Top Highlights

• he Monkey King must abandon their shoes and hairdo, respectively, speaks to the futility and ineffectiveness of trying to be something they’re not—as do the reactions of those who encounter the shoes and Jin’s perm with confusion or laughter.
• Both shoes and hair represent the folly of trying to be something other than one’s true identity. The Monkey King’s edict that all monkeys on Flower-Fruit Mountain must wear shoes represents his own desire to be more human—that is, his desire to be something he’s not, but something that he considers to be superior.
• In this sense, both shoes and hair represent a distillation of an entire culture or state of being into one single quality or element, something the novel suggests is misguided and ineffective at turning someone into something they’re not. The Monkey King and his fellow monkeys still look like monkeys, just ones that wear shoes
• This doesn’t mean, however, that the shoes and hair don’t still feel empowering to the Monkey King
• the addition of shoes to the Monkey King’s wardrobe are the first step of his transformation to becoming Great Sage, Equal of Heaven

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