CR #3: American Born Chinese
The first tale told in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese is about the Monkey King. He thinks very highly of himself as the king and a deity but when he goes to the dinner party for deities, he is turned away from the door and reminded that despite everything, he is still a monkey. When he returns home, “the thick smell of monkey fur greet[s] him” and he stays awake all night “thinking of ways to get rid of it”. It is clear that faced with the blatant reminder of his species, that he becomes ashamed of it. It is reminiscent of later in the novel when Jin is transformed into a blond haired, blue eyed, white boy named Danny. He is ashamed of his cousin Chin-kee who comes to visit and is the epitome of every Chinese stereotype. Faced with the image of his cousin, he is reminded of his race and who he still is despite being so “Americanized”. Chin-kee is equivalent to the doorman and the elevated stench of the monkeys, all of which play the role of opening Danny and the Monkey Kings eyes, respectively, to their “true” selves and how they might be seen by the outside world. Once reminded that despite being a deity and king, he is still a monkey, the stench of the monkeys, which he had never noticed before bother him because they remind him of where he comes from. Despite being Americanized to the point of appearing white, blond, and blue eyed, Chin-kee also reminds Danny that he is still Chinese no matter how he appears.
I think you’re kind of doing a side by side comparison here, which is a good choice. My concern is that you stay pretty much at the surface level of the major movements of these two scenes. While you have quotes, you could describe your argument without them because your argument isn’t as grounded in the details of the text right now as it is in the kind of major thematic parallel. What’s interesting though is 1) your parallel isn’t perfect. Chin-Kee is certainly a reminder of an unwanted racial heritage for Danny (Jin). However he is not the reminder that the doorman at the heavenly party is. You say he is both the doorman and the monkey smell, but I think he is more clearly the monkey smell, the smell of one’s own culture that is hard to take in because one has so adopted the tastes of an American culture. It would have been interesting to have focused on Chin – Kee as the bad smell. Also because as we discussed in class, Chin-Kee is something of a farce. He’s a farce for Yang who is intentionally parodying a racist parody, and he’s a farce in the story b/c Chin-Kee is the Monkey King!! I feel like if you had staid rooted in the details of the text you would have been able to discuss that really important connection between the monkey smell the Monkey King struggles to accept and the bad smell that is the Monkey King being Chin-Kee. That would have made your reading not only more of a close reading but also more focused and original.
ALSO: You must have page number citations for these quotes.