In American Born Chinese, a third of the story is focused on Danny and Chin-Kee. It seems strange to have a Caucasian with a grotesquely stereotypical Asian cousin featured in the work. Chin-Kee is embarrassingly offensive in his depiction. He also attends school with Jin, causing constant embarrassment and is the opposite of how Danny wants to project himself. What do you believe Yang's purpose for this was? Do you believe that Danny and Chin-Kee represent anything in regards to Jin?
Is it dangerous for Yang to depict Chin-Kee the way he does in this work? Depicting a race in this manner can have disastrous effects for the artist's career. Being declared a racist in today's society is effectively a death sentence for your career. What makes this work different?
The Monkey King story seems to be out of place in the story. What do you believe the purpose of this third of the story will be? Is it simply a depiction of a Chinese folktale, or is it something more?
The only connection I can make with these characters is that they are both opposite sides of the spectrum on their race and culture. I am sure in some ways they both embarrass each other in a way. There is always that two sided argument.
ReplyDeleteIt seems a little dangerous, because it is severely racist. I don't see this work being any different... If I were to think of something that made it different is that is trying to take the racism of Asians outside of the American schools and population.
I think it will be more but defiantly ties into the Chinese folktale- I am looking forward to finding out what this out of place story is doing!
I feel like Yang was simply trying to depict the struggles that the average asian experiences when fighting with the typical stereotypes. From what I've gathered from my research the whole three stories turn into one and have a pretty strange ending.
ReplyDeleteI really don't think there is such a thing as "danger" when you're talking about artists. He isn't being outwardly insulting, the characters in his book are racial caricatures, over exaggerations of true stereotypes. Its meant to be insulting on purpose. To show how these comments and actions done "painlessly" in passing are actually very harmful to an entire group of people.
Master of None, Aziz Ansari's Netflix original actually touches on this exact concept. He has such a hard time trying to find a role that doesn't force him to be a convenience store clerk or have a phony indian accent. When he confronts people about it no one can give him an answer as to why he can't just play a regular guy. Belittling his concerns by responding "because its funny".
Yang needn’t worry about being declared a racist because of the way he ties up the three narratives presented in American Born Chinese. The barebones of the relationship is this: Jin is friends to Wei-Chen. Wei-Chen is son to the Monkey King. The Monkey King is disguised as Chin-Kee. Danny is Jin. The Monkey King goes through his own identity crisis. The other deities do not see him as an equal. Instead he is subordinated to them, he then makes use of education (and the subterranean, a space to invoke some Dostoyevsky?) in order to subordinate the deities to him. A power which can subordinate the Monkey King arrives, Tze-Yo-Tzuh. He is the originator of all things and has the power to define a thing, to reimagine the Monkey King’s transformation as a type of selling out. (So he goes about ordering the communities subordinate to him by sending the Monkey King to Jesus’ birth? I didn’t read that wrong did I? There’s something to be done with the depiction of religious imagery across cultural, religious, ethnic barriers – Marji has to reimagine a Christian painting in a Revolutionary light in order to pass her art school exam.)
ReplyDeleteJin becomes Danny and sells out. He’s sold his soul that he can be whatever he wants. Jin’s transition to Danny is facilitated by Wei-Chen’s lie, which in turn facilitates his transformation into a sunglassed, cigarette smoking phony. The Monkey King’s corrective role at the end of American Born Chinese salvages Jin’s immigrant experience by revealing the strength of that community. The folklore that educated him in his youth is made a real life corrective force. Once corrected Jin is able to correct Wei-Chen’s “sell out” behavior and by doing so reinforces the corrective, ordering power of that community.
As readers, I think we struggle with the transition because we're forced to believe that a fictional story can interact that way with real experience. The Danny/Chin-Kee narrative is so stereotypical and fake that it's intrusion into the much realer Jin story feels weird. But the logic of that move is borne out by the logic of the text. The teachers and students are creating the same types of fictionalized stories and imposing them on reality. The narratives together speak to the power of the baseless, ignorant, or fantastic to impact reality. That Jin and Wei-Chen have happy endings is largely a result of their ability to counteract demeaning fictionalized accounts with positive ones - drawn importantly from the heritage which is making them the object of debasement.
DeleteThe depiction of Chin-kee is grossly exaggerated and is an obvious satire. I don't think that this is dangerous for Yang. The goofy stereotypes of Chin-kee's appearance, speech, and actions are used to depict Jin's (Danny's) warped view of his own culture. The way that he was treated in America drove him to that negative perception of his own culture.This becomes much more apparent once we realize that Jin is actually Danny.
ReplyDeleteI think that this realization made the depiction of Chin-kee much more powerful and effective to convey the artist's point.
I definitely picked up on the racism, but like Taylor, took it as a satire, trying to exaggerate the racism we see in every day life, especially within the comic structure. I think it was exaggerated to make sure we didn't miss it and that we realized how offensive such depictions can be.
ReplyDeleteI think this work illustrates the racism Yang is aware of. I think he can get away with it because he is not necessarily adding to the ignorance, but bring it to light.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I think all of the stories represent the characters not being at peace with their heritage. The Monkey king fits this description as well. The connotations of being just a monkey was not good enough for the King, so we worked to make himself more than just that.