Tuesday, May 08, 2007

"You’re supposed to be offended. That was the desired response."

After an initial reading of American Born Chinese your average librarian will recognize the fine line Yang is able to walk. It's not an easy book. Not one that allows you to skim through it without getting sucked in and having to (gasp, shudder) think. Then I saw this piece on the First Second blog.

Apparently, MySpace has made American Born Chinese a featured book... Not all good news, though, since it seems to come with a rather tasteless ad campaign that uses the Chin-Kee character out of context, and has led to all kinds of discussions among people who haven't read the book. Gene Yang responds.

Disregarding whether or not you've read the book in question, I can't recommend this piece enough. I was unable to locate the ad campaign in question though I did find the featured book page, comments and all. It isn't convincing me that I need a MySpace page anytime soon, that's for sure.
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3 comments:

  1. Disco Mermaids3:40 AM

    A.B.C. is a brilliant book. And the "fine line" is a major factor in its effectiveness.

    I'm sure it'll be a long time until I read another book that had me this mesmerized by what the author (and illustrator, in this case) was able to accomplish.

    - Jay

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  2. Christen10:09 PM

    Just wanted to say that I loved American Born Chinese! I actually left a comment on the myspace featured page. I don't remember seeing the negative ad campaign though...

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  3. ElsKushner11:06 PM

    Thanks for the link to that article. I just finished A.B.C. last week and while I thought I'd pretty much understood the Cousin Chin-Kee stuff, Yang's essay illuminated it even more.

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