The Primary Colors of Sin

Editor’s note

Ryan Zhang is the Assistant Pastor at New City Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio and a Fellow at the Center for House Church Theology. He moved to the United States from Guangzhou, China, at the age of twelve.

Journey to the West is a classic 16th century Chinese novel retelling the legendary pilgrimage of Xuanzang, a Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk (called Tang Sanzang in the novel), to India to obtain sacred Buddhist texts. Sun Wukong, a monkey with supernatural powers, and his two companions are charged with protecting the monk as they encounter various trials along their journey.

Journey to the West has captured the imagination of many generations of Chinese people. From children who grew up on the original 1986 television series to youths reading the novel on their own, this classic reinforced many virtues from both the traditional Chinese and the Communist worldviews: hard-work, honesty, perseverance, revolution, struggle, self-control, and obedience.

In 1995, Hong Kong comedy star Stephen Chow released a two-part film titled A Chinese Odyssey, which was widely considered a spoof on the classic Journey to the West. The film flopped as a comedy, but as its viewers continue to grow and experience the futility of the traditional and Communist worldviews, the film has become a cult classic, and viewers have come to speak of the film as a tragedy, not a comedy.

This paper depicts the author Guo Muyun's own journey from the idealism of Journey to the West to the tragedy of A Chinese Odyssey, and presents a way out of the tragedies of our lives through the gospel.

About the Author

Guo Muyun was converted and baptized in college. He taught at a university for 14 years, and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 2018.

The Primary Colors of Sin

Journey to the West

Journey to the West is, for our generation, a kind of collective memory. As for myself, there have been a few turning points in my life that seem to be very closely connected to Journey to the West.

The first one came in 1986. I was watching the old Journey to the Westtelevision series. Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, was being crushed under the Wutai Mountains when Yu Junjian began singing: “In five hundred years the mulberry fields become a sea and the stones become covered with moss…” (1) As I watched this, I cried out in anger and a sense of injustice. That was the first memory I had of witnessing the “suppression of a rebel,” and as a result it was the most vivid (2).

The second pivotal moment came in 1995. In a dark theater, I watched A Chinese Odyssey for the first time. I watched it again more than sixty times after this. The last time I watched it was two years ago. The first twenty times I watched it, I laughed. The next twenty times I watched it, I reflected. The last twenty times I watched it, I cried. So I dared not watch it again.

The third turning point came in 2009. At that time, I had already been a Christian for ten years, but I felt as though my life had come to end. In short, everything had lost meaning. But God delivered me from the valley of the shadow of death. My worldview had collapsed, but God rebuilt it little by little.

During this rebuilding process, I came across a post on the internet one day about Journey to the West. This is more or less what it said:

Buddha sent four disciples and Xiao Bailong, the dragon prince of Babu Tianlong, to the East to preach Buddhism to the Tang Dynasty. Along the way, they encountered many demons. As they continually fought the demons, they discovered that the demons were being protected by the authorities. No matter what havoc the demons wreaked, they went unpunished.

For the pig Zhu Bajie and the monk Sha Wujing, the darkness was too great. So, in desperation, one of them hid in Gao Village, and the other in the Quicksand River. Only Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, pursued justice, defeating the demons and escorting Bailong to the East to preach. But in the end, the Heavenly Court could not bear Sun Wukong and made an agreement with Buddha: “We will guarantee safe passage for Tang Sanzang to Chang’an, but you must deal with this nuisance Sun Wukong.”

Buddha agreed. As part of a conspiracy, Bailong was severely injured and dropped into a mountain stream. Sun Wukong was defeated and crushed under the Wutai Mountains. Tang Sanzang abandoned Sun Wukong and fled alone to Chang’an. After he finished preaching there, he was bestowed with the title of Emperor’s Brother and enjoyed great glory and wealth before dying a peaceful death.

Five hundred years later, Sun Wukong finally escaped from under the Wutai Mountains and wreaked havoc in Heaven, causing great turmoil in the Heavenly Court. With no other option, the Heavenly Court was forced to promise Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing that if they killed Sun Wukong, the Heavens would turn Zhu Bajie into a man and bestow on him the title of Heavenly Marshall. Moreover, they would bestow on monk Sha the title of Curtain-Lifting General. Eventually, even Sun Wukong’s own brother turned on him.

