American Born Chinese CR#3
In the “American Born Chinese” written by Gene Luen Yang the writing styles between the first story of the Monkey King differs from the second story of Jin Wang. In the story of the Monkey King there were some words that were written in Chinese characters instead of English. The characters written in Chinese were single characters like in page 18. In page 18 the translations would be electric, storm, and fire. Instead of writing the words out in English, Yang wrote it in Chinese characters to emphasize the culture. Since the story of the Monkey King is a ancient, the Chinese characters is the beginning of the evolution of the language in the graphic novel. Also in page 58, it shows the Chinese characters again. Whenever it is the story of the Monkey King, the Chinese characters will be used to show the beginning of the Chinese language.
In the story about Jin Wang, the story was told in Chinese, but in order for the reader to understand Yang translated it to English. Yang used signs to indicate that it was said in Chinese. An example would be when Jin was talking to the new student, Wei-Chen, on page 38. Yang put the two stories together showing the evolution of the writing styles, but it also juxtapose each other because instead of writing in Chinese in the second story, Yang decided to translate into English. This showed how the language slowly transformed from writing in Chinese to speaking in Chinese, but translated into English. The order of these stories are next to each other to show the evolution of the Chinese language from the past to present.
When Wei-Chen first spoke to Jin, it was initially in Chinese and Jin told him to speak in English because he is in America now, but later on both Jin and Wei-Chen were speaking in Chinese, which is ironic and what most ABCs struggle with. The cultures of both Chinese and American are in Jin and it is shown that it is difficult to follow both cultures. Not only in culture, but also in language. The clash between English and Chinese are shown in this graphic novel, but the language is also evolving throughout the novel.
What a great observation. I think that the Monkey King speaks in Chinese characters but that is not translated for English speaking audience in the beginning does seem really important as is the kind of evolution of this over the story. II think this post is good. I think you’re going a little fast. By that I mean, I think you’re getting at a really dynamic element in Yang’s novel. He knows there are going to be English only readers, so what does it mean that there are Chinese characters that not all readers will get. It’s not just a matter of what it symbolizes in Jin’s evolution, but it is also a matter of what Yang means for the novel to do as a whole.
If you were writing a paper, I’d want you to slow down and try to unpack the use of Chinese characters some more. It’d also be interesting to think about difference between when characters speak Chinese, or when there is a piece of Chinese writing (like on the pillars at the end of the universe).
Lastly. Is it really ironic that Jin and Wei-Chen end up speaking in Chinese? It seems given everything you’re saying very fitting because that would express their reconciliation and Jin’s growing acceptance of his heritage.