The Journey to the West, Books 4, 5 and 6: Three Classic Stories in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin, 600 Word Vocabulary Level

This book contains the full text of the 4th, 5th and 6th stories in our Journey to the West series for people learning to read Chinese. The three stories told here - The Young Monk, The Emperor in Hell, and The Journey Begins - are unchanged from our original versions except for minor editing and reformatting. All three stories are also available on Amazon as individual books.

In The Young Monk, we tell the story of Xuanzang, the monk chosen by the Buddha to undertake the dangerous journey westward to India and bring sacred wisdom back to China. The story deals with smaller, human-scale events and the traditional themes of love, loyalty, treachery and revenge.

The next story, The Emperor in Hell, starts innocently enough, with two good friends chatting as they walk home after eating and drinking at a local inn. One of the men, a fisherman, tells his friend about a fortune-teller who advises him on where to find fish. This seemingly harmless conversation between two minor characters triggers a series of events that eventually cost the life of a supposedly immortal being, and cause the great Tang Emperor himself to be dragged down to the underworld.

In the final story, The Journey Begins, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty selects the young monk Xuanzang to undertake the journey. He sets out on his journey and receives help from Guanyin and from Bright Star of Venus. The Dragon King of the Eastern Ocean, who in Book One was Sun Wukong's adversary and was forced to give him his Jin Gu Bang (golden hoop rod weapon), is now Sun Wukong's old friend and gives him some life-changing advice.

The story is written using a limited 300 word vocabulary, roughly equivalent to HSK 3. It is presented in simplified Chinese characters and pinyin, and includes an English version and complete glossary. Free audio versions of all books in this series is available on YouTube and also on our website, www.imagin8press.com.