Dejected, Sun Wukong sought help from Master Puti. Sun Wukong cultivated himself and was sealed, after which he returned to Huaguo Mountain, where he lived out the rest of his normal life with the other monkeys. Finally, in the end, he was turned into a stone at the top of Huaguo Mountain... (3)

I don't know who wrote this. But even though he may have just considered it a short sketch, I must say it stunned me and completely shook my worldview, so much so that during that winter vacation I immediately found a place and shut myself up there for fifteen days. I wanted to search for commentaries that could unveil the meaning of this story. However, in the process of collecting these materials I discovered that my stockpile of food was insufficient, so I sadly had no choice but to come out of hiding.

It wasn’t until eight years later that I began to understand what this “Journey to the West Reversed” meant to me.

The Odyssey

The English name of the movie adaptation of Journey to the West is A Chinese Odyssey. The Odyssey is the second half of Homer’s epic. It tells the story of Odysseus, a hero of the Trojan War (the one who designed the Trojan horse). After ten years of tribulation he finally returns home and is reunited with his wife.

This translation may seem odd, but it is very meaningful when we consider the story in detail. The Western Odyssey and the Eastern Odyssey actually do share many similarities if you consider Tang Sanzang as the protagonist. For example, the protagonists both experience great tribulations. They both have pig-like companions. They both offend various gods and monsters. They are both held captive either by a beautiful queen in Womanland or by the nymph Calypso on her island.

Of course, the Odyssey is about two thousand years older than Journey to the West, though it is not the earliest epic in human history—that honor belongs to The Epic of Gilgamesh. And Journey to the West is not an epic poem. One could even say that Chinese culture has no epic poems.

The large amount of Buddhist content in this fantasy novel shows that it has a close connection to India. “Traveling to the Western Heaven to obtain the scriptures” is another way of saying “order comes from the West.” According to Hu Shi and other scholars, the image of the “Monkey King” essentially comes from the monkey God Hanuman in the Indian epic Ramayana.

From the perspective of China, this novel is “Western,” but from the perspective of Greece, it is “Eastern.” The birthplace of all world civilizations is the area commonly known as Mesopotamia, where Gilgamesh was written. Myths and epics, religion and politics, written language and agriculture, chariots and iron tools—basically everything that we consider elements of civilization came from this area. Mesopotamian civilization is at the center of all other cultures. Civilization began at this center and then spread first to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, then to Egypt, then to India and Greece, and finally to China, Africa, and the Americas.

Therefore, that post about “Journey to the West Reversed” actually inadvertently told the truth about history. Even though it merely seemed to reinterpret the story from one about “traveling to the Western Heaven to obtain the scriptures” to one about “taking the scriptures to the East,” when the direction of the story changes, the structure of the whole story changes, and it takes on deeper levels of meaning. This comical, popular novel infused with Buddhist and Confucian teachings suddenly seems to take on the spirit of ancient Greek tragedy, revealing even sacred, Christian tones. This is what it means to be “reoriented.” A different direction means a different path, and a different path becomes a different worldview.

Journey to the West and Worldview

If I continue discussing these things in terms of my own personal relationship to Journey to the West, you will find that those three turning points in my life that I mentioned earlier just happen to correspond to the three different worldviews that were forming in my mind during my childhood, my teenage years, and my adulthood.

The specific reason why that scene of the Monkey King being crushed under the Wutai Mountains left such a deep impression on me as a child is closely related to the Communist, revolutionary atmosphere in my family. My father was a Party secretary. Even my small-footed grandmother on my father’s side was the secretary of a Communist brigade (4). My grandfather on my mother’s side was the director of an underground printing factory for the Red Army. My grandmother on my mother’s side was a martyr. And my mother was the chairman of a labor union. Therefore, throughout my whole life growing up, I was unconsciously influenced by this family environment. My understanding of Journey to the West was just as Mao Zedong said: “The essence is in the first few chapters, the main point is wreaking havoc in Heaven.” According to the revolutionary narrative, Wukong’s wreaking havoc in Heaven was obviously the most glorious scene. Sun Wukong was like a spokesperson for the Communist revolution. Therefore, suppressing him was of course one of the greatest sins.

