Q 01/05

Journey to the West is a fictionalised account of a pilgrimage by which real Chinese monk?

A) Faxian

B) Xuanzang

C) Bodhidharma

D) Kumarajiva

Answer · why

B) Xuanzang

Xuanzang. He came home in 645, and the emperor was so taken with his stories of foreign lands that he offered the monk a post as minister, which he tu...

Q 02/05

In Journey to the West, the pilgrims travel to India to fetch what?

A) A sacred relic of the Buddha

B) The elixir of immortality

C) Buddhist scriptures

D) A dragon's pearl

Answer · why

C) Buddhist scriptures

Buddhist scriptures. At the last hurdle two of the Buddha's disciples, refused a gift, hand over blank scrolls, and the pilgrims have to go back and p...

Q 03/05

Journey to the West is traditionally attributed to which Ming dynasty writer?

A) Cao Xueqin

B) Wu Cheng'en

C) Luo Guanzhong

D) Shi Nai'an

Answer · why

B) Wu Cheng'en

Wu Cheng'en. The novel came out anonymously; the scholar Hu Shih argued that records in Wu's home town credited him with it as early as 1625, but late...

Q 04/05

Sun Wukong is born from what?

A) A lightning strike

B) A stone egg

C) A peach pit

D) A dragon's tear

Answer · why

B) A stone egg

A stone egg. The wind turned it into a stone monkey, and when his eyes first opened they shot two beams of golden light that startled the Jade Emperor...

Q 05/05

How many transformations does Sun Wukong master?

A) 9

B) 18

C) 36

D) 72

Answer · why

D) 72

72. He was offered a set of 36 changes and chose the bigger one, but his tail will not transform: when he turns himself into a roadside temple it stic...