Research and Writing [HW #46]

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Within American Born Chinese, there are three stories. And within each of these three stories (which eventually intertwines) there is the theme of escapism. However each of these stories took a different approach in doing so. The book begins with the story of the Monkey King, who denies his identity of being a monkey. As an attempt to escape that, he trained multiple disciplines of martial arts... AND, he even changed his name. But after all was done, his denial was only to be denied. Meanwhile an American Born Chinese, Jin Wang has just moved into a new school, where he is the only American Born Chinese. After being told that he does not fit the role of boyfriend to a certain girl, he tries to become who he's not. Eventually Jin Wang the American Born Chinese became Danny the American Born Chinese, minus the "Born Chinese," which leads into the next story. Every year Danny gets a visit from his cousin Chin-Kee. Just from his name, you can probably tell that he is a Chinese person. But he's not just any Chinese person, he is a the epitome of the asian stereotype- accent, good at every subject, highly inappropriate, pupils that cannot be seen, etc. And every year, Danny tries to escape the shame of being cousins with Chin-Kee by transferring to a different school. We later find out that Chin-Kee is the same Monkey King from the first story, watching over Jin as his "conscience- as a signpost to [his] soul".

With my focus being alternatives to school, this book would be why those alternatives are significant. Considering our other options are important, but we should understand why that is- why would we even need alternatives to begin with, and are they worth trying? Although American Born Chinese (at least 2/3 of it) is specifically about ABCs, it describes the student life. And like I said before, each of these stories portrays some sort of need to escape. So in the same sense, are we looking to escape our current situation with schooling? This book gives several options (I might be missing a few):

1. Shape yourself into something for fitting for the situation (when Jin became Danny, and when Jin got the new haircut, and when Monkey King became "The Great Sage Equal of Heaven" and told all the other monkeys to wear shoes)
2. Jump from place to place, school to school so that your current situation isn't a lasting one (Danny transferring)
3. Say screw it all and do as you wish (Wei-Chen deciding to no longer be Tze-Yo-Tzuh's emissary)
4. Claiming to be better than the institution and try to override it (Monkey King fighting everyone who denied his self-proclaimed title)
5. Submit to authority (Monkey King becoming Jiang Tao's disciple)
6. Isolate yourself and improve on your own (when Monkey King locked himself underground and studied Kung-Fu

Many of these, we can apply many of these options to our schooling. And in fact, the last one is similar to one of the alternatives that I researched, autodidacticism. And some of these we are already applying, mostly options 1 and 5.

One thing from American Born Chinese that I thought related to our situation was when the Monkey King tried to fly away from Tze-Yo-Tzuh on his cloud. It said that even "he flew through the boundaries of reality itself," Tze-Yo-Tzuh was still able to find where he was, and follow him there. And the reasoning was, according to Tze-Yo-Tzuh, "All that I have created- all of existence- forever reamins within the reach of my hand. You I have created. Therefore, you can never escape my reach." In the same sense, we as students are created by schools. So would that mean that we can't escape this institution? Or perhaps only our minds can't escape school, since we've gotten used to having its development depend on schools. Even in our situation now, the inability to escape still seems to be present; it does not just apply to monkeys flying their clouds away from Tze-Yo-Tzuh.

In each of the stories in American Born Chinese there is not only the theme of escapism, but also the motif of the figure which each character appeals to, just like the ones that we have. In Jin's story, he's trying to appeal to Amelia, his crush. In Danny's story, he's trying to appeal to all his peers in school. And for the Monkey King, he wants to appeal to himself, but eventually to Tze-Yo-Tzuh. In all these stories, there is some sort of satisfaction that needed to be met. And that is exactly how school is. There is some sort of bar that we need to jump over in order be considered successful. And none of these characters, nor we have escaped this obstacle.

The format of this book portrays how schools and our lives are. Because in both cases, there are multiple stories going on, simultaneously. And although none of them seem to relate as they're going on, it would appear that they do. After all, they are all in the same book.