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Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in American Born Chinese, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Prejudice
Racism and Popular Culture
Pride, Stubbornness, and Humility
Storytelling and Universality
Summary
Analysis
The laugh track applauds at the sight of the high school library. Danny angrily walks in and overhears two guys saying that “he” spit on them. One guy tells the other to get checked for SARS. as the laugh track plays. Danny is confused, but then alarmed as he hears Chin-Kee singing “She Bangs.” When Danny finally catches sight of Chin-Kee, he’s horrified: Chin-Kee is dancing and singing on top of a table, spitting as he sings, as students and the librarian grumpily flee. Danny drags Chin-Kee, still singing, out of the library by his queue, throws him onto a bench, and hits him across the face. Chin-Kee explains that the library was boring, so he decided to entertain everyone with a song—and he’s ready to perform his second set now. The laugh track howls with laughter.
SARS is a dangerous respiratory illness that first emerged in China, which is why the kids talk about getting checked—they imply that they believe that Chinese people naturally harbor infectious diseases like this. Chin-Kee’s performance, meanwhile, is taken directly from a Chinese contestant William Hung’s American Idol audition, which got him kicked off the show but catapulted him to fame anyway—fame that many believe was due to the fact that the Hung humorously embodied many negative stereotypes about Chinese people. Again, this forces readers to understand that this racism doesn’t just exist in the novel: it’s lifted directly from the real world.
Themes
Danny grabs Chin-Kee’s clothes and spits that he’s sick of Chin-Kee ruining his life, so it’s time for Chin-Kee to pack up and go home. With a laugh, Chin-Kee says his visit isn’t over yet and refuses to leave. Danny shakes with anger and then punches Chin-Kee again. Danny continues to punch Chin-Kee as the laugh track plays, but Chin-Kee begs Danny to stop and warns that he’s playing with fire. When Danny doesn’t stop, Chin-Kee says that Danny will have to suffer the fury of Spicy Szechuan Dragon. Confused, Danny stops, and Chin-Kee takes the opportunity to perform a kung-fu kick to Danny’s chin, which sends Danny flying. The laugh track plays.
Danny turns on Chin-Kee like this because Chin-Kee forces him to sit with the fact that no matter how hard he tries, in his experience, his classmates will always see him as just another version of Chin-Kee. For Danny, it’s essential to banish Chin-Kee to China so that Danny can move on with his life and continue his attempt to make himself as white as possible. This is, importantly, an attempt that Chin-Kee’s visits expose as unsuccessful and misguided, which is likely one of the reasons that Chin-Kee refuses to leave.
Themes
As the laugh track continues, Danny tries to come up behind Chin-Kee. Chin-Kee, however, hits Danny with different martial arts moves: the Mooshu Fist, the Kung Pao Attack, the Twice Cook Palm, the Happy Famiry Head Bonk, the General Tsao Rooster Punch, and the House Special Kick in Nards. Danny sweats and grimaces as he takes Chin-Kee’s punches and kicks, while crackling electricity comes from Chin-Kee’s fists and feet. Chin-Kee performs the Peking Strike, the Three Flavor Essence, the Hot and Sour Wet Willy, and the Pimp Slap Hunan Style. Menacingly, Chin-Kee apologizes and says he loves America and will come to visit every year forever.
In addition to drawing on stereotypical dishes found in Chinese restaurants, the drawings here also draw from the imagery of classic kung-fu movies like those of Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. This pulls in another common place where westerners are exposed to a number of Chinese stereotypes, especially the idea that all Chinese people are skilled kung-fu masters and are willing to demonstrate their skills at the slightest provocation. Meanwhile, Chin-Kee’s proficiency at martial arts heavily implies that he is actually the Monkey King.
