“I, too, am a deity! I am a committed disciple of the arts of kung-fu and I have mastered the four heavenly disciplines, prerequisites to immortality!”
“That’s wonderful, sir, absolutely wonderful! Now please, sir—”
“I demand to be let into this dinner party!”
“Look. You may be a king—you may even be a deity—but you are still a monkey.”
When he entered his royal chamber, the thick smell of monkey fur greeted him. He’d never noticed it before. He stayed awake for the rest of the night thinking of ways to get rid of it.
“Yeah, but Ma-Ma says that’s silly. Little boys don’t grow up to be Transformers.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’m going to let you in on a secret, little friend: it’s easy to become anything you wish...
...so long as you’re willing to forfeit your soul.”
“Class, I’d like us all to give a warm Mayflower welcome to your new friend and classmate Jing Jang!”
“Jin Wang.”
“Jin Wang! He and his family moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!”
“San Francisco.”
“San Francisco!”
“My momma says Chinese people eat dogs.”
“Now be nice, Timmy! I’m sure Jin doesn’t do that! In fact, Jin’s family probably stopped that sort of thing as soon as they came to the United States!”
“Class, I’d like us all to give a big Mayflower Elementary welcome to your new friend and classmate Chei-Chen Chun!”
“Wei-Chen Sun.”
“Wei-Chen Sun! He and his family recently moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!”
“Taiwan.”
“Taiwan!”
Something made me want to beat him up.
The morning after the dinner party the Monkey King issued a decree throughout all of Flower-Fruit Mountain: all monkeys must wear shoes.
“This ‘Monkey King’ it speaks of no longer exists, for I have mastered twelve major disciplines of kung-fu and transcended my former title! I shall now be called—The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven!”
“My apologies for not sending someone to arrest you in person, but frankly none of the gods wanted to go anywhere near your mountain. Nothing personal—we just aren’t particularly fond of fleas.”
“Silly monkey. You were never out of my reach. You only fooled yourself.”
“When I move here to America, I was afraid nobody wants to be my friend. I come from a different place. Much, much different. But my first day in school here I meet Jin. From then I know everything’s okay. He treat me like a little brother, show me how things work in America. He help me with my English [...] I think sometimes my accent embarrass him, but Jin still willing to be my friend.”
“Ooh ooh! Chin-Kee know dis one!”
“Put your hand down!”
“Go ahead...Chin-Kee, was it?”
“Judicial, executive, and registrative!”
“Good, Chin-Kee! Very good! You know, people—it would behoove you all to be a little more like Chin-Kee.”
“Every year around this time, I finally start getting the hang of things, you know? [...] Then he comes along for one of his visits.”
“Who?”
“Chin-Kee, my cousin. He’s been visiting me once a year since the eighth grade. He comes for a week or two and follows me to school, talking his stupid talk and eating his stupid food. Embarrassing the crap out of me. By the time he leaves, no one things of me as Danny anymore. I’m Chin-Kee’s cousin.”
“People here aren’t like that. No one ever says anything about my weight. Well, maybe that’s because I broke Todd Sharpnack’s nose for calling me ‘Mr. Jiggles’ when we were freshmen. But whatever. People here are different. You’ll see. Heck, if anyone ever gives you trouble, I’ll break his nose.”
“The form you have taken is not truly your own. Return to your true form and you shall be freed.”
“Is there no end to your stupidity, you sod?! That seal above me prevents me from exercising kung-fu!”
“Returning to your true form is not an exercise of kung-fu, but a release of it.”
“Mortal, there are demons behind you.”
“Yes. I am aware of them. That is why I ask you to free yourself quickly.”
“And if I refuse?”
“If it is the will of Tze-Yo-Tzuh for me to die for your stubbornness, then I accept.”
“To find your true identity...within the will of Tze-Yo-Tzuh...that is the highest of all freedoms.”
“So is your ‘true identity’ the supper of two demons?”
“Perhaps...is yours the eternal prisoner...of a mountain of rock?”
“It’s just that she’s a good friend and I want to make sure she makes good choices, you know? We’re almost in high school. She has to start paying attention to who she hangs out with.
Aw, geez. Look, Jin. I’m sorry. That sounded way harsher than I meant it to. I just don’t know if you’re right for her, okay? That’s all.”
“About twenty minutes into the party, though, I figured out that Lauren didn’t actually invite me. Her mom wanted to hang out with my mom, and I sort of just got brought along. Lauren and her new friends had their own thing going, so I spent the rest of the party watching TV in the living room. I felt so embarrassed.
...Today, when Timmy called me a...a chink, I realized...deep down inside...I kind of feel like that all the time.”
I replayed the day’s events over and over again in my mind. Each time I reached the same conclusion: Wei-Chen needed to hear what I had to say. It was, after all, the truth. And at around three in the morning, I finally believed myself.
I dreamt of the herbalist’s wife.
“So, little friend. You’ve done it. Now what would you like to become?”
“Take this with you. It’s a human child’s toy that transforms from monkey to humanoid form. Let it remind you of who you are.”
“You misunderstand my intentions, Jin. I did not come to punish you. I came to serve as your conscience—as a signpost to your soul.”
“You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years’ imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey.”
