A Dose of Humor and Reality: American Born Chinese

Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese is the first of its kind. A graphic novel that that reads with the humor of a comic book, it has a rich storyline that combines a well-known Chinese allegory with the simple reality of a boy living in a multiracial American society. Throughout the novel, Yang switches back and forth between what seems like three very different stories, but in the end, all three of these worlds collide to tackle issues of self-identity and race.

Yang's story starts with the legend of the Monkey King, a long-established Chinese fable about a monkey who was born from a large rock and who came to learn of his great powers. These powers allowed him immense strength, immortality, and the ability to fly, to shape-shift and more -- but alas, the Monkey King was not satisfied. He lusted to gain respect he felt he did not have and resorted to using magic and brute force to take revenge on those who had previously mocked him for being...a monkey.

To stake his power, the Monkey King terrorized the celestial gods, but as a result, was punished himself by Tze-Yo-Tzuh, the most Supreme Being of all, in order to constrain him from inflicting any more harm. Buried under a mountain of rock, the Monkey King was left alone for five hundred years to recount his sins until he is finally rescued by a Buddhist monk. As a condition of his rescue, the Monkey King was to follow his new master on a dangerous journey to the west. It was on this journey with his reverent master, and through the many challenges he encountered as he fended off flesh-eating demons and the like, that the Monkey King was finally humbled.

As the Monkey King's legend unraveled, two other stories are introduced intermittently. The first story illustrates the displaced life of a Chinese American boy named Jin Wang; the second story follows an all-American white boy named Danny, whose life was being ruined by his visiting Chinese cousin.
 
Jin Wang's life is uprooted when his parents decided to move their family from San Francisco to a town where being Asian American was an anomaly. When Jin attends his first day of school, he quickly realizes that there was no one else like him. Immediately, he becomes an object of speculation. From being introduced by his teacher as Jing Jang to dealing with a coy remark from a fellow student who asserted that Chinese people ate dogs, Jin's Chinese American identity is taunted from the start. As these small (but oh so very common!) assumptions build, Jin becomes more and more resentful of his identity. He finds it difficult to identify with anyone, and does not make a real friend until the arrival of Wei-Chen Sun, a new student from Taiwan. Initially, Jin seems resentful of Wei-Chen. Wei-Chen was a "F.O.B." who wore a matching neon orange shirt and pants outfit with grammatically incorrect English phrases -- blatant signs of being "un-Americanized." Yet as the two find similar interests, they eventually became best friends, and this ends Jin's stretch of loneliness.

But this friendship is later put to the test when Jin develops a crush for an all-American girl. Despite finally summing up the courage to ask his crush out on a date, Jin is asked by her friend to stay away from her because of his Chinese ethnicity. Feeling ostracized, Jin mistakenly tries to seek validation by upsetting and belittling his best friend Wei-Chen. As the argument between the two friends erupts, Jin's refusal to accept Wei-Chen's "fobbiness" ultimately causes him to lose his best friend.

In a situation opposite to Jin's struggles to self-adjust, the third story that Gene Luen Yang focuses on is about an American boy named Danny, whose Chinese cousin is visiting. His cousin Chin-Kee happens to embody a perverse Chinese stereotype who finds no shame in boldly sharing his hyperbolized shortcomings. Chin-Kee, whose name clearly alludes to the derogatory term "Chinky," is an exaggeration of every ill-conceived Chinese image. Not only is his skin colored an alien shade of yellow and his eyes mere slits, he is also fully decked out in a traditional Chinese outfit and has his hair in a long braided queue. He speaks with an accent, has buckteeth, brings gizzards to lunch, and of course, shows no modesty in shouting out the answer in every class. With this classic collection of Chinese stereotypes, Chin-Kee ruins Danny's social life before his eyes. Taking it even further, Chin-Kee belts out Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" on the top of a table in the library, a clear reference to William Hung's most "spectacular" performance on American Idol.

When Danny can take no more, the story suddenly has a whirl of surprising twists. In a string of transformations, both Chin-Kee and Danny suddenly morph into someone else to reveal their true, hidden identity! What they change into -- you'll have to read the story for yourself -- but in this flurry of revelations, Yang's three separate stories are creatively meshed into one, all along foreshadowed by slight motifs and hints throughout the three stories. As more hidden identities expire, all of the key figures in the novel are prompted to recognize their own mistakes and to accept their identities.

In the excitement of the three stories, Yang's collision of the ancient, the modern, and the exaggerated, leaves readers with a good story about friendship and the importance of self-identity. Just as the Monkey King initially refused to be acknowledged as a monkey, Jin refused to associate himself with being Chinese. As a result of his adversity towards being Chinese and his desire to fit in, Jin ultimately loses his best friend, Wei-Chen. When the reader finally realizes how the three stories tie together, the final highlight is on Jin and how he begins to accept his identity as a Chinese American. Evoking humor and empathy with crudely embellished parodies and common growing pains, Yang allows readers to empathize with Jin as he struggles to find himself in an environment that is not always so friendly.

But as skillfully written and drawn out as it is, American Born Chinese does have a variety of more subtle and elusive references. One has to wonder whether someone who is less familiar with the backdrop of the story will find it just as rewarding to read. Should the novel be sold with another book that thoroughly details the Monkey King's journey to the west? And maybe still yet another book commenting on subject matters that Asian Americans must always confront as Americans who may look forever foreign? Perhaps. But maybe this was Yang's intention all along: to spark the initial interest of the unfamiliar reader in a humorous parody so that there is room to learn more later. Whatever the case, American Born Chinese certainly has not been impeded from being nominated as one of twenty finalists for The National Book Award, nor has it stopped many from enjoying it.