American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang, follows the plotlines of three distinct protagonists: The fable-like Monkey King, Chinese-American Jin Wang, and the all-American boy Danny. It becomes clear fairly early on that Jin Wang’s storyline is meant to be the most realistic and relatable, as this young boy navigates the way in which his heritage affects his life at school. Something that can be noticed from the beginning of the book is the use of angle brackets, or “< >”. As the reader becomes more familiar with the story, it becomes clear that these brackets are meant to denote when the speaker in Jin Wang’s story is speaking in Chinese, rather than in English. While a clever and quick way to denote this change in speech while still having the book be readable for non-Chinese speakers, the use of these brackets has several ways of adding dimension to the plot.
In the beginning of Jin’s story he is living in an apartment complex near San Francisco Chinatown, where most of the people in his building have Chinese heritage and don’t use a lot of English. At this point, Jin primarily speaks in Chinese, except when talking about his favorite American TV show, Transformers. As the story continues on and Jin begins to assimilate with American culture, he refuses to speak in Chinese at all, even when his Taiwanese classmate, Wei-Chen, seeks his friendship as another Asian-American student. When Wei-Chen approaches Jin speaking Chinese, Jin responds, “You’re in America. Speak English” (37). From then on, Wei-Chen only speaks in English, even though his grammar and word choices tend to be a bit off.
It’s not until near the end of the novel that Wei-Chen finally again speaks in Chinese, and only after Jin breaks his trust by kissing his girlfriend. His anger seems to break his resolve to make Jin feel comfortable, and his entire lecture is in the language that he knows Jin is embarrassed by (189-191). Even through this whole fight, Jin refuses to speak in Chinese. At this point, the reader has to wonder whether Jin only speaks in English out of pure stubbornness, or maybe because he doesn’t know it as well anymore from lack of use?
The latter seems to be true as the reader reaches the very end of the graphic novel. At this point, the Monkey King has given Jin a card for a restaurant where he will find Wei-Chen. Jin is approached by a waitress speaking in Chinese, asking what he wants to order. He points to something on the menu, to which she responds, “That’s not a dish. That says, ‘cash only’” (226). This interaction proves that, in a way, Jin got what he wanted; he has assimilated so fully that he barely remembers the language that he grew up speaking as a kid. This goes to show that while the angle brackets are a small piece of this novel, moments like these can provide additional elements that add a whole new dimension and meaning to the story.
Great post Jenny! After reading your post, I have realized many implications arise from author Gene Luen Yang using angle brackets. While I can honestly say that the ending of this book hit me like a brick wall, I think it really supports some of the conclusions that you presented in your post. Both Jin and Wei-Chen find themselves lost without each other at the end of the novel; Jin assumes the role of “all-american” Danny, someone he has always wanted to be, and Wei-Chin decides to forfeit the test given to him by Tze-Yo-Tzuh and pursue a mortal life in his own image instead. What I find interesting about the scene in which they reunite at the end of the graphic novel is that, although Jin appears to be relearning his native language through spending so much time at the Café (228), he still chooses to speak in English with the now pimp-like Wei-Chen while Wei-Chen chooses to continue speaking in Chinese. In fact, from the page in which they first reunite to the last page of the novel, Wei-Chen exclusively speaks in Chinese (229-233). In this final scene, the brackets indicating which character is speaking emphasize the fact that they each have something to give to one another. Although Wei-Chen thinks little of humans because of Jin Wang’s betrayal, he has clearly always longed for the friendship they used to have- after all, he told Jin they were brothers even after Jin kissed his girlfriend, and only ever punched him because Jin told him they were nothing alike. Jin would like to reconnect with the culture that he refused growing up, and supports this by talking with Wei-Chen and apologizing, even though Wei-Chen is using the language that infuriated Jin before. The angle brackets show the distinction between both characters, but also show the potential for them to reconnect.
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