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Symbols
Both shoes and hair represent the folly of trying to be something other than one’s true identity. The Monkey King’s edict that all monkeys on Flower-Fruit Mountain must wear shoes represents his own desire to be more human—that is, his desire to be something he’s not, but something that he considers to be superior. In Jin’s parallel story, his white classmate Greg’s curly hair represents much the same thing: it will, in his mind, make him appear more white and less Chinese, and therefore more appealing to his crush, Amelia. In this sense, both shoes and hair represent a distillation of an entire culture or state of being into one single quality or element, something the novel suggests is misguided and ineffective at turning someone into something they’re not. The Monkey King and his fellow monkeys still look like monkeys, just ones that wear shoes, while Jin’s permed hair doesn’t stop Greg from insisting that Jin shouldn’t date Amelia for racist reasons.
This doesn’t mean, however, that the shoes and hair don’t still feel empowering to the Monkey King and Jin—the addition of shoes to the Monkey King’s wardrobe are the first step of his transformation to becoming Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, while Jin’s confidence as he dates Amelia and considers standing up to Greg’s bullying manifests visually as crackling lightning coming from his hair. However, that Jin and the Monkey King must abandon their shoes and hairdo, respectively, speaks to the futility and ineffectiveness of trying to be something they’re not—as do the reactions of those who encounter the shoes and Jin’s perm with confusion or laughter.
Shoes and Hair Quotes in American Born Chinese
The American Born Chinese quotes below all refer to the symbol of Shoes and Hair. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1 Quotes
“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.”
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When the Monkey King, a deity who rules over the other monkeys in the mystical kingdom of Flower-Fruit Mountain, smells a wonderful dinner party going on in Heaven and tries to attend, the guard turns him away. They do so on the grounds that the Monkey King is a monkey and doesn’t wear shoes, and therefore isn’t welcome. Because the Monkey King is a monkey rather than a human and therefore doesn’t represent any one ethnic group, this allows the Monkey King’s plight more generally to stand in for prejudice that all different ethnic groups experience and have experienced throughout Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta.
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.
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After being turned away from the dinner party in Heaven, the Monkey King notices for the first time that Flower-Fruit Mountain smells like monkey fur, and he begins to consider how he can do away with the odor. This shows that after experiencing the kind of prejudice that the Monkey King did at the dinner party, one of the first reactions to that sort of a situation tends to be shame. The Monkey King is now embarrassed that he smells like a monkey, something that has never even registered before for him. Fixating on the smell, however, is something the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti s
Chapter 4 Quotes
The morning after the dinner party the Monkey King issued a decree throughout all of Flower-Fruit Mountain: all monkeys must wear shoes.
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Ashamed and embarrassed after being turned away from a dinner party in Heaven for not wearing shoes and for being a monkey, the Monkey King forces all of the monkeys in his kingdom to wear shoes. The illustrations paired with this quote show monkeys struggling to climb trees while wearing shoes. The fact that the illustrated monkeys struggle so much with their new footwear makes it very clear that while the Monkey King’s decree may be understandable—he’s upset, ashamed, and trying to make himself appear less monkey-like to the other deities—it’s still misguided. The shoes keep the monkeys from doing Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium es
“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!”
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When the Monkey King receives a summons to go to Ao-Kuang to be executed for trespassing upon Heaven, the Monkey King insists that the person listed in the summons doesn’t exist and shares his new name—The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven—with several of his monkey subjects. Changing his name like this represents a major turning point in the Monkey King’s conception of his identity. While his original name gives some indication of who or what the Monkey King is (it makes it clear that he’s a monkey), his new name instead casts him in the role of someone who is Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debiti
Chapter 8 Quotes
“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.”
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The day after Jin’s successful movie date with Amelia, Greg pulls Jin aside and asks him to not ask Amelia out again, citing Amelia’s reputation as they enter high school as his reasoning. In reality, what Greg is saying is that it’ll be damaging to Amelia’s reputation to be romantically involved with an unpopular Chinese American boy, no matter how many qualities Jin might have that would make him a good romantic partner. Importantly, Greg doesn’t seem to fully recognize how unkind and racist he’s being here—he’s doing this, supposedly, in service of his friend and is certain that Jin Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commo
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?”
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The night after telling Wei-Chen that Wei-Chen isn’t good enough for Suzy because he’s too much of a new immigrant, Jin convinces himself that he was correct in his assessment and then dreams of the herbalist’s wife. The herbalist’s wife turns Jin into Danny. When considering what happened before this moment, it’s easy to see how Jin got to the point where he has, as the herbalist said in Jin’s first chapter, “forfeited his soul.” Jin kissed Suzy, a friend, against her will, and then insulted Wei-Chen, Suzy’s boyfriend, in an attempt to deal with his own conflicting emotions about Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Volupt
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Shoes and Hair Symbol Timeline in American Born Chinese
The timeline below shows where the symbol Shoes and Hair appears in American Born Chinese. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...with a laugh, the guard says the Monkey King can’t enter, as he has no shoes. The Monkey King insists that there must be a mistake since thousands of subjects pledge...
(full context)
Chapter 2
...lunch, Timmy warns Jin to stay away from his dog. A blond boy with curly hair named Greg tells Timmy to be cool, but Timmy calls Greg a “pansy-boy.” Greg intimidates...
(full context)
Chapter 4
...the dinner party, the Monkey King declares that all monkeys on Flower-Fruit Mountain must wear shoes. The monkeys comply, but they struggle to climb in their new footwear. The Money King...
(full context)
Chapter 5
...thinks of Greg only. As he gets home, he thinks only of Greg’s curly blond hair. The next day at school, Suzy and Wei-Chen are floored when Jin comes to school...
(full context)
...the chance of a lifetime. Jin feels a jolt of confidence that comes from his hair and awkwardly asks Amelia if she’ll go out with him. Amelia agrees. Her “yes” keeps...
(full context)
Chapter 7
...carry the heavy parcels. Wong Lai-Tsao adds that on this journey, there’s no need for shoes. The Monkey King looks down at his feet but abandons his shoes. Barefoot, The Monkey...
(full context)
Chapter 8
...She giggles and clutches his shoulder during the dramatic parts. With 20 minutes left, Jin’s hair appears to crackle with a kind of electric energy. He feels suddenly confident and begins...
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...As she sighs over the romantic ending, Jin experiences another jolt of confidence from his hair and puts his arm around Amelia. She’s shocked at first, but leans into Jin, much...
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...had to agree to go shopping with her on Saturday. She’s going to buy Wei-Chen shoes and an electric wok. Glumly, Wei-Chen says that Jin owes him.
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...says she loves Jin. They get married, have sex, and have a baby with curly hair just like Jin’s permed hair. He knows he’s getting ahead of himself, but he’s blissfully...
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When the bell rings, Jin’s hair seems to crackle as he marches through the hallways to where Amelia chats with a...
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...party all the time. Suzy cries and Jin experiences a burst of confidence from his hair again. He leans in and kisses Suzy. Suzy angrily punches Jin in the face and...
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