Monkey Craze!

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Minjie Chen

a Monkey King performer on the street of New York City

A handsome Monkey King on the street of New York City. The soft-spoken performer, whose name I neglected to ask, was from Wenzhou, a coastal city in the province of Zhejiang, China. Photo taken on January 3, 2016.

Front: [The Monkey King Cannot Somersault out of Buddha’s Palm] An amulet based on the legend of Monkey’s fight again Buddha. Made by the “lost wax method” of casting in brass, 32 mm. Acquired in Bangkok, Thailand. Curtesy of Tara McGowan, Japanese Metadata Assistant at Cotsen, and Kaja McGowan, the Director of the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University.

The lunar new year of 2016, or the Year of the Monkey according to Chinese zodiac, kicked off on Monday, February 8th. This new year is perhaps the most beloved of all to the Chinese, even more popular than the Year of the Dragon, mainly because the humanoid animal ties to the Monkey King, a folklore character and supernatural being that has fascinated the Chinese for centuries. The Monkey’s story was loosely based on the pilgrimage of Xuanzang (玄奘), a monk who took the Silk Road in the early Tang dynasty to obtain original Buddhist scriptures from India. In folk imagination as well as in Journey to the West (西游记, hereafter Journey), a Chinese novel published in the sixteenth century, Monkey is a rebel-turned disciple and escort of a fictionalized Xuanzang, who is destined to conquer eighty-one ordeals before attaining Buddhahood. Hero and trickster rolled into one, brave and defiant, funny but flawed, Monkey has been a perennial source of inspiration for every medium and format of literature, art, and entertainment ranging from shadow plays to children’s literature to video games. Journey has also circulated widely in Japan and other East and Southeast Asian countries. To celebrate the Year of the Monkey, we gingerly awakened more than a dozen monkeys from the stacks of the Cotsen Children’s Library and invite them to greet the world–gingerly, because, if you are familiar with Journey, Monkey is known to wreak havoc when rubbed the wrong way.

Monkey King From the Chinese Collection

The Illustrated and Annotated Journey to the West (繪圖加批西遊記). 上海: 共和書局, 1919. 8 volumes. (Cotsen 75021)

Monkey (lower left) as depicted in an illustrated version of the Journey published in the early Republic of China. Other figures in the picture include his master Xuanzang, his fellow disciples Pigsy and Sandy, Emperor Taizong of Tang, and Chancellor Wei Zheng.

Journey to the West (西遊記). China, [1920s?] Hanging scrolls. (Cotsen 72805)

One panel from a set of hanging scrolls illustrates a scene from Chapter 3 of Journey, “The Four Seas and Thousand Mountains All Bow to Submit.” Wild beasts and demon kings come to pay homage to Monkey, after he successfully obtains weapons for his monkey kingdom. Their outfits closely resemble costume of traditional Chinese opera.

Little Friends (小朋友). 1956, no. 6. Cover art by Ye Jun (叶軍) and Dong Tianye (董天野). (Cotsen 153026)

First launched in Shanghai in 1922, Little Friends is the longest-running children’s magazine in China. The cover of this issue depicts the legendary battle between Monkey and Erlang, a deity.

Drawing for Young People (少年儿童图画). Volume 7. 上海: 少年儿童出版社, 1963. “The Show is On!” by Yao Zhongyu. (Cotsen 63786)

A picture in a fine arts textbook for the fourth grade in elementary school. Two children play puppet theatre on a make-shift stage, admired by a loyal audience that is their toys. Monkey, the main character of the show, wears a facial mask in the signature style of Peking Opera.

The Diary of Lei Feng (雷鋒日記). 北京: 解放軍文艺社, 1963. (Cotsen N-000034)

The heroic Monkey even found his way into another hero’s diary. Lei Feng (1940-1962) was a soldier of the People’s Liberation Army of China and, after his death from an accident, was characterized as a selfless Communist for the entire nation to emulate. In his posthumously published diary, Lei commented on Monkey Thrice Subdues the White-Bone Demon, a movie he watched in February 1962. He analyzed each character in the political context of Communism-Imperialism conflicts and concluded that a feisty and sharp-eyed Monkey has a lot to teach about fighting revisionist enemies.

Sun Wukong Wreaks Havoc in the Atomic World (孙悟空大闹原子世界) / Guo Yishi (郭以实); illustrated by Yan Shanchun (阎善春). 上海: 少年儿童出版社, 1980. (Cotsen 42623)

Will his ancient magic power keep Monkey invincible in a futuristic world driven by atomic science? We shall find out from this science fiction published in post-Cultural Revolution China, after its new leader Deng Xiaoping navigated the nation away from class struggle and emphasized science and technology as forces of productivity.

