While American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang weaves three different stories, one of these tales particularly caught my attention: the sitcom/nightmare of Danny and Chin-Kee. In these chapters, Yang depicts the trials and tribulations Danny (a young, blonde, American male) faces as he is forced to bring his Chinese cousin Chin-Kee with him to high school. What does this add to the novel as a whole?
To me, the purpose of this relationship is clear: Danny is how Jin sees himself while Chin-Kee is how he believes other people perceive him. While Danny depicts the stereotypical American, Chin-Kee is an amalgamation of all of the stereotypes American people may think about the Chinese. Danny is blonde, white, male, athletic, and generally popular amongst his peers. Chin-Kee is buck-toothed, deeply yellow skinned, and has eyes so slanted they appear closed throughout the course of the novel. Beyond appearances, Chin-Kee also acts out some of these racist stereotypes, such as on pages 120-121 where he says “Me Chinese, me play joke! Me go pee-pee in his coke!” Not only is his accent written to the extreme, he also appears to enjoy playing nasty pranks because, as he says, he’s Chinese. Eventually Chin-Kee’s presence begins to affect Danny negatively as his peers start to avoid him, causing Danny to lash out violently and thus leading to the climax of the novel. In this climax, it's more clearly explained that Danny and Jin are one in the same, emphasizing that Jin believes himself to be the same as the rest of his classmates despite their subtle insistence that he isn't.
The most important aspect of Chin-Kee is that he never leaves Danny’s side, much like how Jin Wang will never be able to separate his Chinese heritage from himself. While Jin can see himself as a typical American, he knows most of his classmates will never be able to see past their racist prejudices, thus making him eternally “other” in their eyes. However, we see by the end of the novel that Jin has learned to stop trying to conform to a mold that he will simply never be able to fit and instead embrace himself.
I also saw the relationship between Danny and Chin-Kee in this way. The revelation at the end of the novel helped bring all three of the stories together and solidify this relationship. Early on in the novel, Jin's encounter with the herbalist's wife while he is playing with his transformer foreshadows the ending in two ways. The transformer itself symbolizes Jin's longing to change into someone he isn't. Also, the words of the herbalist's wife allude to this shift by saying "It's easy to become anything you wish so long as you're willing to forfeit your soul" (Yang 29). The opening story to Jin Wang depicted the characters as very sad and not proud of who they are, so hearing this from the herbalist's wife must have given Jin the confidence to turn away from his Chinese self and become a different person.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I thought this graphic novel was really inspiring and eye-opening. The overarching idea of embracing who you are rather than transforming into someone you aren't is an idea that everyone could learn from. Seeing Jin Wang finally accept himself at the end of the novel with the help of the Monkey King (aka Chin-Kee) was such a wholesome ending, as he not only embraces his true self but also shows how he is trying to not let the stereotypes run his life anymore.
I agree that Chin-Kee represents the heritage that Jin wants to distance himself from. Chin-Kee’s yearly visits represent the racial stereotype that Jin feels he cannot escape from. One thing I noticed about Chin-Kee’s appearance in the novel is that he is often in the front of the frame. He is rarely drawn in the background or as smaller than other characters. This stylistic choice puts Chin-Kee in the forefront of not only the images, but also the conversations that take place when he is present. On pages 111 to 113, Chin-Kee takes up most of the frames he is in while answering questions in class. Danny tries to make himself as small as possible in the same frames. This represents Jin’s shame at seeing the Chinese stereotype next to him. Chin-Kee is drawn to be very imposing and that mirrors how Danny sees him. When Chin-Kee is around, Danny is withdrawn and self-conscious—the exact opposite of how he is portrayed before Chin-Kee arrives. Jin wants to leave his old identity behind and Chin-Kee will not let him do that. The images of Chin-Kee are intentionally drawn larger and more imposing to represent the ever-present and consuming Chinese stereotypes that Jin would like to escape from.
ReplyDeleteI think that the relationship between Danny and Chin-Kee is interesting because of Danny's reactions whenever Chin-Kee does anything that goes against "typical" American behavior. One instance I noted was when Danny asked his classmate Melanie out and she turned him down. Danny immediately assumes that her rejection stems from his association with Chin-Kee, stating "I'm not like [Chin-Kee]" (Yang 123), but Melanie's rejection has nothing to do with Chin-Kee. I believe that Yang intended for Melanie to reject Danny for reasons other than Chin-Kee, but Danny's reaction of assuming it had something to do with Chin-Kee makes it obvious that even when something happens without Chin-Kee's interference, Chin-Kee has a way of changing the way people see Danny, for example Melanie pointing out Danny's buckteeth. I think that as Chin-Kee represents the culture Jin lost when he transformed into Danny, his yearly visits serve as a reminder to Danny and those around him that even though he lost his soul in the transformation, there will always be something preventing Danny from fully becoming "American". Danny, despite his major transformation, will always be "other", and will always stand out from the crowd until he accepts who he truly is and transforms back into Jin.
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