It turned out that in the households of the outer suburb, among those buying and selling, the smoke of many hearths gathered close and trade too was flourishing.

關廂 is the built-up strip outside a city gate — the suburb that grows up along the road where the traffic is, and where a traveller meets a town before he enters it. 人煙, people-smoke, means a populated place: you count the households by their cooking fires. 做買做賣 is a matched everyday phrase, doing buying and doing selling, for people in trade.

Looking at their speech and their faces, there was no difference from China.

相 is xiàng here, appearance or physiognomy — the same character was read xiāng, mutually, eighty-eight characters earlier when the old man said the prince would meet them. 中華 is China, literally the Central Splendour, and the pilgrims reach for it a dozen times across the novel whenever they want to measure a foreign place against home. Coming from a book that has spent seventy-five chapters on the strangeness of the west, the finding that India looks and sounds exactly like home is a considerable statement.

Tripitaka gave his orders: "Disciples, be careful. On no account are you to behave outrageously."

吩咐 is to instruct a subordinate, and the choice of word says that Tripitaka is speaking as a master, not a companion. 放肆 means to let oneself go, to be unrestrained — it is precisely the accusation you would level at someone who was about to show a crowd his snout. He is looking at Bajie.