SENG ZAI CANTONESE STORYTELLING: JOURNEY TO THE WEST is a Cantonese video podcast story re-telling of 西遊記 Journey to the West. It is solo voice-performed by Oliver Chong playing more than 70 characters in 18 thirty-minute-long episodes, as a tribute to the disappearing tradition of street storytelling.
Journey to the West is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng’en. It is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. It has been described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia. The novel is an extended account of the legendary pilgrimage of the Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who travelled to the “Western Regions” (Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent) to obtain Buddhist sacred texts (sūtras) and returned after some 81 adventures that befell him and his entourage of three beasts – the magically gifted Monkey, the slow-witted and clumsy Pigsy, and the dragon spirit Sandy.
「成仔講古」之西遊記 SENG ZAI CANTONESE STORYTELLING: JOURNEY TO THE WEST is part of Season One of 大声D茶室 / Warung Cakap Apa（What did You Say Teahouse), initiated and produced by arts company 3Pumpkins. It is a community arts project created in the initial stage of the COVID-19 lock-down in a bid to connect with seniors living in isolation, and in languages that are familiar to the elderly but are uncommonly heard in the mass media today. The project is part of an intersectoral community project that creates new artistic content in the vernacular languages (Chinese dialects, Malay and Tamil) for seniors who found themselves physically and emotionally isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Largely audio-based, the programmes can be shared on MP3 players to enable better accessibility for seniors who lack access to technology and for the ease of healthcare workers to broadcast the content in the homes. 3Pumpkins partnered with ground-up initiative Project Audible Cheer and Lion Befrienders to provide 6000 MPs players loaded with the programme’s content for the seniors under their care. The works are also available as video output on Youtube, accompanied by captions and English translation, for audiences who are interested in understanding and learning the vernacular that they are not familiar with.
大声D茶室 / Warung Cakap Apa is presented by 3Pumpkins, with the support of Our Singapore Fund.
Artist
Oliver Chong
Music composer and sound designer
Programme theme song: Phang Kok Jun
Music Supervisor: Phang Kok Jun
Video Editor
Eric Lim You Wey
Transcriber and Translator
Max Yam
Graphic Designer
Programme key visual: Shian
Show posters: Ric Liu
Episode page art: Max Yam
Production/Technical/Marketing & Administrative support
Ang Cheng Yan, Cheryl Gan, Farez Najid
