Like millions of Chinese millennials, I spent my childhood summer vacations planted in front of the TV, binging a near-endless stream of reruns of the 1986 TV adaptation of “Journey to the West” — one of China’s best-known classical novels and the origin of the Monkey King.

Even now, the show’s opening theme remains etched in my memory. I didn’t know its name — originally titled “Prelude to the Journey to the West,” it’s better known today as “Celestial Symphony” — and I was much too young to grasp the full brilliance of its blend of traditional Chinese music and electronic sounds. But it nevertheless made an impression: Even a single note could spark my imagination, conjuring images of the Monkey King soaring into the sky, the westward pilgrimage of the monk Tang Sanzang, and the mysterious deities watching over them.

I am far from the only member of my generation with fond memories of “Celestial Symphony.” This year’s hit game “Black Myth: Wukong” included a symphonic version in the game’s score. But for decades, the man behind the music — an obscure composer called Xu Jingqing — was all but forgotten, his name known only to a few hardcore fans.

Born in the eastern Shandong province in 1942, Xu moved with his parents to Heilongjiang, near the Russian border to the northeast, when he was 1. Growing up, he fell in love with errenzhuan, a humorous opera style popular in China’s north, and learned to play the erhu, flute, and piano at school.

After graduating from an art academy, Xu got a job in 1965 as a composer for documentaries on agricultural science. Although he would later score a handful of minor features, by the early 1980s he was barely known even within Chinese television circles, much less to the broader public. The director of “Journey to the West,” Yang Jie, reportedly contacted at least six other composers before Xu got the job.

One reason for Yang’s difficulty finding a composer was the unprecedented scale of “Journey to the West.” In the early 1980s, when state broadcaster China Central Television set out to adapt the country’s four best-known classical novels — “Journey to the West,” “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” “Water Margin,” and “Dream of the Red Chamber” — the country had only just emerged from the turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s. Multi-episode TV dramas were still a novelty, and almost no one in China had any experience creating a cohesive score for a series of that length.

Further complicating matters, Yang wanted the theme of her show to be instrumental, which meant the composer would have no lyrics to work with. Xu would have to rely solely on music to interpret the novel — a vast, gripping yet humorous tale blending elements of Buddhism, Taoism, and folklore with exotic influences. How could all of this be captured in a single piece?

Xu’s answer reflects the complexity of the task. “Celestial Symphony” opens with a burst of electronic rock symbolizing the Monkey King’s birth from a stone. This is followed by an orchestral arrangement that blends traditional Chinese instruments like the guzheng with Western instruments such as the trumpet to evoke the grand scene of the monk Tang Sanzang’s long journey. Midway through, an ethereal female voice can be heard, evoking the sounds of Heaven and inviting the audience to imagine the celestial realms. From there, the orchestral and vocal elements repeat, leading viewers on a journey through Heaven and Earth, culminating in the soft, elegant tones of a harp that signify the successful completion of the monk’s mission and the attainment of Buddhahood.

China was a latecomer to the electronic music revolution, and in the mid-1980s, musicians were only just starting to use synthesizers. Xu himself only discovered the sound he felt suited the story by chance, after an encounter with an electronic drum kit in a music store.

Not everyone was ready for Xu’s mix of cutting-edge technology and ancient instrumentation, however. “Celestial Symphony” was criticized in some corners as not Chinese enough to match the classical novel. It was only due to Yang’s insistence that Xu kept his job and the opening theme was saved.

In hindsight, the controversy seems quaint. Xu’s composition neatly sums up the decade’s mood of openness and creativity. As Xu himself would later put it: “Although ‘Journey to the West’ is a Chinese story, the expression of traditional Chinese instruments has limits, so I used Western instruments to help express the Chinese story and emotions.”

“Celestial Symphony” went on to become an indelible part of the childhood memories of an entire generation, thanks largely to countless reruns of “Journey to the West” on Chinese television. Although they did not know Xu’s name, when this generation grew up, its members would revive the song as both a nod to their childhoods and an antidote to the stagnation of Chinese pop music in the early 2010s. Compared to the innovative mix of Chinese and foreign instruments in “Celestial Symphony,” many contemporary songs felt flat and shallow. Indeed, the song’s fusion of Eastern and Western instruments and styles made it seamlessly adaptable to music scenes around the world, something fans seized on to set it to a wide variety of videos, from footage of Greek keyboardist Yanni’s famous concert at the Acropolis to 8-bit versions set to video game footage.

But the renewed popularity of “Celestial Symphony” did little for Xu. The composer remained largely unknown until 2016, when Xu, who said he had earned only a few thousand yuan in royalties from the piece, wrote on social media that he wanted to hold a live concert featuring the music from “Journey to the West.” For many fans, it was the first time they had ever heard his name, and they quickly banded together to make the show happen. Nearly 5 million yuan ($700,000) was crowdfunded, and in late 2016, Xu put on two shows at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

In the years since, the now 81-year-old Xu has become an internet favorite, with over 280,000 followers on video platform Bilibili. But while it’s easy to attribute the renewed popularity of the “Celestial Symphony” to millennial nostalgia, the fact is that the piece was designed to transcend time from the start — bridging 14 centuries of Chinese history from the Tang dynasty (618–907) to the present. Fans are drawn to it for different reasons: electronic music fans call Xu the “pioneer of Chinese electronic music,” while rock enthusiasts are captivated by the song’s creative use of bass. Iris Long, a digital art curator who identifies as a Taoist, told me that she heard her imagined vision of Heaven in the solemn orchestral arrangement, but she was most enamored with Xu’s free, almost improvisational use of the paigu, a Chinese drum.

Despite the early criticism, “Celestial Symphony” has become an iconic modern Chinese composition. In one popular fan-made remix, a version of the piece played on electric guitar is laid over scenes of the space elevator from the 2023 patriotic sci-fi hit “The Wandering Earth II” — a symbol of national pride that, like the Monkey King all those centuries ago, bursts from the Earth to take on the Heavens.

(Header image: Visuals from Douban and VCG, reedited by Sixth Tone)