Myth & Origins

Aug 01, 2026 lore

Walking the Southern Mountains of the Shan Hai Jing: Twenty-Two Creatures and...

The first book of the Shan Hai Jing is the Classic of the Southern Mountains, divided into three ranges. Its entries follow an almost invariant formula: appearance first, then the name, then the us...

Aug 01, 2026
Gods, Immortals, Yao, Jing, Guai, Mo and Gui: How Much of...

Anyone reading Journey to the West eventually runs into the question. Among the creatur...

Aug 01, 2026
Where the Shan Hai Jing Creatures Actually Come From — an...

Lists of creatures from the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing) circulate wid...

Jul 30, 2026
Every Type of Demon Ending in Journey to the West — And W...

Kui Mulang abducted a princess for thirteen years and was sentenced to tend a furnace. ...

Jul 30, 2026
Who Was Sun Wukong Before Journey to the West? A Thousand...

The Monkey King is about a thousand years older than the novel he is famous for. He sta...

Jul 30, 2026
How Sun Wukong Was Rewritten for Four Hundred Years: From...

After 1592 the rewriting shifted from who the Monkey King was to what he meant. Qing co...

Jul 29, 2026
Black Myth: Wukong Bosses Explained: The Real Mythology B...

What Journey to the West actually says about four of Black Myth: Wukong’s key bosses — ...

Jul 29, 2024
Black Myth: Wukong Lore Explained: Kang-Jin Loong, Fourth...

The classical sources behind Black Myth: Wukong’s three tragic women — a lunar mansion’...