American Born Chinese

American Born Chinese Review

By Susan Z

American Born Chinese is a short-story graphic novel about three different main characters and how they tie together. The story starts off with the monkey king: a monkey who just wants to be treated like she should be: a God. When the monkey king’s title as God is challenged, he masters the art of kung fu, achieves the four major disciplines of invulnerability and the four major disciplines of bodily form. He requires all monkeys to wear shoes and changes himself into a human with his new powers. He continues on his journey, proving all the Gods wrong in duels, until he meets his maker (literally): Tze-Yo-Tzuh. When the monkey king refuses to return to monkey form, Tze-Yo-Tzuh traps him until he reverts back.

The story then switches to an American-born Chinese boy named Jin Wang who is moving to a white suburb and just wants to fit in. He’s the only Chinese student in his class, although there is a Japanese girl named Suzy Nakamura, and they are later joined by a Taiwanese boy named Wei-Chen who he hesitantly befriends. He falls in love with a popular white girl named Amelia Harris, and manages to go on a date with her. There are only two problems: his parents won’t let him date until he graduates from college. And Amelia’s friend asks him not to go out with her anymore. This angers Jin, who when being counseled by his best friend’s girlfriend, kisses her.

Finally, we meet Danny, a teenage boy, who much like the other characters, just wants to fit in. Although, he has trouble doing so when his cousin Chin-Kee visits his school every year. Danny seems to be doing well at his school, he’s asking out a blonde girl, he’s on the basketball team, but then his cousin shows up. Chin-Kee is the embodiment of Chinese stereotypes, he comes on to the girl Danny tries to ask out, he pees in the captain of the basketball team’s coke. Eventually, Danny is fed up and tries to fight Chin-Kee. The story continues in this rotation for a while until they ultimately combine together. The three characters eventually have to learn to accept who they are.

American Born Chinese had many strength, including the artwork. While being a short story, it was also a graphic novel, a combination I enjoyed very much. I felt the artwork complimented the story greatly and made it easier to understand what was going on. The graphic novel also had a great story plot. I enjoyed the adaptation of the Chinese fable of the monkey king, and Chin-Kee had the perfect amount of annoyance. Of course, who wouldn’t feel bad for Jin when he has to leave his prominently Chinese community into a kind of racist white suburb with only two other Asians.

Of course, there were also weaknesses. One of the book’s promises was how “...three unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist…” In my opinion, I think the idea was good, but the execution fell short. If the author really wanted to tie the book together, it would’ve been better with them all learning to accept who they are, without overlapping stories. But I felt the ending was a bit of a long shot. Although, I did think that the ending after the connection was very nice and was a better way to end the story then just leaving with the connection. I would recommend American Born Chinese to anyone who enjoys graphic novels or short stories or both. While it is easy to read, I think that the novel is mostly for high-school, upper middle school students.