Themes
Danny sweats and his fists shake as the laugh track begins to expand outside of the frame. He throws one punch at Chin-Kee and knocks Chin-Kee’s head off. The head bounces away, and on Chin-Kee’s shoulders sits the head of the Monkey King. He compliments Danny’s punch and as Danny watches, confused and scared, the Monkey King shrinks and reassumes his true form. Then, he says that it’s time to reveal Danny’s true form. He calls Danny Jin Wang, and slowly, Danny transforms back into Jin. Jin stares down at the Monkey King for a moment and asks who he is. The Monkey King says that he’s an emissary of Tze-Yo-Tzuh. He’s been an emissary since he completed his journey to the west, which was his test of virtue.
Beheading Chin-Kee represents killing all the stereotypes that make Chin-Kee who he is. Getting rid of the stereotypes reveals Chin-Kee’s true identity as the Monkey King, suggesting that once someone can get rid of the stereotypes surrounding them, they can be seen for who they truly are. In the same vein, returning Danny to his form as Jin suggests that Jin was doing much the same thing as the Monkey King was in previous chapters by making himself more white—and now, he’ll have to deal with the consequences, admit he’s wrong, and make things right.
Themes
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The Monkey King says that Wei-Chen Sun, Jin’s friend from junior high, is his son. He explains that soon after he became an emissary, he sent for his huge family. Soon, his oldest son approached Tze-Yo-Tzuh about being an emissary too. Though Tze-Yo-Tzuh warned that it’d be hard, Wei-Chen accepted. His test of virtue was to live in the mortal world for 40 years without experiencing human vice. The Monkey King promised to visit once per year to check in and sent him with a Transformer to remind him who he was. Wei-Chen leapt off the cloud and fell to Earth, transforming into a human as he went. The Monkey King says that Jin met Wei-Chen during Wei-Chen’s first week, and Wei-Chen always spoke highly of Jin.
For Wei-Chen, the Transformer didn’t represent his capacity to give up his true identity in favor of one he found more tenable—it represented the fact that even though he might have to temporarily take on a form different from his true identity, that doesn’t mean he has to compromise who he is inside. And at first, it appears as though Wei-Chen took the Transformer’s lesson to heart: he befriended Jin and, as the reader saw in previous chapters, behaved kindly, generously, and without vice.
Themes
During the Monkey King’s third visit, things began to go downhill. Wei-Chen confessed to the Monkey King that he told a lie. The Monkey King scolded his son, but Wei-Chen angrily asked for the exact duties of an emissary. The Monkey King explained that Tze-Yo-Tzuh’s emissaries serve him and all that he loves, and Wei-Chen asked if that included humans. The Monkey King said that Tze-Yo-Tzuh considers humans to be the pinnacle of his creation—even more so than the emissaries. After a moment of silence, Wei-Chen said that Tze-Yo-Tzuh is a fool and that he didn’t want to be an emissary anymore. In his experience, humans are petty and soulless, and he didn’t want to serve them. The Monkey King pleaded with Wei-Chen to change his mind so he could face Tze-Yo-Tzuh, but Wei-Chen leapt off the cloud and said that anything was better than serving humans.
The lie that Wei-Chen refers to is the lie he told Jin’s mother, while Wei-Chen’s new assessment that humans are petty and soulless is likely reflective of Jin’s horrendous behavior. Especially combined with the revelation that Tze-Yo-Tzuh finds humans superior to emissaries, even if there are some bad ones like Jin and Timmy, Wei-Chen comes to the conclusion that everything he’s ever been told is a lie—and so it’s better to just focus on himself while he can.
Themes
The Monkey King tells Jin that after this, Wei-Chen stopped accepting his visits, so he started visiting Jin instead. Jin accuses the Monkey King of punishing him for Wei-Chen’s failure, but the Monkey King says this isn’t true—Wei-Chen made his own choices and Jin doesn’t control Wei-Chen. Instead of coming to punish Jin, the Monkey King has been coming to serve as a conscience or a signpost to Jin’s soul. Jin looks at Chin-Kee’s head and then looks straight ahead. The Monkey King looks downcast and then summons a cloud to leave, but Jin asks him to wait. Jin asks what he should do now. The Monkey King smiles and says he would’ve gladly saved himself from 500 years of imprisonment had he realized how good it is to be a monkey.
