美猴王

English (for the teacher)

Long, long ago, far away in the eastern sea, there was a beautiful high mountain called Flower Fruit Mountain. The mountain was covered with flowers and fruit trees, and on its highest point stood a very special stone. For who knows how many years, it had been taking in the power of heaven and earth and the light of the sun and moon.

One day there was a great boom, the stone suddenly split open, and a stone egg rolled out of it. The wind blew on it, and to everyone's surprise the stone egg turned into a stone monkey. From the moment it was born, this stone monkey could walk and climb trees, and it bowed once to each of the four directions: east, south, west and north.

Stranger still, two beams of golden light shot from the stone monkey's eyes straight up into the sky. Up in heaven the Jade Emperor saw it and was startled, and he quickly sent Thousand-Mile Eye and Wind-Following Ear to find out what was going on. Before long the two came back and reported: "It's nothing more than a monkey born from a stone. Once it has eaten and drunk something, the light in its eyes will fade by itself." When the Jade Emperor heard this he felt at ease and paid the matter no more attention. He never imagined how much trouble this monkey would one day bring him.

From then on, the stone monkey lived together with the monkeys of the mountain. By day they looked for fruit to eat in the woods and ran all over the mountain, and at night they slept in caves. The stone monkey also made friends with all kinds of animals on the mountain, and his days passed without a care in the world.

One summer the weather was especially hot, and the monkeys all went to bathe in a stream. After their bath, they wanted to know where the stream came from, so they followed the water upward until they reached a great waterfall. The water poured down from high on the mountain like a white cloth hanging from the sky, and its roar was tremendous.

The monkeys clapped their hands and said: "Whoever dares to jump into the waterfall and come back out safe and sound, we'll bow to him as our king!" They all looked at one another, and nobody dared to step forward.

Just then the stone monkey leapt out from among them and shouted: "Let me go!" He shut his eyes, jumped with all his strength, and went straight into the waterfall. The monkeys all cried out in fright.

He opened his eyes and looked: strange, there was no water inside at all, only an iron bridge. Across the bridge was a large, bright cave. In the cave were beds, pots and bowls made of stone, as well as flowers and trees, as if someone had lived there. He walked around the cave, and the more he looked, the more he liked it. In the middle of the cave was a big stone, and on it was written: "Blessed Land of Flower Fruit Mountain, Cave Heaven of the Water Curtain Cave." The stone monkey was overjoyed: "There's room in here for every one of us monkeys!"

He jumped back out through the waterfall and said with a hearty laugh: "There's no water inside, it's a wonderful place! From now on we won't have to fear wind or rain!" When the monkeys heard this, every one of them was overjoyed, and they followed him in, jumping through one after another. The stone monkey sat down in a high place and said: "Everyone, just now you said that whoever could go in and come back out, you would bow to as king. You haven't forgotten, have you?" The monkeys hurried to line up, bowed to him again and again, and cried out together: "Monkey King!" From then on the stone monkey was the Monkey King, and he gave himself a name: "Handsome Monkey King."

The Handsome Monkey King led the monkeys on Flower Fruit Mountain, free and easy, for several hundred years. But one day, as he sat among his lively monkeys, a thought suddenly came to him and he couldn't help starting to worry: could even the happiest days really go on forever?