Reactions, etc.

Every time I look back through American Born Chinese, I gain some level of understanding that I didn’t get before. The whole convoluted issue of Wei-Chen being the Monkey King’s son and his story arc that’s revealed in the last chapter...the extent to which Jin is experiencing self-loathing and racial issues...the transformations of almost every character...it’s all very deep and interesting. The part that a lot of people have been talking about on Blackboard is the ending. And as soon as I read it the first time, I thought “this isn’t literal at all.” Because if you look at it literally, nothing makes sense. Chin-Kee being the Monkey King, Wei-Chen being his son, Jin turning into Danny. On the surface, it feels rushed and almost as if the author had written himself into a corner, or had a limited number of pages he could fill, and had to do some quick thinking to get himself out of it. But I don’t think that’s the case at all, I think the metaphor was meant to be worked in this way in order to force the reader to take it to the next level, especially as this was written for a younger audience.

Another initial thought I had was that if he wanted to, Yang could certainly make a sequel for this. I think it would be really cool to switch perspectives to Wei-Chen at this point and show how he deals with things. Albeit, his issues are similar to what Jin feels at the beginning of the story, but he has the entire background of being an emissary to take him in a different direction. One of the parts of the story that most appealed to me was Wei-Chen’s struggle to accept his place below humans, “in servitude” to them, etc, and the bitterness he embraces as a reaction to it. It really added a depth to his character that I’d want to explore as a writer.