何為稀罕 What Is So Remarkable
如不會，就行，莫誤了走路。」行者道：「祈雨有甚難事？我老孫翻江攪海、換斗移星，踢天弄井、吐霧噴雲，擔山趕月、喚雨呼風：那一件兒不是幼年耍子的勾當？何為稀罕？」如不会，就行，莫误了走路。」行者道：「祈雨有甚难事？我老孙翻江搅海、换斗移星，踢天弄井、吐雾喷云，担山赶月、唤雨呼风：那一件儿不是幼年耍子的勾当？何为稀罕？」
逐句解 Line by line
"And if none of you can, then let us move on and not waste travelling time."
莫 is a negative command, don't. Tripitaka's ultimatum is mild and entirely practical — help or walk — and it is calculated to work on exactly one of his disciples.
Pilgrim said, "What is so hard about praying for rain?
甚 is shén here, the question word what — not the shèn meaning very that appeared a few passages back. Both readings live in this one character and the chapter uses each of them.
"Old Monkey has overturned rivers and stirred up seas, shifted the Dipper and moved the stars, kicked at heaven and meddled with wells, breathed out fog and spat cloud, carried mountains and chased the moon, called up rain and whistled up wind. Which one of those was not a plaything of my boyhood?
Six matched four-syllable boasts in a row, and the rhythm is the point — this is a party piece, not an argument. 斗 is dǒu, the Dipper, the constellation English calls the Plough. 那 is nǎ again, which one, used rhetorically. 勾當 is a piece of business or a caper, and the second character takes dàng.
"Why should any of it be remarkable?"
為 is wèi here, the reading that makes the phrase mean for what reason — why. The same character read wéi would turn it into what constitutes, and the chapter uses that reading elsewhere. The sense of the line settles it: he is dismissing the difficulty, not defining a term.
Tripitaka says help or we leave, and Pilgrim cannot resist. The list that follows is one of his great arias — six paired feats, rattled off in the compressed four-beat rhythm the novel keeps for moments of pure showing off.
It is also, note, entirely truthful. He has done all of these things, most of them in the first seven chapters, and the reader has watched. The boast is not inflated; it is simply enormous. What makes it funny is the framing — every one of them a childhood plaything, which for a monkey born from a stone and schooled by an immortal is very nearly accurate.
And it sets up the fall. Pilgrim is about to discover that this particular rain is not in his gift at all, and that the obstacle is not a difficulty of power but a matter of paperwork in heaven. The chapter lets him boast first, at length, on purpose.