The Staff

Last Saturday, I went to watch the much acclaimed movie - The Forbidden Kingdom starring Jet Li & Jackie Chan. In the morning when I read the papers review on this movie for being rather crabby & no story line, I ponder... should not be that bad where the 2 most biggest stars in Chinese film making is the movie.

I was totally wrong. Movie was so so, story line was kinda ?!?!?! where it feature legends like the Monkey King 孙悟空 (Jet Li) & the Drunken Immortal (Jackie Chan) together.

Other then hearing funny English cum Chinese conversation struggling between the both, I cannot stop laughing at the scene where the Jade Emperor speaks awkward English as well!

As their English were not fluent, I tend the read some of the subtitles pretty often. One word that makes me chuckles & intrigue was "The Staff".

What is this? It actually refers to the magical rod 孙悟空 carries around. I went huh???? Isn't staff = people. What has it got to with a rod. I wanted to find out more & this is what I had.

From Dictionary.com Staff is
1. a group of persons, as employees, charged with carrying out the work of an establishment or executing some undertaking.
2. a stick, pole, or rod for aid in walking or climbing, for use as a weapon, etc.
3. a rod or wand serving as a symbol of office or authority, as a cozier, baton, truncheon, or mace.

*Giggles* so the Almighty rod the Abbot carries is also calls a staff.

Wondering whether did the movie uses a wrong word, I went further to check in Wikipedia.

His primary weapon is the rúyì-jīngū-bàng ("will-following golden-banded staff"), which he can shrink down to the size of a needle and keep behind his ear, as well as expand it to gigantic proportions (hence the "will-following" part of the name). The staff, originally a pillar supporting the undersea palace of the East Sea Dragon King, weighs 13,500 pounds, which he pulled out of its support and swung with ease.

Ok... Ok.. I learnt something new today.