American Born Chinese Friendship Quotes

We find out what kind of ruler the Monkey King is—the kind that bops his monkeys on the head if they do something wrong, and speaks to them like he's their lord (granted, he kind of is). But we wonder: is this part of Monkey's problem? He puts himself on a pedestal above all the other monkeys and so he becomes totally full of himself. And there's no one around him who can tell him when he's acting ridiculous.

Monkey goes around bashing everyone's head when he finds out he's not allowed to attend the party in the heavens. We don't think we need to tell you that that's no way to deal with rejection, and it's definitely not a good way to persuade people to become your friends later on. Which is why Monkey ends up alone—a lot—in the first part of the book.

Jin tells us about how he used to have a group of boys just like him—same interests, same race—who hung out with him when he lived in Chinatown. He doesn't ever use the word friends to describe these guys though. Why is that? Are they his real friends?