Journey To The West In The Context Of Popular Culture Of Thailand

Journey to the West is one of the four great works of Chinese literature classics and has been translated into many different languages and disseminated across the whole China and the world. Followed the popularity of the translated Romance of three Kingdoms in Thailand, another one of the four great works of classical Chinese literature, Journey to the West with other excellent Chinese classical literature works were imported to Thailand and translated. Compared the fruitful studies of Romance of three Kingdoms in Thailand, other three great works Chinese literature classics were less concerned academically. This paper is, therefore, to start with the examination how Journey to the West received through five channels:texts, movies, TV dramas, temples and amulets in the Thai popular culture, and to locate the features of each disseminated way. So, this study is designed to shed light on the background of Journey to the West in Thailand and also to provide the deep discussion on it’s association with Thai culture and society. This thesis also suggests that the adaption process applies to the stories and the concepts derived from Journey to the West in the five easily accessible way heavily influenced on the inheritance, development and variation of China’s traditional culture.In the preliminary of this paper, the research statues of Journey to the West in the popular culture among the countries of China, Thailand, Korea and Japan are summarized. Through the questionnaire investigation, the analysis based on the reception channels, groups of recipients and the popularity of the stories of Journey to the West the Thai people reached is illustrated and concludes the two easiest accessible ways:movies and TV drama.In the chapter2, the survey of sales of Journey to the West in the bookstore of Kinokuniya, the largest foreign languages bookstore in Thailand, demonstrates the mainland of China is not the major publisher country for this classic literature; Taiwan and US are still in the leading position for publishing the relevant works of Journey to the West based on the classifying of available books of Journey to the West (until2013May) by the publisher houses, genres, languages and sales channels. What’s more, the comparison of retroversion stories of The Land of Many the Perfumes and The Iron Fan Princess extracted from of the Thai language Sai-You with the original texts of Journey to the West authored by Wu Chen’en also releases the elements of obstacles to the adaption of the essence of Chinese masterpiece and of the facilitation to the dissemination of the stories of Journey to the West from the linguistics aspects of contents omission and the words selection.In the chapter3, the movies and TV dramas in relation to the Journey to the West played in Thailand and made by China, Hangkong, Taiwan and other countries are organized and evidenced by posters or VCD/DVD covers in a systematic way. Through looking at the contents and the backgrounds of the collected movies and TV dramas associated that current social situation, as consequence, the revised stories of Journey to the West in a post-moderation and unreasonable style instead of the classics-oriented are widespread prevalent in Thailand.The chapter4introduces the beliefs of unique deity " Dai Xia Hu Zhou”(大圣佛祖), the cults and ritual practices of Sino-Thai communities associated to those deities initiated by the Teochew(潮州人)and other main characters of Journey to the West as the deities in Thailand. Focus on more than20temples and amulets related to the stories of Journey to the West visited and collected by the author, the stories of classic literature of Journey to the West have evaluated into the part of religion-like beliefs, disseminate in a distinctive way and exerts the significant role to a great degree than other models on the retains of Chinese culture identity and adaption of Chinese literature in Thailand.Journey to the West evolved from the play scripts and storytelling texts based on Buddhism scripts seeking story in the past long history through the Dang, Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties into a literature masterpiece for the whole word. The generations’efforts on this great work deserve the meaningful adaption, in particular, the philosophies expressed in this novel, by the Buddhism prevailing country-Thailand. As the root of Chinese literature classics, the academia should have the sense of duty to call the return of Chinese classics and the respect the tradition. This thesis is expected to make tiny contributions to the study on the receipt of Chinese literature classics in Thailand.