You know, I wish I could say that this knowledge of Chinese philosophers, which included Mencius, Sun Zi, Lie Zi and books like the Journey to the West and Madam White Snake were from me reading these books in their original language.
LOL NOPE. I got them from COMICS TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH.
Specifically, this cartoonist, Tsai Chih Chung: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Tsai-Chih-Chung/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ATsai%20Chih%20Chung
It's great. I have all these random anecdotes now.
Like I was having this conversation about how Sha Wujing was the straight man of the party in Journey to the West, and my friends was like, OMG, he's not?!?!?!?
And I was like, in comparison to Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie? And Xuanzang doesn't count, he gets kidnapped to be eaten ALL THE TIME, I'm surprised he doesn't have PTSD.
I have enough knowledge of the story to write FANFIC. And that, honestly, is a LOT of knowledge.