Seventy-two Transformations (七十二变) / by Su Gang (苏刚). 成都: 四川人民出版社, 1980. 14 leaves. (Cotsen B-000003)

This split-page book is based on one of Monkey’s famous powers: transformation. He would have been an A+ student if he were in Professor McGonagall’s Transfiguration class, because he excels in freely transforming himself into any age, gender, species, object, and size. During the treacherous pilgrimage, Monkey has to resort to his transformation skills often to save everybody’s skin. Each of the 14 leaves of the book is divided into three parts: head, upper body, and lower body. The preface informs young readers that, instead of the proverbial 72 transformations that Monkey is known to be capable of, this book allows him to achieve 2,744 types of shapeshifting. Is that true? You do the math.

Sun Wukong (孙悟空). 1985, no. 2. 北京: 中国电影出版社. (Cotsen 90239)

That Monkey’s name “SUN Wukong” was adopted by a children’s magazine as its title attests his enduring charm. Launched by the China Film Press thirty-six years ago in 1980, another year of the Monkey, SUN Wukong was a bimonthly pictorial magazine devoted to animated films and comic strips. Its main offering was animated spin-offs printed in full color, which must have been welcomed during much of the 1980s, when household ownership of television sets in China was so low that many Chinese used to gather at a neighbor’s house to watch TV. The magazine title on its cover is the brush calligraphy of SONG Qingling (宋庆龄, 1893-1981), the widow of President SUN Yat-sen and a leader of children’s literacy and welfare issues in China. Cotsen’s copy of the magazine was formerly part of the collection of an elementary school library in Beijing.

Journey to the West: Wukong Takes in Bajie (西游记: 悟空降八戒). [1980s] 11 sheets. (Cotsen 92466)

The episode in which Monkey takes in Pigsy as his fellow disciple is the subject matter of a set of ten postcards issued by the Nanjing Post Office in the 1980s. Cotsen’s holding is the original art work, which was outlined in pen and colored. The visual style of Monkey and Pigsy are vaguely reminiscent of shadow puppets.

Little Friends (小朋友). 1985, no. 10. “Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys Visit Japan,” papercutting by Kuromiya Masae (黒宮正栄). (Cotsen 153026)

As a segue into Monkey in the Japanese collection, this last picture was created by a Japanese papercutting artist but published in the Little Friends magazine in China. Two amiable-looking monkeys fly towards Mount Fuji through a sky that rains cherry blossom petals. The image refers to an exhibition of endangered golden snub-nosed monkeys sent from China to Japan as part of animal diplomacy. A subtle reference to the Monkey King–traveling by riding a cloud is another of Monkey’s famous skills–sweetens the message of Sino-Japanese friendship, because it implies that these monkey ambassadors would be warmly received in Japan, just like the legend of Monkey had become part of Japanese popular culture. The two countries experienced a honeymoon period during the 1980s, when Chinese public memory of Japanese war crimes remained dormant and Japan’s wartime atrocities and responsibilities had not begun to dominate public discourse on Sino-Japanese relations.

Monkey King From the Japanese Collection

Shelves and shelves of Monkey King stories or editions and adaptations of Journey to the West in the Cotsen Children’s Library. Photo taken from Cotsen’s Japanese section.

The earliest Japanese translations of Journey in the Cotsen Children’s Library were dated in the 1780s. Monkey’s story has inspired illustrated editions, retellings, sequels, playing cards, sugoroku games, and media adaptations in Japan.

Journey to the West (繪本西遊記初編) / translated by Kutsuki Sanjin (口木山人); illustrated by Ōhara Tōya (大原東野). [大坂]: 前川文榮堂, [1806?]. (Cotsen 90024)

Xuanzang, Monkey, and Pigsy as imagined in one of the earliest illustrated Japanese editions of Journey.

Journey to the West (西遊記) / by Nakagawa Ryūgai (中川史英); illustrated by Yoshimoto Yuki (吉本有機). 東京: 富里昇進堂發行, 1910. (Cotsen 99402)

A picture book version of Journey. This page portrays the battle between Monkey and Princess Iron Fan. In what seems like a prescient adoption of DNA cloning technology, Monkey produces copies of himself from his own hair to outnumber enemies in desperate situations.

Sun Wukong’s Journey to the West: A Sugoroku Game (孫悟空西遊記雙六) / illustrated by Tani Senba (谷洗馬). 東京: 日本飛行研究會, 1920. (Cotsen 153579)

A sugoroku gameboard based on Journey, beginning with how Monkey assumes leadership by discovering a hidden cave behind a waterfall for his fellow monkeys and ending with a visit he pays to the moon palace.

Xuanzang’s Work

Tripiṭaka. Sūtrapiṭaka. Prajñāpāramitā(大般若波羅蜜多經). Volume 429 / translated by Xuanzang. China, 1117. (Scheide Library 3.1.16)

It wouldn’t be complete to end this post without mentioning the Buddhist canons that had spurred Xuanzang’s trek to India. Princeton University Library houses multiple editions of Tripiṭaka. Sūtrapiṭaka. Prajñāpāramitā(大般若波羅蜜多經), which Xuanzang is attributed to have translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. The earliest three volumes held at Princeton were printed between AD 1112 and AD 1310 during the Song dynasty (East Asian Library and William H. Scheide Library). Volume 358 of the scripture, copied in brush pen on a scroll by a Japanese monk in AD 1259, has been shared at the Princeton University Digital Library.

