I am writing about American Born Chinese by Luen Yang. After reading the first part of the story, which is the part about the monkey king, I was confused because the story suddenly changes into another completely different story. In addition, since I had a lot of exposure to Chinese cultures, I also happen to know the entire story about the monkey king. The story about the monkey king does not just end like that. However, everything starts to make sense as I continue to read further. The part where everything comes together is when the monkey king, disguised as Chin-kee, was fighting against Dan-nee/Jin-Wang. The monkey king told Jin-Wang that he "...realized how good it is to be a monkey" before he left. After that meeting, Jin-Wang started to be more "Asian" than he used to be.
Although the story appear to have no connections at first, I realize later that the story about the monkey king is just a comparison to the story of Jin-Wang in America. The acts of the monkey king wanting to be at the Heavenly Party and trying to get rid of his monkey sense is similar to Jin-Wang trying to be "American." The part when Jin-Wang moved to his new school talks about a lot of common misconceptions that white people have about Asian people. The first one of all is that every Asian is Chinese and comes from China. This is not true, the Asia continent is huge and consists of many countries, not to mention that in this story Jin-Wang is actually American. I find this misconception very true because it also happens to me all the time. The second misconception is that Asians eat dogs, which is only partially true. The third is that Asian children are arranged for marriage at young age.
With all the misconceptions about Asians, it is understandable how a lot of American Born Chinese try to remove their true identities and become "real American." Many of them adopted the complete American lifestyle and denied to do anything related to Asian cultures and customs. This is a sad fact but true. I have been in the US for almost 6 years now and I have seen many cases like such. The Asian students who came from Asia often compare the totally Americanized Asian as "bananas" or "Twinkies." These word imply a person that looks Asian yet thinks and does things in a totally American way.
It is interesting to see how the author compared being Asian as being a monkey. It must be a hard feeling to bear for any American Born Asian in the US. Certainly, no one wants to be a monkey in a human world and it is understandable to see them try to become like human. However, once a person is born Asian, he will remain Asian forever no matter how hard he tries. This is true to anyone and not just Asian. The best way to live is to be who you really are and not trying to become what you are not. That is the message that I learned from the story.
Below is the theme song for the old Chinese series Journey to The West, which has the character monkey king in it. This series is about 15 - 20 years old so the quality is very low. Anyway, enjoy !!!
Next is the video "I Am Asian" that Anthony mentioned:
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