(9) American Born Chinese 진과 대니

      I chose "American Born Chinese" by Gene Luen Yang to read simply because I expected it to share some similar background with me of being an Asian-American. While reading this book, I realized that we are quiet different. While the main character of this book grew up in USA for his entire life, I grew up and was educated in South Korea until I decide to come to Ringling. The school life he had was quiet different from the one that I had.

      The interesting part of reading this book was that I was able to understand both Chinese side and American side of the main Character. The story of The monkey King (Sun Wukong) is a familiar story to Koreans as well, since we grew up reading it. I was very amused to see how the author used this popular Chinese novel to relate to a Chinese American boy growing up in United States. I was kind of surprised to see the fantasy story of the Monkey King blending into the life of Jin Wang, but I was not disappointed with the lessons that they gave out. 

      Jin Wang feels lonely because he believes that his Asian characteristics separates himself from rest of his classmates. He wishes to become a white boy and that makes him into a handsome white boy named Danny. This part of the comic book made me wonder if Jin Wang admired Caucasian ethnicity over Chinese ethnicity. The answer I came up with was "no".

      I went to an International High School in South Korea. Most of the students there were Koreans, but there were also few global students from many other countries. My best friend back in High school was half German and half Korean. Even though she was fully understand Korean culture, she told me that she feels difficult for her to approach Korean people because of the difference in appearance. She was the only "White-looking" girl in my classroom. I believe that she has gone through a similar inner struggle that Jin Wang has.

     I really enjoyed reading this book because I found the story familiar(asian enough) but also very new. I was impressed by author's imagination, and the conclusion he made at the end. It is difficult to change yourself. It is true that being different from every other people can be really lonely. But it is also very important to adopt who you really are. I love being Asian :)