“Journey to the West” is probably considered a work that becomes a childhood memory of many people, but the original has also been studied many times by many scholars, becoming a special kind of research literature.
However, a girl in grade 5 and 11, discovered that Journey to the West had a very large “grain”. After a review by experts, they recognized it, and surprisingly this went undetected for more than 400 years.
Ma Tu Qi, born in 2009, was the one who discovered this “grain”. At that time, Ma Siqi was studying in grade 5 in Hangzhou, China. I love reading books, every day I hold a book in my hand and read it anytime, anywhere without complaining. Despite being young, I have read countless books of different genres.
Ma Tu Qi’s favorite is still “Journey to the West” by Ngo Thua An. Although “Journey to the West” had a TV series broadcast at that time, she never watched the movie but only read the original. I also think that the TV series does not show all the good things that Ngo Thua An wants to convey, nor the wide world that the work describes.
Because he liked it very much, Ma Si Qi has read “Journey to the West” many times, each time can have a new experience. Ma Siqi feels that this is the meaning of reading books, being able to understand different lessons. And also thanks to this many times of reading and re-reading, Ma Tu Qi has discovered a problem, that is, the meal of the teachers and students of Tang Tang on the journey to ask for sutras seems to have remained unchanged.
We all know, Tang Tang and his disciples went to Tay Thien to get scriptures, passing through many cities and villages, but Ma Tu Qi discovered, Ngo Thua An described the food of Tang Tang’s teachers and students, completely Giang Hoai dishes.
It is known that Giang Hoai is the area of Jiangnan, Huainan, now Jiangsu and Anhui provinces in China.
Tang Tang started from Truong An citadel and headed to Tay Truc, in the middle of the road he absorbed three disciples. Accordingly, they could not keep taking the scriptures in Giang Hoai. But Ma Tu Qi read the whole work, even though Tang Tang’s teachers and students went to Tay Thien, they just ate the Jiang Huai dish, unchanged.
The dishes that Tang Tang’s teachers and students ate were all dishes from Ngo Thua An’s hometown (Lien Thuy district, Hoai An, Jiangsu province), even the dishes Ngo Thua An liked to eat. A famous work like Journey to the West recounts a long journey, exploring many places but having only one culinary system, it is indeed a huge gap.
Ma Siqi was surprised by this discovery. So she quickly took notes and wrote an article to describe the dish in “Journey to the West”. This research paper by Ma Siqi has just been published, causing strong reactions from experts.
After researching, some experts acknowledged the findings of Ma Tu Qi, furthermore concluding that Ngo Thua An had no experience in traveling far, lacking in studying the culinary culture of different regions of Vietnam. China before inclusion in the work.
Ma Siqi’s discovery not only has groundbreaking significance for the study of “Journey to the West”, but also has profound implications for ancient literature. Literature at that time had many limitations, so defects were possible. But we can go through these details to better understand the author, understand the work, thereby studying and reading more effectively.
Ma Si Qi is a contemporary student who loves to read and is good at contemplation, her point of view on the matter is very new, worthy of many experts to learn.
