To be honest, I was not aware of what this particular monkey king myth was refering to until I read the post about origin of Monkey King.

The story of Monkey King is very famous in China, including near eastern Asian Country. It is not only a popular novel written in 16th century but also been put into comics and anime numerous times.

Since I have not yet finished the entire book, My mind wandered on how the exact story of monkey king fits and correlates to the story of the kid who is struggling to fit into America.

Monkey King feel like the alien of the groups (deity) that is around him. He feels somewhat ridiculed and put down as inferior as these other forms of deities look down on him. Not only that he feels awkard himself being different.

This is how Jing feels among these group of Americans whom are not yet willing to accept him as equal and one of them.

The struggle to fit in and be not different (while not wanting to accept it and be known to others that he cant) touches my mind as I was a foriegner who moved into very white community few years ago.

In that sense, the book “American born Chinese” is rather personal story to me.