Journey to the West is intended to investigate on individualism through a journey in the contemporary eastern and western societies.
Taking the form by combining visual novel, art book and Chinese folk novel, Journey to the West is unnecessarily bounded by any existing format of visual art. Intended to reveal an inner journey of a contemporary individual, it weaves intricate personal experiences, inquires and enlightenment to form a visual whole, which should advance our own thinking and perhaps informs others as well – with our special standing that belongs to neither the west nor east culture, rather, forever traveling in-between.
Although Journey to the West obtains a certain uniqueness – e.g. this visual reflection will be shared via Internet, it is designed for audience participation and artist collaboration, while in the future, taking form of a book composed with videos, graphics and text, it can be experienced offline on DVD – it is not our intention to make ambitious project, instead, the creation of this work is a result of our deep frustrations throughout the course that we pursue meanings of individuality. The questions include, what has fostered individualism, power of imagination? western or eastern civilization? what price one has to pay for it? and how does it respond to things? … …
Followings are research for this project, which should be inspirational to individual readers as they have done for us -
[Hermit]
Both east and west Hermit cultures address the most respectable individuals in human history -
Samuel Adams Drake, New England Legends & Folk Lore, ‘The Solitary of Shawmut’
Similar to this: ‘Peach Blossom Shangri-la’
[Folk Lore]
Pg. vii.
Let those who will, say that all this is less than nothing; yet I much doubt if the saying will bring conviction to the heart of womankind.’
Pg. v.
While the fact is that the poems (of folk tales) are not so much designed to teach history or its truth, as to illustrate its spirit in an effective and picturesque manner.
Pg. v
Disowned in an age of scepticism, there was once – and the time is not so far remote – no part of the body politic over which what we now vaguely term the legendary did not exercise the strongest influence; so that, for from being merely a record of amusing fables, these tales, which are largely founded on fact, disclose the secret springs by which society was moved and history made. One looks beneath every mechanical contrivance for the true origin of power. That is to assume that the beliefs of a people are the key to its social and political movements, and that history, taken in its broadest sense, cannot be truly written without having regard to such beliefs.
Pg. vi
It may be said, then, that while history has its truth, the Legend has its own; both taking for their end the portrayal of man as he has existed in every age, – a creature in whom the imagination is supreme, and who performs deeds terrible or heroic according as it may be aroused into action.
A few of those beliefs…belong exclusively to no class, and have been transmitted from generation to generation, through the medium of an unwritten language, to which the natural impulse of the human mind toward the supernatural is the common interpreter. While religion itself works through this mysterious channel of the Unknown and Unseen, one need not top to argue a fact that has such high sanction. So long as these beliefs shall continue to exert a control over the everyday actions of men, it would be useless to deny to them a place in the movements regulating society; and so long as the twin mysterious of life and death confront us with their unsolved problems, it is certain that where reason can not pass beyond, the imagination will still strive to penetrate within, the barrier separating us from the invisible world. This invisible world is the realm of the supernatural.
- S.A.D., New England Legends & Folk Lore, ‘Introduction’. Castle Book New Jersey.
Stories give form to a people’s hopes and dreams; they transmit values, they instruct, enertain, and unify the group to which they belong. Storytelling has long been one of the most ways of binding a group together, of passing traditions on to each generation, of defining and reaffirming the shared history and beliefs of a people. Reading self-described stories, give some sight into the identities of these cultures and the values they hold.
- Jeanette Faurot, Asian -Pacific Folktales & Legends: Introduction
[Ethnic Issues]
This volume seeks again to displace that dominant view, to suggest that China and China studies need serious dislocation… I suggested that while I believed Chinese culture and civilization had a long history and many kinds of continuities, the Han as a nationality was a constant of 20th century discourses of nationalism.
- Dru C. Gladney, Dislocating China: Preface and Acknowledgments
[ Racial Issues]
Pg. 132
The lone dissenting Supreme Court justice, John Marshall Harlem, identified the real meaning of the Louisiana Law – ‘that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in the public coaches occupied by white citizens.
Pg. 139
Between 1882 and 1902, congress passed more than a dozen laws against the Chinese whose population was but a fraction of 1 percent of the country.
- Philip Perlmutter, Legacy of Hate
[Social -Environmental Issues]
1. Hurricane Katrina
2. Three Gorges Dam
Beishan sculptures
Baoding Shan
‘Revolving Wheel’, ‘Tantric Buddhist’, ‘Thousand Arms Guanyin’,
Dabo Wan
Pg. 279
Zhao Zhifeng’s creation was a brilliant stroke of proselytization: the message of some of the stories – in-stone whether it is retribution for unfilial acts or the evils of drink, would have been quite explicit to all manner of believers.
Pg. 309
Although some description and background is retained for historical interest, bear in mind that most of these town are in process of being completely or at least partially submerged by the new dam.
- Judy Bonavia, Richard Hayman, Yangzi
those include, Fuling, Fengdu (City of Ghost. Temple ‘God of the Underworld.” Some of whom were said to be able to walk zombielike to Fengdu for their judgment and rebirth – the area will be completely submerged between 2007 and 2009), Zhong Xian, Shi Bao Zhai, Wan Xian (of the three major regions affected by the proposed Three Gorges Dam, Yichang, Wanxian, and Chongqing, Wan Xian loses the most), Yun Yang, Fangjie (sadly much of the old town has had to be demolished in preparation for the rise in water level.)