This was how the left-wing, communist, revolutionary worldview took root in my heart as a child. In fact, one could say that the 1986 version of Journey to the West was guided by this ideology. However, by 1995, this worldview of mine had basically disintegrated. Allow me to briefly explain how it disintegrated.

I was born in a coal mine in a big mountain in Shanxi Province. From a very early age I got good grades. In elementary school, I ranked first in all of Shanxi Province at the Math Olympiad. But behind my impressive achievements I was hiding many things. In third grade, I got addicted to video games. So I often stole money from home to play games, or I would go out and party with a gang of troublemakers. This lasted for about two or three years. The reason I was never caught was because one day our home was actually robbed. Ironically, the day our home was robbed was the same day I received the news that I had gotten first place. My classmates applauded me and celebrated with me. My tutor was also elated. My crimes were covered by glory, but my heart was anxious and afraid. That was the first moment I began to understand what guilt was. I was in sixth grade.

Then, in seventh grade, something happened. My head teacher was a 50-year-old man who was also an underground worker. He had a terrible temper and often hit students. But I got good grades, so he never touched me. One day, however, I pushed him over the edge. He was our language teacher, and he required us to keep a daily diary. He would then grade them. One day, I wrote an essay discussing the Juvenile Protection Law. In the essay, I expressed that it was illegal to hit people, including children. That morning I was sick and I didn’t go to school, so I didn’t know that he had just beaten a student in the classroom that morning. As you can imagine, he obviously thought that this essay I had handed in was alluding to him. So the next morning, I was called into his dormitory alone and then viciously beaten. I was dizzy and had a bloody nose. He suspended me for the next semester. Every day I was kept in a Youth League office and forced to write an introspective essay. Only after I revised it multiple times did he reluctantly accept it. You could say that this treatment was my literary inquisition. I was 13 years old at the time.

My parents only found out about this event six months later, but they were weak and were afraid of provoking him. The only choice, therefore, was to transfer me. The summer before my eighth-grade year I tested into Linfen No. 3 Middle School, which was one of best schools in our province. They accepted the top eight people, and I tied for seventh. Of course, that Math Olympiad award helped. However, as soon as school began, for reasons unbeknownst to me, my head teacher picked on me all the time. She even made me stand in the back row of the classroom every day and didn’t give me a stool to sit on. I was nearsighted at the time and couldn’t see the blackboard clearly. The students in the back row also bullied me. So I just stopped going to school. I slept in the dormitory during the day and wandered out at night. I also made friends with some troublemakers and did many illegal things. I won’t go into detail about them here. In short, this was how I spent the first semester of my eighth-grade year. I more or less didn’t go to class and completely lived in sin. But my parents didn’t know about any of this. I was muddleheaded at the time and planned to drop out and return home when the semester ended. I was willing to do any random work—I just didn’t want to go to school.

But when the day of the final exam arrived, I still went to the exam. When I was walking up the stairs, I ran into my head teacher. She sarcastically said, “Oh, so you know about the exam! Why did you come?” I answered, “I’ve already paid my tuition. I have the right to take the exam.” She sneered contemptuously at me and then left. But for some reason, I actually got the third-best score in my class! I even got a perfect score on the political section of the exam. So after winter break, my teacher began looking at me differently and treating me well. So I continued studying there, and in 1995 I moved on to high school. But at that time, my nightlife of troublemaking basically continued.

You may now understand how the worldview of my childhood collapsed. For, on the one hand, I understood that those things I had accepted since I was a child were lies. Where was this so-called “justice”? Where was this so-called “equality”? This world was nothing more than the strong eating the weak—the survival of the fittest. But, on the other hand, I also realized that I myself was not good. I had committed theft and robbery, not to mention many other sins. So, on the one hand, I began to like anything that could deconstruct my worldview. At the same time, I was also constantly tortured by guilt. My outward accomplishments only intensified the torture and made me even more desperate to deconstruct all of the beliefs I had come to hold.

You could say that A Chinese Odyssey catered to my way of thinking at the time. Consider what the word dahua means (5). It actually means to “deconstruct.” I felt at the time that everything about my worldview had to be re-narrated and reinterpreted. All of those glorious images had to be destroyed and mocked. So I liked Nietzsche and Lu Xun at the time, as well (6). It is not hard to see how they were connected to all of this.

