Journey to the West

Adapted by Footscray West Primary School and Victorian College of Arts Animation Students

Journey to the West, is a famous Chinese story by Wu Cheng'en. It starts with the story of Monkey who was born from a rock. He was an adventurer, learning magical powers and becoming the king of the Land of Fruit and Flowers. However, being quite mischievous, he soon got in to trouble with the Jade Emperor. He was sent on a mission to help the monk, Xuanzang, to obtain the holy books from India to teach people about Buddhism.

Along the way, they were joined by Pigsy, a pig monster; Guanyin, a dragon who turned into a horse; and Sandy the strongman. We created this window display to tell the story of their journey.

In the Window ...

The party reached a tall mountain where they fought an evil snail with red eyes. With their magic skills combined, they were able to defeat the evil snail.

Then they travelled through a hot desert. Monkey was able to fly around the cactus plants easily on his magic cloud.

They saw a large waterfall with a cave at the base. In the cave were many monkeys. Sandy, the strongman noticed that the cave was flooding, so he went in to warn the monkeys and helped them escape.

They all escaped to the grasslands where the monk, Xuanzang lived in his house. They stayed there so long that Xuanzang started to grow hair. The house turned out to be haunted by evil skeletons. They fought the skeletons and Pigsy accidentally knocked the Skeleton off a cliff into lava.

Out of the lava popped a secret treasure and the magical books they had been looking for.

THE END

Thanks to Christie Widiarto and her VCA Animation students for facilitating these workshops with Footscray West Primary students, and for their retelling of the story here!