American Born Chinese

The laugh track applauds at the sight of the high school library. Danny angrily walks in and overhears two guys saying that “he” spit on them. One guy tells the other to get checked for SARS. as the laugh track plays. Danny is confused, but then alarmed as he hears Chin-Kee singing “She Bangs.” When Danny finally catches sight of Chin-Kee, he’s horrified: Chin-Kee is dancing and singing on top of a table, spitting as he sings, as students and the librarian grumpily flee. Danny drags Chin-Kee, still singing, out of the library by his queue, throws him onto a bench, and hits him across the face. Chin-Kee explains that the library was boring, so he decided to entertain everyone with a song—and he’s ready to perform his second set now. The laugh track howls with laughter.

Danny grabs Chin-Kee’s clothes and spits that he’s sick of Chin-Kee ruining his life, so it’s time for Chin-Kee to pack up and go home. With a laugh, Chin-Kee says his visit isn’t over yet and refuses to leave. Danny shakes with anger and then punches Chin-Kee again. Danny continues to punch Chin-Kee as the laugh track plays, but Chin-Kee begs Danny to stop and warns that he’s playing with fire. When Danny doesn’t stop, Chin-Kee says that Danny will have to suffer the fury of Spicy Szechuan Dragon. Confused, Danny stops, and Chin-Kee takes the opportunity to perform a kung-fu kick to Danny’s chin, which sends Danny flying. The laugh track plays.

As the laugh track continues, Danny tries to come up behind Chin-Kee. Chin-Kee, however, hits Danny with different martial arts moves: the Mooshu Fist, the Kung Pao Attack, the Twice Cook Palm, the Happy Famiry Head Bonk, the General Tsao Rooster Punch, and the House Special Kick in Nards. Danny sweats and grimaces as he takes Chin-Kee’s punches and kicks, while crackling electricity comes from Chin-Kee’s fists and feet. Chin-Kee performs the Peking Strike, the Three Flavor Essence, the Hot and Sour Wet Willy, and the Pimp Slap Hunan Style. Menacingly, Chin-Kee apologizes and says he loves America and will come to visit every year forever.

Danny sweats and his fists shake as the laugh track begins to expand outside of the frame. He throws one punch at Chin-Kee and knocks Chin-Kee’s head off. The head bounces away, and on Chin-Kee’s shoulders sits the head of the Monkey King. He compliments Danny’s punch and as Danny watches, confused and scared, the Monkey King shrinks and reassumes his true form. Then, he says that it’s time to reveal Danny’s true form. He calls Danny Jin Wang, and slowly, Danny transforms back into Jin. Jin stares down at the Monkey King for a moment and asks who he is. The Monkey King says that he’s an emissary of Tze-Yo-Tzuh. He’s been an emissary since he completed his journey to the west, which was his test of virtue.

The Monkey King says that Wei-Chen Sun, Jin’s friend from junior high, is his son. He explains that soon after he became an emissary, he sent for his huge family. Soon, his oldest son approached Tze-Yo-Tzuh about being an emissary too. Though Tze-Yo-Tzuh warned that it’d be hard, Wei-Chen accepted. His test of virtue was to live in the mortal world for 40 years without experiencing human vice. The Monkey King promised to visit once per year to check in and sent him with a Transformer to remind him who he was. Wei-Chen leapt off the cloud and fell to Earth, transforming into a human as he went. The Monkey King says that Jin met Wei-Chen during Wei-Chen’s first week, and Wei-Chen always spoke highly of Jin.

During the Monkey King’s third visit, things began to go downhill. Wei-Chen confessed to the Monkey King that he told a lie. The Monkey King scolded his son, but Wei-Chen angrily asked for the exact duties of an emissary. The Monkey King explained that Tze-Yo-Tzuh’s emissaries serve him and all that he loves, and Wei-Chen asked if that included humans. The Monkey King said that Tze-Yo-Tzuh considers humans to be the pinnacle of his creation—even more so than the emissaries. After a moment of silence, Wei-Chen said that Tze-Yo-Tzuh is a fool and that he didn’t want to be an emissary anymore. In his experience, humans are petty and soulless, and he didn’t want to serve them. The Monkey King pleaded with Wei-Chen to change his mind so he could face Tze-Yo-Tzuh, but Wei-Chen leapt off the cloud and said that anything was better than serving humans.

The Monkey King tells Jin that after this, Wei-Chen stopped accepting his visits, so he started visiting Jin instead. Jin accuses the Monkey King of punishing him for Wei-Chen’s failure, but the Monkey King says this isn’t true—Wei-Chen made his own choices and Jin doesn’t control Wei-Chen. Instead of coming to punish Jin, the Monkey King has been coming to serve as a conscience or a signpost to Jin’s soul. Jin looks at Chin-Kee’s head and then looks straight ahead. The Monkey King looks downcast and then summons a cloud to leave, but Jin asks him to wait. Jin asks what he should do now. The Monkey King smiles and says he would’ve gladly saved himself from 500 years of imprisonment had he realized how good it is to be a monkey.

The Monkey King turns and flies away into the sky, but he drops a business card for a Chinese bakery and restaurant. Jin catches it and then heads home. He asks his father to borrow the car keys. Jin’s father asks if he’s taking Chin-Kee out, but Jin says that Chin-Kee went home early. Jin fetches the keys from his mother and waves goodbye. His parents argue over which of their sisters is Chin-Kee’s mother and who needs to make the call to share that Chin-Kee is coming home early.

Jin goes to the restaurant listed on the business card from the Monkey King, the 490 Bakery Cafe. When the waitress comes to take his order, Jin points to something on the menu. The waitress informs him that he pointed to a notice reading “cash only,” not a dish. Jin blushes in shame but stays until closing, drinking pearl milk tea. For the next month, Jin goes to the restaurant every day after school and stays until closing time. One Friday night, Wei-Chen arrives just as Jin orders his pearl milk tea. Jin can hear Wei-Chen’s tricked out car outside as its engine revs and it blasts bass-heavy music. Jin goes to the window and greets Wei-Chen, who’s smoking and wears dark sunglasses. Wei-Chen angrily asks Jin what he wants, but seems to shrink and turn into a monkey when Jin says he met the Monkey King and wants to talk.

Over some pearl milk tea, Jin shares with Wei-Chen about his visit from the Monkey King. Wei-Chen asks why Jin is sharing this at all. Hesitantly, Jin says he’s just trying to say that he’s sorry. Wei-Chen continues to silently smoke and sip his tea. Finally, he says that the milk tea at this restaurant is terrible: it’s oily, like someone stir-fried something next to it, and the boba are like rabbit poop. He takes off his sunglasses and says that there’s a hole-in-the-wall place down the street that has the best pearl milk tea ever, and offers to take Jin sometime. Jin says he’d like to go. They talk and laugh at the restaurant until late in the night.