But this life of deconstruction and confusion was shattered when I got to college. The only thing I had to cover up my shame—my grades—were no longer sufficient for the task. During my freshman year, my mother also passed away. My sense of guilt, shame, and uselessness tortured me. Therefore, I fell into depression and contemplated suicide a few times. But, thank God, during my sophomore year someone shared the gospel with me.

When I heard that someone could forgive my sins and save me from darkness, I believed. After I became a Christian, I was much better. I didn’t fail any more classes during my junior or senior years. Since others were busy taking the graduate entrance exam and lacked motivation to study, I took advantage of the fact and obtained a scholarship. Even though I had no money or experience upon graduation, God looked after me and I got a job as a teacher at a university.

But these favorable circumstances didn’t last long. As someone whose worldview had fallen apart, I couldn’t get used to this completely new life, especially to marriage and family life. I was discouraged and scarred by this fierce battle, and at the same time I perhaps inflicted even greater wounds on my family, especially my wife. In 2009, my life as I knew it came to an end. That year my five-year-old son passed away after suffering for two years. My relationship with my wife also completely fell apart. That year my church also entered a tumultuous time of transition from evangelicalism to reformed theology. Although I had already become reformed by that time, one could say that my faith was still in shambles. I was truly in the valley of the shadow of death. To be honest, I still don’t know how I came out of it. All I can say is it was entirely the grace of God.

Grace does not necessarily mean prosperity. In fact, when I look back today on the successive tragedies in my life, I find that they are all of grace. Because if I had not been so completely broken, I would not have realized that although I thought I was a Christian, my worldview had not yet been reformed. There are too many things that I learned too late in life, for example that I should love my wife, my children, and my church. As a result, there are some scars that I will carry for my whole life that will not completely heal. The false worldview that was instilled in me as a child was certainly harmful to me, but the nihilistic, “deconstructed” worldview of my teenage years was just as harmful — even more harmful. Living according to this false and empty worldview ruined my life. Only when I was more than thirty years old did I realize that I couldn’t live as an angry youth my whole life. I couldn’t live without restraint like a monkey. Having a worldview is important. You cannot live without one.

However, before you establish a “true” worldview, you will still think that your current worldview is the most correct one, no matter how false or empty it is, and you will maintain it at all costs. Because it is human nature to be willing to read the scriptures that you yourself have chosen, even in tears, but to suspect that others are playing tricks on you when they give you other scriptures. Therefore, so-called “grace” is when an external force outside of yourself destroys your false worldview, either from inside of you or from outside of you, and often it is both.

This was how I was broken.

When your false worldview is shattered, it is as though your whole world has collapsed or as though your childhood has been destroyed. This process is understandably difficult to undergo. It is like a turtle or a snail suddenly losing its shell. The soft parts inside the shell are suddenly exposed to the light. Before you put on new armor, you can only tremble unceasingly and writhe in pain.

So it is not enough to be broken. You must also be rebuilt as soon as possible, otherwise you will quickly die. But if you only rely on yourself, you cannot reorient your life or rebuild yourself, just as a dead man cannot revive himself, just as the Monkey King could not escape from under the mountain unless Tang Sanzang broke the seal (7). Only grace can turn a man’s life around and rebuild him.

Praise the Lord, who broke me, reoriented me, and rebuilt me. He was with me from beginning to end.

The “Odyssey” Generation

I’ve just shared a lot about my own personal experiences growing up. But there are about fifteen or twenty years between me and those born after 1995 or 2000. We are two different generations, no matter how you look at it. Moreover, my own personal experiences are somewhat unique.

But I still don’t think that my own journey is entirely inapplicable to this generation. In my opinion, the typical experience growing up for young Chinese people born around 1995 (the same year I watched A Chinese Odysseyfor the first time) can be summarized as follows:

As a child, you are surrounded by television, computers, video games, the internet, comics, and music. You don’t know much about Hamlet, but you love Harry Potter. You’ve experienced the “best Olympic games in history,” and therefore you have ignorantly begun to fall in love with this period of prosperity (8). But you have also experienced a great earthquake, leaving you feeling that something isn’t right. As a young person today, this feeling may be a bit stronger. For example, you may feel that food and air quality are more and more suspect. The pressure in school is greater and greater. You are starting to get hurt by your first romantic relationships. You are starting to feel depressed because your future is uncertain. Therefore, when you are feeling good you go to class and study hard, but when you feel depressed you play video games and watch dramas online, or you send some “bullet comments” on Bilibili (9).

