Sun Wukong VS Zhu Bajie

Sun Wukong, also known as the Monkey King, is a main character in the Chinese classical novel Journey to the West. He is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha, he later accompanies the monk Xuanzang on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from India. In the story, he is the leader of Xuanzang’s three helpers who is strongest and has the highest power among them. So when Xuzang is in danger, in most situations, it is Wukong who saves him. We can even say that Wukong makes the journey to the West be successful. Wukong is a brave and fearless hero, some say that he possesses these two prominent personality traits is because he is powerful, and he knows that no one can defeat him. However, he always irritates his dear master Xuanzang unintentionally for he mainly focuses on protecting Xuanzang in action but is not good at expressing his ideas and thoughts by words.

孙悟空，又称美猴王，是中国经典名著《西游记》中的主要角色。他是从一块石头中蹦出来的石猴，后来从菩提老祖处拜师学艺习得了一身本领。在经过大闹天宫及被如来佛祖压在五指山下之后，他开始陪伴唐三藏去西天求取真经。在《西游记》中，孙悟空可以被看作是唐僧三个徒弟中的领导人物，并且是其中最厉害、本领最高强的一位。每当唐僧遇到危险，基本都是孙悟空把他救了出来。我们甚至可以这样说，没有孙悟空就没有西天取经的成功。孙悟空是一个勇敢、无所畏惧的大英雄。有人说，他之所以勇敢无畏，是因为他本领高强，并且他清楚没有人可以打败他。不过，他经常惹怒他的师父，因为他把精力都放在了身体力行保护唐僧上面，因此不善于去用语言表达解释自己内心的想法。

In the story, another major character Zhu Bajie, who is often called dāizi, meaning "idiot". Based on his nickname, we can deduce that he is weak and much less powerful than Wukong. Bajie used to be a heavenly marshal but he was punished because he took liberties with Chang’E. Bajie is jealous of Sun Wukong and always tries to bring him down, but he fails all the time. Bajie is edacious, lazy and lustful. Nevertheless, he is also optimistic and soft-hearted. He is adept at making Xuzang laugh. Although he always makes mistakes, he is easily forgiven by Xuzang.

故事中的另一个主要人物猪八戒经常被称作“呆子”，也就是“笨蛋”的意思。通过这个昵称我们很容易就能猜出他本领并不高，并且比孙悟空差远了。八戒曾经是天蓬元帅，但是因为调戏嫦娥而被贬。他对孙悟空很嫉妒，经常找机会想打倒他，可惜从来没有成功过。八戒好吃懒做、贪婪好色，不过他也有优点，比如乐观、心软。他经常能逗笑唐僧，因此即使他总是犯些错误也很容易被唐僧原谅。

The two famous characters in Chinese mysteries, Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie, can be regarded as two representative kinds of people in modern workplace. To be exact, Wukong is the person with great ability and good leadership skills. He is the core leading character in a team. However, to some degree, he is too conceited and fails to show restraint. This is the reason that most of the technical talented persons like Wukong in today’s workplace are just at middle level of a company. While Bajie is the representative of the people who do not have good work capacity, but he possesses sufficient communication competence. Thus he is idle at work and liked by his leader. Nevertheless, this type of people does not have many opportunities to be promoted. For example, at the end of the novel, most of Bajie’s fellow pilgrims achieve enlightenment and become buddhas or arhats, but he does not. He is instead rewarded with a job as "Cleanser of the Altars", while Wukong is rewarded as "Victorious Fighting Buddha".

中国神话中的这两个著名人物同时也可以代表如今现代职场两大类人的缩影。具体来说，悟空代表着那种有着很强工作能力以及领导能力的职场精英，他是每一个队伍里的核心领导人物。不过，从某种程度上来说，悟空有些过于自负并且不善于收敛光芒。这就造成了很多类似悟空的职场技术精英如今常常止步于公司中层位置。相反地，八戒可以代表职场中的另一类人。他们没有足够的工作能力，但是他们善于交际。因此，他们可以获得清闲的职务同时还受领导喜爱。可是，这类人并没有很多的上升空间。比如西游记结尾中，与八戒一起取经的同伴都获得了很高的荣誉并被封了佛，而他却没有。他只是被封了一个“净坛使者”的职位，但是孙悟空被封了“斗战胜佛”。

To summarise, in today’s society, interpersonal relationship is a significant element which cannot be ignored. Sun Wukong’s legend tells us that weak social skill can result in the frustration in working. However, it cannot be denied that capacity is always much more important than sociability, such as the result of Bajie. Although it seems that he lives more leisurely than Wukong, he can never have the same position as Wukong.

总之，在如今的社会中，人际关系至关重要。孙悟空的传说告诉我们不善于人际交往会使得职场发展受限。可是，通过八戒的结局，我们永远不能否认能力要远远重要于交际。尽管八戒生活得要比悟空清闲，但是他永远不会取得悟空那样的地位。

完成阅读

来源:纽约时报中文网爱语吧作者:Annie