The importance of finding yourself
This terrific graphic novel is not a book you just put on your bookshelf to gather dust once you have finished reading it. You leave it somewhere close by, so that you can dip back in at any time, and relive bits of the pleasure it gave you the first time round.
There are few books around that warrant this status. American Born Chinese is a book that you really want to own and keep returning to, because it gives you pleasure. Even the cover is something special.
The first character we meet is the Monkey King, who is having personal problems. Adored by his subjects, a top master of kung-fu, he is the most powerful monkey on earth.
But this is not enough. He is dissatisfied with being the ruler of the monkey kingdom, and he wants to be elevated to the status of a god. He is constantly looking up to heaven and seeing all the gods having a wonderful time. He wants to join them.
The Monkey King decides to take a chance and gate-crash one of the gods' parties. He is discovered, and the angry gods punish him by throwing him out of heaven and burying him under a mountain of stone. There we leave him, a pathetic figure who has lost everything.
We now meet Jin Wang, a school student who also has problems. His family has recently moved to a new neighbourhood, and Jin Wang finds himself the only Chinese-American pupil at his school.
He eats his lunch by himself in a corner of the schoolyard, bullies pick on him without mercy and, to make matters worse, he falls in love with an all-American girl who doesn't even notice that he is there.
Jin Wang's story is an obvious one about the loneliness of the isolated child who does not fit in. He has to face it all. Everything is piling up against him: self-image, cultural identity, the importance of believing in oneself all come together to form a barrier that he somehow has to overcome. Life has suddenly become almost impossible for Jin Wang.
Danny, a blond-haired, blue-eyed all-American high-school student, has one major problem. If it could be sorted out, everything else in his life would perfect. Once a year, cousin Chin-Kee comes to visit him and his life becomes a nightmare. Chin-Kee brings Danny so much embarrassment and so many problems, that poor Danny has to change schools in order to survive.
Chin-Kee, the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, is the nuisance cousin to end all nuisance cousins. And Danny just knows that this year Chin-Kee's visit is going to be the biggest nightmare visit ever.
Gene Luen Yang's captivating American Born Chinese seems to be three separate, unrelated stories, until Yang pulls off a spectacular twist bringing the three tales together. Some of the themes in Yang's story have been done before, but not as attractively or as freshly as this.
The artwork in American Born Chinese is crisp, colourful and perfectly suited to the story.
This is a beautifully crafted, poignant and action-packed modern fable that will delight readers of all ages and backgrounds. A true modern masterpiece.
American Born Chinese
By Gene Luen Yang
Published by First Second Books
ISBN 1 59643 152 0
