Monkey King Mourns Sha Monk

Yan Huaili passed away at the age of 73 on the morning of April 12, 2009. He died of a lung infection. The news of his death spread fast like a fire on the internet. The name Yan Huaili may sound unfamiliar to many people, but what he impersonated in the 1982 81-episode television blockbuster “Journey to the West”, a modern adaptation from the namesake Chinese classic novel, is fresh in the memory of millions of Chinese. Yan Huaili was Sha Monk, one of the three disciples who escorted the Tang Monk to the west to fetch Buddhist sutras. Zhang Jinrong, the man who impersonated the “Monkey King” in the series, burst into tears when seeing Yan passed away in a Beijing hospital.

Zhang Jinrong is from a family of Shaoxing Opera artists in Zhejiang Province. Born in 1959 in Shanghai, he began his stage career at 6 just as his father did and went on to act as the monkey king on the stage. His performance as the monkey king in the 1982 television blockbuster won him national honors.

A special friendship formed among the four actors. They maintained the relationships as the master and three disciples despite their age difference and real status in everyday life. It was as if they had actually taken a 10-thousand-mile journey together to the west. The media and audience treated them as a group and they often appeared together in events.

Though Zhang Jinrong acted as the big brother of the three disciples in the series, he was actually the youngest of the three. As the third of the disciples of the Tang Monk in the drama, Yan Huaili was actually 23 years senior than Zhang Jinrong and only 12 years younger than Zhang’s father.

At first, Zhang Jinrong was worried about his inexperience given the fellow actors’ age, careers and experiences. In the series, he was the big brother and he needed to issue commands and sometimes bully his junior brothers. In everyday life and in the shooting of the series, Yan the monk acted as the big brother and showed his gold heart toward the monkey.

For a long while Zhang Jinrong revealed to nobody that he wore contact lens. But one day, Director Yang Jie found his eyes unable to focus and shine as usual and Zhang even accidentally injured a fellow actor in a kongfu scene. A little bit frustrated, the director called for a stop and asked Zhang what was the matter. After much hesitation, Zhang explained that he was highly myopic and he did not wear contact lens that day. It was the first time he let the secret out and waited anxiously for the blow to strike. The director was silent after hearing the explanation. The silence was so loud and so torturing that Zhang feared that the director was to dump him and choose someone else to act as the monkey king. Yan Huaili was equally astonished by the revelation but recovered fast. Understanding the situation, he praised the monkey king’s performance. Yan then counted on his fingers the examples of Zhang’s excellence. Before the examples were all counted, the director realized why Yan was praising Zhang Jinrong and stopped Yan and explained that she was deeply impressed by Zhang’s artistry and that she was not angry about the untold truth but that she was blaming herself for not taking adequate care of the people working with her.

In fact whenever and wherever Zhang ran into any trouble, Yan Huaili was always the first man rushing over to help him. One day, Zhang was supposed to climb out of a burning stove, a scene in which the monkey king finally managed to escape from the alchemy stove of a god. The stove had real fire inside. Zhang’s feet accidentally touched rim of the stove and immediately got burned. Yan rushed over and carried Zhang all the way to the clinic for emergency treatment.

Yan Huaili was not only older than his fellow actors, but also very experienced in acting. He started his acting career in 1958 and had appeared in many big movie and theater performances before he was cast for the “Journey to the West”. Moreover, in addition to acting as Sha Monk, he also impersonated more than 20 different gods and demons in the different episodes of the same television blockbuster. In the post Journey-to-the-West period, he appeared in many other important television blockbusters.

Yan was a very healthy and strong man. He jogged every morning. But his nose did not function well. In the summer of 1993 when he was shooting a television drama, hotel rooms where the crew stayed were fumigated with DDVP (a kind of highly toxic insecticide now under ban) every day to kill insects such as mosquitoes and other bugs. He smelt nothing and stayed in his room to read. The excessive exposure to DDVP destroyed his health. He coughed frequently and failed to do a lot of things he used to enjoy.

In 2004, Yan felt uncomfortable with the lungs. The diagnosis was that he was in the later period of the fiberized lungs which looked like a honeycomb. It was terminal. One day in September 2005, he went to swim in a swimming pool in his residential community. As soon as he jumped into the water, he found he had difficulty breathing. Doctors said that there was a huge bubble on his lung and it could break at any time. After learning Yan was seriously ill, Zhang Jinrong called Yan. The monkey king visited the monk frequently, bringing him food and gifts. At that time, Yang moved around in wheelchair in order to avoid straining his lungs.

On July 28, 2007, a television talk show displayed a 20-year-old black and white photo of Yan Huaili. The host explained that Yan Huaili was now paralyzed. The talk show also took up a bad topic about who among the crew of the Journey to the West had passed away. Yan Huaili was very unhappy after seeing the talk show. Zhang Jinrong also watched the talk show. He immediately called and expressed his sympathy with Yan. Zhang openly criticized the television network for its carelessness and demanded an apology. The television network apologized in the media. On July 7, 2007, Yan Huaili appeared with the Tang Monk, the Monkey King and the Pig in an interview at an Internet portal. Yan walked, proving that he was not paralyzed.

Yan’s lungs deteriorated fast in 2009. On April 2, 2009, he was hospitalized at ICU in a Beijing hospital because of high fever. After a brief period of recovery, the fever came back and his conditions became critical on April 9. Though Zhang Jinrong, Ma Dehua and Chi Chongrui planned to come to see Yan Huaili on April 10, Yan’s wife Feng Meilian asked them not to, thinking Yan was stable.

Shortly after 7 o’clock on the morning of April 12, however, Zhang Jinrong received a call from Yan’s wife. Yan was in a critical condition and wished to see the master and two other disciples.

Zhang Jinrong immediately called Ma Dehua the Pig and Chi Chongrui who acted as the Tang Monk. Zhang ran all the way to the ward on the 12th floor as the elevator worked slowly. Yan was unable to speak. When he was told that his big brother was there to see him, two teardrops oozed out of his closed eyes. Then the master arrived. Yan passed away at 10:20 AM. Zhang and Chi helped Yan’s wife and sons changed cloths for Yan and helped move Yan on a gurney to the mortuary. After a long and difficult traffic jam in the morning, Ma arrived five minutes after Yan passed away. Yan’s eyes were open after he was dead. When Ma Dehua closed his eyes, there appeared two teardrops from the eyes of Yan.

The day Yan Huaili passed away happened to be Zhang Jinrong’s 50th birthday. Many fans had intended to hold a big birthday party and he had wanted to celebrate the important landmark day in his life. But he felt mysteriously restless and called the celebration off. And it turned out to be the day that Sha Monk passed away. In his grief, Zhang decided never to celebrate his birthday on April 12 any more.

Zhang Jinrong plans to write a book to tell the stories of shooting the Journey to the West. A large space will be dedicated to the memory of Yan Huaili.