However, while you revere all that is non-mainstream (you may not like this sentence because it has already become mainstream), from the perspective of history, and especially of modern Chinese history, you are no different from me or from those who were before me. Because according to my understanding, there are three forces that form the worldview of modern Chinese people. It just so happens that we can use the words ao, de, and sai to represent them (10). These three forces are also influencing you.

Ao refers to mystery (11). To use a nice-sounding word, we could call it “mystical thinking.” A less-flattering word might be “witchcraft.” I won’t go into the extremes, but your generation at the very least believes in astrology and fortune telling, as well as the pursuit of immortality and fantasy.

De and sai were popular words used during the May Fourth Movement, which greatly influenced China and did great harm to it (12). “Mr. De” (Mr. Democracy) referred to democracy, and “Mr. Sai” (Mr. Science) referred to science. People at the time believed that these two gentlemen could save China. Some people today may still believe this, but the meaning of these words has slightly changed. Mr. De is one of the twenty-four core values that make up the socialist mantra. And Mr. Sai has always been popular. For several generations now he has created many gaps in literature, history, and philosophy. He has made mathematics, physics, and chemistry king. He is proficient in English but does not understand England. He is very rational but lacks reason. He has many academic credentials, but he is uncultured. He is well-educated, but he was raised poorly. He is the new man of socialism.

The so-called “refined egoists,” the so-called “lone survivors” (the generation of the one-child policy), the so-called “little pinks,” the so-called “anti-mainstreamers”—these words depict the “Odyssey” (ao-de-sai) generation, whose material lives are prospering but whose spirits are aimlessly drifting to who knows where? (13) This is your generation, and it also includes us. This generation needs faith, but they do not know where true faith is found. So they simply indulge in fantasies and Korean dramas. They need vitality, but because of the painful lessons of their fathers, they intentionally or unintentionally stay away from all public affairs (e.g. politics). They need physical exercise, but their bodies have long wasted away because of computers and phones.

Mr. Ao has disappeared on Mount Emei (14). Mr. De has gone incommunicado in the Jinggang Mountains (15). Mr. Sai has escaped to Babao Mountain (16). These mountains have become the new “three mountains,” and they are crushing young people with more force than even the Wutai Mountains (17). You cannot wait for your master to come and break the seal, so you are alienated under this mountain like Sisyphus—perpetually pushing a boulder up the mountainside. As you near the top, it falls back down, again and again.

The Primary Colors of Sin

I am not, however, saying that these three external mountains are the cause of all of your suffering. Rather, the mountains represent three desires in your heart that each mountain satisfies. When external temptation and internal desire come together, they conceive sin, and when sin is fully grown, it brings forth death (James 1:15). Your life story is not actually that special, just like my life story is not actually that special. For we are all part of a larger story, a story that you may have never heard of. Our stories are all variations of this larger story.

The Bible tells us this story, the story of the fall of man.

The Bible also comes from the region near Mesopotamia that I mentioned in the beginning. But my knowledge of the Bible is not something I sought out myself. It was preached to me by someone else. And this is precisely the core truth of the Bible, namely that no man has ever sought the truth—the truth has sought man. For man has fallen and cannot seek truth of his own accord, just as a dead man cannot turn his life around and be a good man.

The first book of the Bible records the process by which humanity’s first ancestors sinned and fell. You probably know what I am referring to—the story of Adam and Eve secretly eating the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. This is how the Scriptures describe the moment man fell:

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” (Gen. 3:6)

Do you notice the reasons for which Eve ate the fruit? There were three important things about the fruit to her:

1. It was good for food.

2. It was a delight to the eyes and desirable.

3. It could make one wise.

These were Eve’s “three mountains.” She and her husband were tempted by these three things and fell, and it just so happens that these three things are the three manifestations of sin. We can call them the “primary colors” of sin. For all sins in this world are mere combinations of these three sins in different proportions, just as all colors are composed of the three primary colors in different proportions.

