Monk's Spade

English name for a Chinese martial arts weapon, that consists of a double-headed staff, with a crescent-moon blade at one end and a spade at the other. This long weapon or pole weapon is also called a Shaolin Spade (fig.) and in Chinese it is known as yue ya chan, which literally translates as ‘Crescent Moon Spade’. It is the weapon of choice of Sha Wujing (fig.), who is also known as Friar Sandy (fig.), one of the main character in the epic story Journey to the West. The weapon is said to be the fusion of a spade, that monks in the past carried with them in order to bury the dead, and the crescent-moon blade, a part of other martial art weapons, such as the hook sword or gou (fig.), the qian kun ri yue dao (fig.), and the ji or ji dao (fig.), and which could be used as a weapon for defense against bandits. 回