Hello everyone and welcome to episode 20 of Weekend English club. Last week's episode was about Journey to the West and today I want to talk a bit more about one of the famous characters from that story, Sun Wukong the Monkey King.

Sun Wukong is a fascinating character from the novel Journey to the West who, according to the story, was born from a magic stone on Flower Fruit Mountain. The stone received the power to create life and one day produces an egg. From this egg, Sun Wukong is born. He meets a group of wild monkeys and they show him a waterfall. They tell him that whoever can go through the waterfall to find the source of the water and come back will be their king. He does this and the monkeys make him their king, which is why Sun Wukong is called the Monkey King. After one of his monkey friends dies, he decides to go look for a way to become immortal and starts a great journey.

Somewhere during this journey he also gets his famous weapon, a staff which he can shrink down to a very small size and keep in his ear, or expand to become very large. The staff was originally a pillar from the palace of the Dragon King of the East Sea, but Sun Wukong was able to take it for himself and use it as a weapon, even though it is said to weigh almost 8000 kilograms. For the Monkey King, this is no problem.

The Dragon kings were afraid of him and gave him a suit of golden armor as a gift, which is why you will always see him wearing this. During his travels he even meets the famous Laozi, and after eating Laozi's pills of immortality Sun Wukong reaches his goal of becoming immortal.

Sun Wukong gained many powers during his life. For example, he has a body as hard as steel and can see very far into the distance. He can also pluck hairs from his body and blow on them to turn them into anything he wants, and in fights he sometimes turns his hairs into copies of himself to help him. He himself can also turn into anything he wants, but his one weakness is that he cannot fight well underwater. Despite this, he is definitely the most powerful character of Journey to the West, and I think he is a really fascinating monkey.

• Fascinating：极有吸引力的
• according to：据...所说；根据
• Wild：野生的
• Whoever：任何人，无论谁
• Immortal：不死的，永存的
• Weapon：武器
• Shrink down ：缩小；变小
• Expand：扩大
• Palace：王宫，宫殿
• Armor：盔甲
• Immortality：不朽；不灭
• Steel：钢，钢铁
• Pluck：拔（毛发），扯
• Weakness：弱点
• Despite ：尽管，即使

主播：Daniel

校对：nan_nan