Note on some Chinese Classics

It occurred to me one day that in my culture, there are all sorts of literary references that everybody knows about. Actually, there are way too many once you start to try to pick the top few. It's hard even to narrow down to categories. There's stuff everybody knows, and stuff everybody's supposed to know.

Consider the vast circles of references surrounding: Tom Sawyer, Sherlock Holmes, Odysseus, Dorothy and Toto, Romeo and Juliet, James Bond, Superman, Paul Bunyan, Little Red Riding Hood, Mowgli and Candide. Clearly you can go on and on.

So, I went up to some Chinese friends and asked them about books or stories that everyone in China knows. (I want to do the same for Japan¹.) It's a hard question: imagine yourself being asked this about your culture. Anyway, from among the mixed answers of some 20 or so Chinese from PRC and Taiwan, three books rose as leading candidates. They are:

The Dream of the Red Mansions by Xueqin, Cao
aka A Dream of the Red Chamber (or some perturbation thereof)
aka The Story of the Stone

This is like a 17th century Chinese Shakespearean tragedy. It is enormously long but is available in abridgements. It is basically the story of two powerful families and their affairs and intrigues in the capital.

Journey to the West
aka Monkey

I envision a landbound Chinese Odyssey, but I haven't read it. Apparently a trio make their way west from eastern China all the way to never never land and encounter all sorts of spirits and adventures. I've heard the translated title Monkey is misleading, but I don't know what that means. Here's what a kind soul sent me (I didn't get permission to reveal who it is):

Yes, this book is about the historical chinese monk/priest who went to India to get Buddhist scriptures (Buddhism had reached China but mostly by word-of mouth). He meets several spirits during his journey, and three of them are bound by the gods to travel with him as his servants: Monkey, Pig and Sand. During their voyage, they are constantly harrassed by other evil spirits. Monkey steals the show: he is very clever, and a great fighter, but he also has a big ego. Pig is greedy and stupid. The translation by Arthur Waley is titled 'Monkey'

The Three Kingdoms

Somebody told me this is the same as Journey to the West, but the kind soul (see above) had this to say:

This book has nothing to do with Journey to the West. It describes the power struggles in China after the mighty Han dynasty falls. Local rulers and warlords try to consolidate their power and built their own kingdoms. In the end, China is split up into three kingdoms: Wu, Shu and Wei. The book mainly follows Liu Bei, founder of the kingdom of Shu (present-day Sichuan). He is not very succesful to start with, but he secures the services of Zhuge Liang, a master strategist who keeps outwitting their enemies. The emphasis in this book is on battle and intrigue.