I have adorned our Christmas tree for more than 50 years, and I have collected many of these ornaments. Over the years I collected lot of birds for the tree, and in 1989 my husband and I went to Bejing where I had a job. While there I learned about the Journey to the West.

Journey to the West (Chinese: 西遊記) is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng’en. It is regarded as one of the greatest Classic Chinese Novels, and has been described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia.^[

I learned about Journey to the West when I visited another family nearby and the father introduced us to his 5 year old. That boy immediately started telling us about the Monkey King. He gave quite a show! He was passionate about the story.

The Monkey King was not a King right away. These are two of the books, but in those years they only had 8 of the 34 colorful books.

We have thought about that American family, and wonder what that little boy thought about over the years. Perhaps he found ways to be a King too.