The Monkey King
Okay, we know—you're thinking, "Wait… isn't the Monkey King a character? What's he doing hanging out with the symbols?" But you see, in this book the major characters can serve as symbols and a...
Chin-Kee
Chin-Kee is clearly a stereotype, or several stereotypes rolled into one character. He's sinister Fu Manchu who wants "'pletty Amellican girl wiff bountiful Amellican bosom'" (3.23); the "model min...
Wei-Chen vs. Jin
For this one we're going straight to the author, who said: In my [junior high] class were two groups of Asian boys, two cliques. The one I was a part of, [we] were either born in the states or came...
Transformers
It's a toy… No, wait… It's a symbol. Transformers—more than meets the eye.These aren't just cool toys from the 1980s—nope, they also symbolize Jin's most basic desire: to transform into som...