The idea that the Monkey King has been coming as Chin-Kee to serve as Jin’s conscience suggests that the Monkey King believes it’s essential for Jin to accept that whether he likes it or not, he’s going to have to deal with the stereotypes surrounding what it means to be Chinese—and along with that, he must understand that he can’t change who he is, just as the Monkey King couldn’t effectively turn himself into a human. Indeed, the Monkey King suggests that it’s most fulfilling to be exactly who one is, no matter what other people might say about one’s identity.
Themes
The Monkey King turns and flies away into the sky, but he drops a business card for a Chinese bakery and restaurant. Jin catches it and then heads home. He asks his father to borrow the car keys. Jin’s father asks if he’s taking Chin-Kee out, but Jin says that Chin-Kee went home early. Jin fetches the keys from his mother and waves goodbye. His parents argue over which of their sisters is Chin-Kee’s mother and who needs to make the call to share that Chin-Kee is coming home early.
This passage continues to make the connections between the novel’s three stories extremely clear. Chin-Kee is evidently someone who Jin’s parents expect to have around, since Jin is Danny, which makes them Danny’s parents too. Notably, though Jin leaves out important information in his excuse as to why Chin-Kee is gone, he doesn’t actually lie. This suggests he’s making strides toward being a more truthful and kind person.
Themes
Jin goes to the restaurant listed on the business card from the Monkey King, the 490 Bakery Cafe. When the waitress comes to take his order, Jin points to something on the menu. The waitress informs him that he pointed to a notice reading “cash only,” not a dish. Jin blushes in shame but stays until closing, drinking pearl milk tea. For the next month, Jin goes to the restaurant every day after school and stays until closing time. One Friday night, Wei-Chen arrives just as Jin orders his pearl milk tea. Jin can hear Wei-Chen’s tricked out car outside as its engine revs and it blasts bass-heavy music. Jin goes to the window and greets Wei-Chen, who’s smoking and wears dark sunglasses. Wei-Chen angrily asks Jin what he wants, but seems to shrink and turn into a monkey when Jin says he met the Monkey King and wants to talk.
That the Monkey King sent Jin to a Chinese restaurant and bakery is important, as it suggests that the Monkey King is trying to guide Jin back to his identity as a Chinese person. Importantly, however, the Monkey King doesn’t force Jin to go; Jin has to make the conscious choice himself. When Jin can’t read the menu (which is presumably in Chinese), he has to face up to his ignorance of his own culture, even if his parents came from China. Extending his hand to Wei-Chen, meanwhile, allows Jin to begin to do some of the same things the Monkey King did: now, he’s trying to help others and make things right.
Themes
Over some pearl milk tea, Jin shares with Wei-Chen about his visit from the Monkey King. Wei-Chen asks why Jin is sharing this at all. Hesitantly, Jin says he’s just trying to say that he’s sorry. Wei-Chen continues to silently smoke and sip his tea. Finally, he says that the milk tea at this restaurant is terrible: it’s oily, like someone stir-fried something next to it, and the boba are like rabbit poop. He takes off his sunglasses and says that there’s a hole-in-the-wall place down the street that has the best pearl milk tea ever, and offers to take Jin sometime. Jin says he’d like to go. They talk and laugh at the restaurant until late in the night.
Jin’s apology is incredibly meaningful: it’s an admission that he was wrong in his treatment of Wei-Chen and of himself. Now, Jin is ready to move forward with a more humble outlook on life and without trying to hide who he really is. When Wei-Chen accepts the apology and the friendship appears to be saved, the novel suggests that one of the most positive effects of humbling oneself and accepting one’s identity is gaining a community of friends.
Themes