Made by a Child: The Flapper’s Magazette Edited by Miss Vivie Wivie

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Andrea Immel

According to Ellen Welles Page, brains, not beauty, defined the flapper. In her “A Flapper’s Appeal to Parents” in the December 6, 1922 Outlook Magazine, she asked, “I wonder if it ever occurred to any of you that it required brains to become and remain a successful flapper? Indeed it does! It requires an enormous amount of cleverness and energy to keep going at the proper pace. It requires self-knowledge and self-analysis. We must know our capabilities and limitations. We must be constantly on the alert. Attainment of flapperhood is a big and serious undertaking!”

This message didn’t just appeal to young ladies, but to little girls as well. Below Pauline Z. is avidly reading Flapper Experience (Flapper under a new title)

If Pauline were a regular reader, she would have been solicited regularly to enter mail-in beauty contests, a serious undertaking that required brains, self-knowledge, and self-analysis to chose the right photo. The editors of the magazine would not go so far as to say that aspirants for the title of “most typical flapper in America” should rock “bobbed hair; powder and rouge on the face;…lip stick; ‘plucked eyebrows;’ low-cut sleeveless bodice; absence of corset; little under-clothing, often only a ‘teddy-bear;’ high skirts, and ‘roll-your-own-stockings.” But they did say that an enterprising girl with a great look just might “win a nice little wad of pin money and get a real opportunity in the movies.”

One English girl in the 1920s set her sights higher than that! She used her brains to write, illustrate, and hand-letter one issue of a manuscript magazine that simultaneously imitated and sent up magazines like Flapper for thoroughly modern Millies.

Our editor could mimic Flapper’s fashionably breezy and girly style when she wanted her sister-readers’ opinion of the magazine’s title. But in the next sentence she could turn bossy because it was time to solicit entries for that exciting new contest!

To fill out the double page spread where “Editor’s Chat” appeared, she devised an unillustrated advertisement for an imaginary beauty product. The reader has to flip back to page 8 to see the wonders it could work on dark hair. It’s the girl’s obvious pleasure in talking back to contemporary images of female beauty that reminds me of today’s girl zines.

The editor of The Flapper’s Magazette didn’t leave behind many clues as to her identity, besides some potshots about a sister with gentleman callers that suggest she could have been someone’s pesky younger sibling. Most of the illustrations she signed “V. F.” or “V. F. F.,” but the one on the third page she wrote out her last name “Furniss.” The address of the editorial offices: “Messrs, Vivie, Wivie, Den Offices, Teddington” suggests that her first name might have been “Vivien.” While it’s true that children’s manuscript magazines often are collaborative projects, “Vivie, Wivie” seems just as likely to be a silly play on a two-syllable given name, as a disguise for two children. The address may also be a clue that Miss V. F. Furniss lived in Teddington in London’s Richmond upon Thames district.

Mail-in contests certainly made an impression on our editor. She invites her readers to vie for fine prizes (no specifics given) by submitting heads constructed from the noses, eyebrows, Betty-Boop eyes, and bee-stung lips to be cut out of pages 10 and 15.

Contestants might have wished that there were a bigger selection of hairstyles, hats, and collars. As you can see from the picture below of Clara Bow and friends, it would have been difficult to come up with a really smart head from what Vivie Wivie provided!

The other contest sponsored by The Flapper’s Magazette was literary. All contestants had to do was to complete a limerick about It-Girl, Clara Bow, whose portrait appears on the facing page.

Look closely at “Clara Bow” and you’ll see a long braid draped over her arm. I’d always assumed it was a row of buttons down the sleeve. But in going through the manuscript this time to write about it, I realized that couldn’t be right and that V. F. Furniss may not have been drawing accurate pictures of fashionable girls.

But could flappers have long hair? According to some very informative blogs and You-Tube videos about hair styles of the Roaring Twenties and how to recreate them, it’s a myth that all flappers had bobs. Movie star Mary Pickford’s long luscious golden ringlets were also quite stylish. But even if a girl’s parents stormed that she would cut her hair over their dead bodies, the unfortunate fair had options. It was possible with a little ingenuity and hair pins to achieve the look of short, curly hair, as you can see from this delightful video, based on an actual 1920s hairstyling manual.

My guess is that V. F. Furniss was too young to get permission to chop off her hair, but old enough to be interested in figuring out how she would present herself in the future. While most of the girls she drew in The Flapper’s Magazette had bobs, at least three of them, including “The Charming Flapper,” had hair tucked under in faux bobs with long braids down the back. Were her illustrations a safe way to experiment with different looks without taking the plunge? While attracted to modern short styles, was she a little bit scared at the prospect herself as a votary of fashion, sacrificing her long tresses on the goddess’ altar?

Maybe some day I’ll have some time to try and track down V. F. Furniss, girl journalist and cultural commentator…

If you find child authors interesting, you might like to read the picture letters of Marcus French. In the Roaring Twenties, this little New Yorker wrote about trick-or-treating, a Thanksgiving celebration, and his travails with algebra…