American Born Chinese Violence Quotes

This scene shows perfectly the power dynamics of schoolyard bullying. You have Timmy, the big dolt, who bullies the new kid Jin. Then you've got Greg, who pops up as Jin's defender, and does so by sounding even meaner and tougher than Timmy. Greg becomes the head honcho for a second, but Timmy regains the upper hand. How? By including Greg in his group and shunning Jin. Greg, who almost became friend-material for Jin, becomes complicit in the bullying because he sticks with Timmy instead of with Jin. Complicated, right?

Immediately after the panels that show Timmy bullying Jin, we get a series of panels about the "friendship" between Peter Garbinsky and Jin. Peter is basically a bully too, but he offers Jin the reward of his companionship as long as Jin does whatever Peter tells him to do. We think it's pretty important that this scene follows the first bullying scene because it shows how bullying affects Jin. He becomes a weak character, who puts up with all sorts of abuse without any sort of fight.

The chain of bullying that starts with Timmy continues up to the point when Wei-Chen arrives at Jin's school. Since Wei-Chen is clearly not American (he's Taiwanese in fact), it prompts Jin the narrator to state that "Something made me want to beat [Wei-Chen] up." What exactly is that something though? Is Jin's trying to fit in by rejecting the person who looks most like him?