In the New Testament, the apostle John calls these three sins “the desires of the flesh,” “the desires of the eyes,” and “the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). All sins in this world are actually just combinations of these three sins. The passage in Scripture that describes the temptations of Jesus provides even more powerful proof of this point:

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’

And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and, ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. (Luke 4:1–13)

The three temptations of the devil correspond to the three sins mentioned above: “the desires of the flesh,” “the desires of the eyes,” and “the pride of life.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the greatest of all Christian writers, also discusses the significance of these three temptations in the chapter titled “The Grand Inquisitor” in the greatest Christian novel in human history, The Brothers Karamazov. This is what he says to Christ through the mouth of the grand inquisitor:

“The wise and dread spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and non-existence,” the old man goes on, “the great spirit talked with Thee in the wilderness, and we are told in the books that he ‘tempted’ Thee. Is that so? And could anything truer be said than what he revealed to Thee in three questions and what Thou didst reject, and what in the books is called ‘the temptation’? And yet if there has ever been on earth a real stupendous miracle, it took place on that day, on the day of the three temptations. The statement of those three questions was itself the miracle. If it were possible to imagine simply for the sake of argument that those three questions of the dread spirit had perished utterly from the books, and that we had to restore them and to invent them anew, and to do so had gathered together all the wise men of the earth—rulers, chief priests, learned men, philosophers, poets—and had set them the task to invent three questions, such as would not only fit the occasion, but express in three words, three human phrases, the whole future history of the world and of humanity—dost Thou believe that all the wisdom of the earth united could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the three questions which were actually put to Thee then by the wise and mighty spirit in the wilderness? From those questions alone, from the miracle of their statement, we can see that we have here to do not with the fleeting human intelligence, but with the absolute and eternal. For in those three questions the whole subsequent history of mankind is, as it were, brought together into one whole, and foretold, and in them are united all the unsolved historical contradictions of human nature. At the time it could not be so clear, since the future was unknown; but now that fifteen hundred years have passed, we see that everything in those three questions was so justly divined and foretold, and has been so truly fulfilled, that nothing can be added to them or taken from them.” (18)

The primary colors of sin can also represent more concrete concepts. Red can represent the desires of the flesh, green the desires of the eyes, and blue the pride of life. Or red, green, and blue could correspond to the valley-born party of the hammer and sickle, the “Allahu akbar!”-yelling religion of peace, and the Western ideology of the White Left (19). Because from a macro perspective, one could say that, apart from Christianity, these are the three prominent ideologies or worldviews that we find in the world today. Red religion, green religion, and blue religion are all fighting relentlessly for the hearts of people.

The devil once seduced our ancestors Adam and Eve with these three colors, but he failed with Jesus. Jesus conquered sin, and he will save those who belong to him from their sins. This is the story of fall and redemption that the Bible talks about. You and I are both a part of this story.

The meaning of these primary colors is different for different civilizations and individuals. In other words, sin can manifest itself in many different ways. For example, ao (mystery), de (democracy), and sai (science) may correspond to red, green, and blue (but of course this is not absolute). For example, science and witchcraft both attempt to control the world through various means.

Democracy uses the collective will of the people as a means to obtaining the glory of the kingdoms of the world, though it does so under the pretext of being “rational” (which is the pride of life and a longing for mystery). Or consider the three brothers in Journey to the West. You can probably see that the monkey’s main problems are the desires of the flesh (he enjoys killing) and the pride of life (he enjoys success). The pig’s main problems are the desires of the flesh (he enjoys eating) and the desires of the eyes (he enjoys women). As for Sha Wujing, although his problems aren’t obvious, if you look carefully you will find that he is what happens when you mix all three colors together (as paint, that is). No one color particularly stands out, and they turn to gray or black, representing ignorance.

No one is completely immune from these three sins. The only difference between us concerns which sin we are especially tempted by. Someone who isn’t lustful may be greedy. Someone who isn’t greedy might hunger for fame. Someone who doesn’t care about fame might thirst for power. Someone who doesn’t thirst for power might be full of curiosity and consequently pursue science. Are these things all bad? They are very dangerous. What I’ve described is precisely what Hitler was like before he rose to power, and what he wanted was to become God.

