地方常常是关于佛教的。

在故事我看了怎么美猴王是从石头出生的。
他游很久才找到菩提祖师。
祖师把美猴王收为徒，叫做他“孙悟空”。
我刚读的部分是关于孙悟空学会驾云的。

Recently I've been busy reading a Chinese book.
The book is actually Journey to the West, but the version I'm reading has been adapted for children.
Even so, I often need to look things up in the dictionary (e.g. "woodsman"), so I read very slowly.
And there are some parts I totally don't understand. Those parts are often about Buddhism.

In the story, I've read how the Monkey King was born from a stone.
He traveled for a long time before finding a very enlightened monk.
The monk accepted the Monkey King as his disciple, calling him "Sun Wukong."
The part I just read is about Sun Wukong learning how to fly on a cloud.

In this YouTube video of a BBC Olympics ad, you can see the Monkey King emerging from a stone and flying on a cloud. See also my post from July 26, 2008.



Language notes:
The surname 孙 Sūn is homophonous with, and resembles, the character 狲 sūn meaning "monkey."

美猴王 měi hóu wáng, which the Monkey King calls himself, is literally "Beautiful Monkey King."