Tang: Treasures from the Silk Road capital

If you wanted to brush up on your knowledge of China’s Golden Age, the Tang Dynasty, you could do worse than regressing to a 1970s childhood. Grab the beanbags and binge on the campy Japanese kids’ TV show, Monkey.

Let’s leave aside that the lead character, Monkey, is a celestial monkey warrior and king of primates who’d conjure up an army from a few plucked chest hairs, ride a white cloud and could transform himself into a hornet to irritate and defeat evil: the TV program is rooted in fact.

Monkey is based on the 16th-century Chinese epic Xi You Ji (Journey to the West), which traces the 17-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang from China to India, in search of Buddhist scriptures. In Monkey, which was dubbed hilariously into English, the monk is called Tripitaka, an honorary title used during the Tang Dynasty for those who had mastered the Buddhist scriptures.

To read more about the Tang: treasures from the Silk Road capital exhibition, on display at the Art Gallery of NSW until 10 July, click here.