Someone once said that there are three images hidden in the heart of every Chinese person: an emperor, a bandit, and a monk. This is actually very similar to the three primary colors.

Li Shimin, Li Zicheng, and Li Shutong each represent the three primary colors of sin:

The emperor Li Shimin primarily represents the desires of the eyes (20). He expanded the country’s boundaries and all the kingdoms of the world came.

The bandit Li Zicheng primarily represents the desires of the flesh (21). He gorged himself on food and drank, pillaged, and raped.

The monk Li Shutong primarily represents the pride of life. He cared nothing about the things that the emperor and the bandit cared about (22). His main goal was to become like God, to become a Buddha through spiritual discipline.

This was also Tang Sanzang’s main problem.

The Reorienting Power of the Gospel

The main focus of the gospel preached by Jesus and his disciples is on the means and power by which it solves and reverses the problem of sin, as well as on its ability to reconstruct our worldview. The way that we resist sin can be seen in the passage about the temptations of Jesus that we just looked at. These are the three responses Jesus gave to the devil’s temptations:

1. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”

2. “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”

3. “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

When he says “it is written” he is referring to the Bible, the real Scriptures that are truly able to solve our sin problem.

But Jesus does not stop at merely providing you with some theories that you can follow to cultivate yourself. He knows that sinners are drowning in their sins and cannot pull themselves out. There is absolutely no way we can save ourselves. So he himself comes down from heaven to save those who cannot save themselves. He himself bears the punishment that we sinners ought to bear and obtains the salvation of his elect through his death. What’s more, he brings about victory for his people through his resurrection. Apart from Jesus, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Only he can save God’s people from the primary colors of sin, from the pipe dreams of the emperor, the bandit, and the monk.

Those who are reborn through this reorienting gospel possess a reoriented worldview. You were once rebellious, but now you are obedient. You were once lazy, but now you are diligent. You were once indifferent, but now you are passionate. You were once left-leaning, but now you are right-leaning. May you believe this reorienting gospel so that Jesus might turn you from your sin and rule over your life. The primary colors of sin, when mixed, form black, but the blood of Jesus can wash away this black and make you white.

Conclusion

Sometimes I wonder what China today would be like if Tang Sanzang had gone a little further west, or if Paul had travelled east as he originally intended instead of being led westward by that vision calling him to Macedonia (Acts 16:6–10). Constantine dreamt of a golden cross, but Han Mingdi dreamt of a golden man (23). History cannot be reversed. It was God’s will that history should play out like this.

But God’s timing is always good. The gospel eventually did come to China. Without reversing history, God sent his servants to preach the gospel of his Son, the gospel that can resurrect the dead and turn sinners from their sin. And this mission of evangelizing China was full of many hardships and obstacles, just like that reinterpretation of Journey to the West described. But these missionaries did not become discouraged and end their lives by turning themselves into stones. Unafraid of hardships and dangers and relying on the grace of God, they sowed the seeds of the kingdom of God throughout this land, bringing the grace of God to his people.

Notice the process by which this grace is revealed. God, by his power, first causes his elect to rise from the dead, out of the bondage of their sin. He causes them to know their sin and to repent of it (regardless of how that sin is specifically manifested). And he causes them to trust in Jesus. Because of the blood of Jesus, they are counted pure and spotless. Moreover, God completely deconstructs and rebuilds our erroneous worldview that we might live richer lives and enter a more glorious kingdom. The three mountains—Mount Emei, the Jinggang Mountains, and Mount Babao—can be vanquished and can only be vanquished by the mountains of Sinai, Calvary, and Zion. The three primary colors of sin can only be destroyed, transformed, and overcome by the triune God. The aimless wanderings of the “Odyssey” generation can only end with the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

May you all obtain the grace of God and be set free from the mountain that is crushing you and from the sin that holds you captive. No matter what your sin is, Jesus can overcome it. No matter how much sin has defiled and distorted your worldview, Jesus can break you, reorient you, and rebuild you. May we all know the true Word come down from heaven. May we rise from the dead as new men and live abundant lives.

Notes

1. In the incident referenced here, Sun Wukong was trapped under the Wutai Mountains for 500 years before finally being set free.

