American Born Chinese Lies and Deceit Quotes

Jin's at the old Chinese herbalist's shop playing with his Transformer, when the old lady starts asking what he wants to be. He tells her that he wants to be Transformer but his mother thinks he's being silly. Which prompts the old lady to get really mysterious and drop the big truth in the novel: "'It's easy to become anything you wish… so long as you're willing to forfeit your soul'." We'd raise our eyebrows too, like Jin does, if we heard some old lady tell us that. Here's a question though: Isn't transformation sometimes a good and necessary thing? Do you think this book is kind of against transformations in general?

This chapter introduces us to the biggest form of deception in the whole book: stereotypes of Chinese people. How does that deception come about? The author, at least, seems to want us to think about how American TV and pop culture has a hand in spreading these images around, which is why the first panel of the chapter—with the words "'Everyone Ruvs Chin-Kee'"—is kind of like the introduction to a TV show. The title is pretty crafty too: everyone really does love Chin-Kee because without Chin-Kee, there wouldn't be a villain or a story. We can't do without Chin-Kee in this book.

Jin pressures Wei-Chen to cover for him so that he can go out on a date with Amelia, which Wei-Chen really doesn't want to do. But why is this such a big deal? Isn't that what friends do for each other once in a while? How else is Jin going to have a girlfriend unless he gets Wei-Chen to lie to his mom for him? Is it that big a lie?