Chapter 82: The fair girl seeks the yang; Primal spirit guards the Way.

In which Sun Wukongs invades another stomach.

• “How did he know so readily, you ask, that they were female fiends? Because he saw that each of them had a chignon on her head about fifteen inches tall and adorned with tiny bamboo strips. It was a most unfashionable style!”: Zhu Bajie fashion critic / RuPaul Judge.

• “Those fiends were carrying their water as they walked along, and then they suddenly disappeared. Aren't they daytime ghosts?”: I looked into types of Chinese ghosts but didn’t find anything, so I’m just guessing that ghosts that walk during the day can’t be visible due to the light of the sun. However, Wikipedia provided me with a list of types of ghosts and my favourite is Smelly-hair ghosts (臭毛鬼; chòumáo guǐ) have spike-like hair that emits an awful odor.

• “The scripture monk relied solely on Handsome Monkey King.”: They’ve been calling him ugly the whole book and suddenly he’s handsome? Something shippy is going on here.

• “…pure water from the summit, a product of the copulation of yin and yang”: Water is yin, mountains are yang.

• “Muskberries, hazelnuts, lychees, and lungans;

  Chestnuts, water chestnuts, dates, and persimmons;

  Walnuts, almonds, kumquats, and oranges;”

  

  Lungans.

  

  Kumquats

• “Those on the sunny side are ripened first by the warmth, and that's why they are red; those on the shady side will grow but without the benefit of the sun, and that's why they are still green. This is the principle of yin and yang.”: The ones on the sunny side have more yang and the others more yin.

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Thank you for reading along! I specially liked the food descriptions. See you in chapter 83!