Liuxiaolingtong, who became a legend for his portrayal of Sun Wukong, is more than just an actor—he’s a man on a mission
The underground teahouse where Liuxiaolingtong (六小龄童) chooses for us to meet is the last place you’d expect to find one of China’s biggest TV stars. Tucked away in the basement of an apartment complex in southwest-central Beijing, the teahouse looks like a gambler’s hideout: dim, smoky, and loud. As a bored-looking attendant leads us into a small, fluorescent-lit tea room, I reflect that this is the worst possible place to conduct an interview—it’s dark, it’s cramped, and it’s filled with the noise of shouting men and clicking mahjong tiles. It is, in other words, a place completely free of pretense.
This, at least, is a comfort. When I first started telling Chinese friends that I would be interviewing Liuxiaolingtong—the actor who played Sun Wukong in the popular 80s TV version of Journey to the West (《西游记》)—their reactions made me increasingly uneasy. Eyes widened, jaws dropped, and hands fluttered. This was, I gathered after several conversations, the equivalent of interviewing Big Bird or Mr. Rogers in the US—if, that is, Big Bird or Mr. Rogers were literary characters that embodied 5,000 years of culture, history, and national pride.
Yet when the 53-year-old Liuxiaolingtong sweeps into the room, he looks more like a hip older dad than a stodgy cultural icon; he is wiry and energetic, dressed in a vibrant patterned sweater, rimless glasses, and a red baseball cap. The only hint of celebrity style is the chunky silver rings that stud his fingers and flash in the light as his hands swoop and arc to the rhythm of his words.
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