American Born Chinese Lesson Plan

How does the Monkey King attempt to compensate for the humiliation that was done to him? Do you think this was the right way to respond to this? Why or why not?

Students will likely agree unanimously that the Monkey King is justified in feeling angry at the gods who previously mocked them. However, they may differ in their assessment of his subsequent actions. By training himself to "transcend" his monkeyhood, some students may argue, he is inadvertently falling right into the same habits of thinking as his bullies. By seeing his background as a monkey as something to be "escaped," they might say, the Monkey King is also devaluing himself in the same way as the gods in...