American Born Chinese
“It’s easy to become anything you wish… So as long as you’re willing to forfeit your soul.”
-The Herbalist’s Wife (American Born Chinese)
American Born Chinese is a Graphic Novel by Gene Luen Yang on the wide world ageless issue of “fitting in”. The novel teaches you two main points of life:
- If pride can make you then it can kill your instantly as well.
- It does takes a lot practise and knowledge to be someone else but not less than a second to be yourself again.
The story of American Born Chinese consists of three separate stories:
The first story is based upon the legendary folk tale of Sun Wukong, or The Monkey King, a character from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West.
The second talks about the story of a child named Jin Wang, who has moved from San Francisco’s Chinatown to an all white American culture. Jin Wang struggles to fit in within his new school, and within white American culture. His story links with the other two narrations slowly.
At school, he had to struggle to fit in, later befriends Wei-Chen Sun, a Taiwanese boy and Suzy Nakamuro. Later on dates an all-American girl, but the relationship doesn’t last because of his classmate Greg’s disapproval of their relationship.The third one tells the story of a white American boy named Danny, whose Chinese cousin Chin-Kee comes and visits every year. Chin-Kee’s character displays many American racial stereotypes of the Chinese in terms of accent, dress, hairstyle, physical appearance, eating habits, academic performance, and hobbies. Now Danny has never been able to enjoy any of his companies because of his nature and behaviour around his friends.
While the three stories seem quite unrelated at first, but it is later revealed in the book that Danny is actually Jin Wang, who “transformed” into a White boy after he was stopped from pursuing the girl of his dreams for being Chinese. Later on, in the book when Danny fights Chin-Kee, only to find out that Chin-Kee is actually none other than the Monkey King, who came to remind him of his true identity. In the end Jin Wang gives up his “Danny” persona and embraces his Chinese identity as he used to.
In the book each and every character wanted to be like someone else, like the Monkey King desired to be recognised as a powerful deity than simply a monkey. Jin Wang wanted to be like one of those American boys in order to impress his crush. They both did become what they wanted but only to realise that their real self was what had always complimented them.
The book is available on Amazon and you can also buy it on Google Books as well! And being all graphic makes it an easy read.
I very much enjoyed reading this book, the story and it’s graphics do compliment each other and create an impact on its reader.
Also, there’s something I want to share with you all. I am publishing my first book titled “Lost & Found” on 25th of November’ 2019. It’s a collection of 16 short stories. To know more about it you can get an access to my Instagram or Facebook account by the name Meghna Thanvi.
Do tell me your views on it in the comments below!
