So the mega-popular internet site MySpace apparently has a section where they run features on various books. Recently they ran one on Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese. Pretty cool, right?
Well, some MySpace members have taken issue with the description of the book, specifically the section about Chin-kee, a takeoff on Asian pop-culture stereotypes. Here’s the section in question:
In American Born Chinese, Yang weaves three seemingly unconnected narratives into one seamless coming-of-age story. There’s the legend of the Monkey King, a Chinese folk hero who longs to transcend his primate nature and be worshiped as “the great sage, equal of heaven.” Then there’s the saga of Jin Wang, a Chinese-American boy struggling to find his place at his ultra-white elementary school. Finally, there are scenes from a sitcom about a sporty, medium-cool white boy who changes schools out of shame every time his cartoonishly clichéd Chinese cousin Chink-kee comes to visit. Chink-kee has buckteeth, packs dead cats for lunch, goes pee-pee in Cokes, excels at school, and lusts after a “pletty Amellican girl wif bountiful Amellican bosom.” Reminiscent of the character Long Duk Dong in John Hughes’s Sixteen Candles, Chink-kee embodies every possible pop-culture stereotype about Asians, while Jin Wang’s experiences highlight how damaging and mean-spirited these kinds of stereotypes really are.
You can check out the comments section to see what people are saying. Some members have discussed the book in their blogs, like member Eric aka GoldNKiD:
The very fact that someone (an Asian at that) has compiled all of this hateful material and is publishing it for financial gain is unforgiveable. If someone wrote a book in today’s political climate that talked the same way about African-Americans they would be crucified. We’ve learned to either accept or tolerate African-American culture; some have even adopted parts of African-American culture because we’ve reached a level of tolerance and stopped putting out hate literature. Morally, ethically, and spiritually this book can only further the knowledge of these negative sterotypes and, therefore, it has NO redeeming value despite the “lessons” he purports to teach.
Over on the First Second blog, Gene Yang responds:
Cousin Chin-Kee isn’t meant to be funny. He’s meant to come off the page and slap you in the face. If you’re laughing at him, I want you to do so with a knot in your stomach and a dry throat.
For every ignorant piece of feedback, I’d get a dozen more that were with me, that understood where I was going and wanted to follow. These e-mails felt my anger seething beneath Cousin Chin-Kee’s toothy smile.
These e-mails convinced me to carry on.
To those of you who are offended by every third chapter of American Born Chinese, I say this: Thank you. You’re supposed to be offended. That was the desired response.
That’s only a small part of what Yang posted; go read the rest for his thoughts on why he created the character.
Many of the folks expressing their outrage over on MySpace say they haven’t read the book … I think seeing Chin-Kee in context would probably alleviate their concerns. I am curious to hear from anyone who read it all the way through and was still offended by it. Anyone out there fall into that category?
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
It’s all about context. After reading “American Born Chinese,” I understood the purpose of the Chin-Kee character and how that narrative plays into the larger notion of cultural identity that “American Born Chinese” explores.
While the character is extremely broad, I wasn’t offended by “American Born Chinese.” In fact, I’ll admit that when Chin-Kee made his first appearance, I initially laughed because it was so audacious and absurd. Reading on though, it becomes clear that this caricature of asian stereoptypes is not meant to be hateful.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Ah, the old Internet reflex–judge without knowledge, review without experiencing, and attack without understanding.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Being concerned with most MySpace comments is about as helpful/constructive/important as being concerned with YouTube comments or general internet nonsensery… Our Internets is overflowing with whiny babies and general jackasses and sites like that have a particularly impressive/frightening concentration of them.
That said, yes, these people would hopefully benefit from the context of how Chin-Kee appears and is conveyed within the larger narrative. Problem is, the trend is to rush to judge without even attempting understanding and (going back to my original comments) these people are often the type to not care about gaining that understanding in most, if not all, situations.
Yang’s use of Chin-Kee is actually quite constructive. He confronts the stereotype as a means to wound or even slay it. The alternative would be to ignore the elephant not only sitting in the room, but shitting in the punch. The way Yang uses the three narratives in conjunction with each other puts Chin-Kee firmly in a realm outside the real, yet unfortunately impacting it.
Would an African-American be “crucified” for doing the same? Hey, who remembers Spike Lee’s Bamboozled? Criticized more for being too heavy-handed and over the top rather than just for its use of racist tropes.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Good points on the rush to judgement on the internet.
The Intertubes: Where having an opinion is more important than having an informed opinion.