2. Sun Wukong is portrayed in the novel as a troublemaker, though he is generally admired as a hero. Communist revolutionaries considered themselves “rebels” being suppressed by Western ideologies, and as a result they sympathized with Sun Wukong and his rebellious temperament.

3. This is an unconventional retelling of *Journey to the West* that nevertheless is faithful to the details of the story, but it reverses the entire story line and interprets the journey nihilisticly. For example, *Journey to the West* is typically understood as a journey westward to retrieve Buddhist scriptures from India, but this retelling describes it as a journey eastward to preach Buddhism within China. Sun Wukong’s companions are often portrayed as faithful companions, but here they buckle under the futility of the mission. Sun Wukong is often portrayed as a troublemaker who likes to kill too much, but here his propensity to fight is portrayed as a virtue—he is the only one truly pursuing justice against the demons. The team’s mission is generally portrayed as a success, but here Sun Wukong is portrayed as a tragic hero, ending his life as a normal monkey, betrayed by his friends, and eventually turning into a stone—all of which actually happen in the original story.

4. The author is referring to traditional foot binding. The practice first broke and then tightly bound a young girl’s feet to stunt their growth and limit her ability to walk long distances. Generally practiced among China’s elite classes as a sign of beauty and status, the practice eventually diminished and ended in the early 20th century under the influence of various social campaigns, many of which were organized by Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries.

5. The Chinese title of *A Chinese Odyssey* is *Dahua Xiyou*, which can loosely be translated as “Exaggerated Journey to the West”—that is, reinterpreting it and retelling it in a new way.

6. Lu Xun was an early 20th -century essayist who is known for critiquing traditional Chinese society.

7. Sun Wukong was crushed under the Wutai Mountain for 500 years as a punishment for wreaking havoc in Heaven. Tang Sanzang broke the seal that crushed Sun Wukong under the mountain and invited Wukong to accompany him to the West.

8. A reference to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games.

9. Bilibili is currently one of the most popular video-sharing platforms in China, similar to Youtube. “Bullet comments” or “bullet screen” refers to a popular feature that allows viewers to send real-time comments across the screen as the video plays.

10. Ao-de-sai（奥德赛）is the Chinese translation of Odyssey.

11. The Chinese word ao（奥）literally means “mystery.”

12. The May Fourth Movement was an anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919.

13. “Little pinks” refer to young Chinese nationalists (usually women) who vehemently defend the Communist Party against criticism, generally in online forums.

14. Mount Emei is one of the four most sacred Buddhist mountains in China.

15. Jinggang Mountains is often considered the birthplace of the Chinese Communist Revolution.

16. Babao Mountain, or Baobaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, is the resting place for highest-ranking officials, revolutionary heroes, and important individuals.

17. This is a reference to the old “three mountains”—a term used by Mao Zedong to refer to the three “enemies” of China: feudalism, imperialism, and bureaucratic capitalism, which he described as “crushing the heads of the Chinese people.”

18. Translation taken from Fyodor Dostoyevsky, *The Brothers Karamazov*, trans. Constance Garnett (Dover Publications, 2012).

19. The “valley-born party of the hammer and sickle” refers to the Chinese Communist Party (or Chinese Communism), which came to power after the Long March, when Mao Zedong led his army through a precarious mountain passage while retreating from the Kuomintang. The “’Allahu akbar!’-yelling religion of peace” is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Islam. The “Western ideology of the White Left” refers to the social liberalism prominent in Europe and the U.S.

20. Li Shimin (?-649 AD), also known as Tang Taizong, was the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty.

21. Li Zicheng (1605-1645) was the leader of a peasant rebellion that overthrew the Ming Dynasty, after which he reigned as emperor of the short-lived Shun dynasty. In pop culture, he is often portrayed as a bandit.

22. Li Shutong (1880-1942), also known as Hong Yi, was a Buddhist monk and master musician, painter, calligrapher, and dramatist who led the New Culture Movement in the early 20th century.

23. Han Mingdi was the second emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is said that he saw a golden man floating down to him from heaven in a dream. When he inquired of his ministers about the meaning of the man, they said it must be Buddha. So the emperor sent an envoy to India to bring Buddhism to China, which eventually led to the spread of Buddhism throughout Chinese culture.

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