In American Born Chinese Yang uses the characters of Chin-Kee and Danny to represent Jin's struggle for a coherent identity by making them a part of Jin's true but unknown identity. The context for that is a kind of thematic pun, with Jin conceptualizing his ambition as being a Transformer--that is, one whose identity is fluid. But Transformers are toys possessed of a kind of magic, which suggests Jin is somewhat confused about who he is and is trapped in magical thinking. The old herbalist engages in reverse psychologist, inviting Jin to be "anything you wish . . . so long as you're willing to forfeit your soul" (Yang 3). In other words, his persona will be of his own making, and its honesty will be a function of Jin's honesty.
Chin-Kee is a lampooned ideal of Chinese tradition, and Danny is more or less the fully evolved Chinese-American immigrant. The "ideal," of course, is stereotypical. When Chin-Kee first encounters Danny, he calls him Cousin Da-Nee, and, per the linguistic stereotype, announces, "Harro Amellica," reversing the R and L sounds of English, and sporting luggage in the form of giant Chinese take-out boxes--and mortifying the blond and blue-eyed Danny (Yang 7). The relationship parallels Jin's relationship with Wei Chen, the Taiwanese whom Jin wants to be less "Chinese" than American but with whom he forms an uneasy friendship. The parallel means that the merging of Jin's identity with Danny's makes sense.
It also means that Chin-Kee could only be the monkey king. For Chin-Kee is boldly unashamed of his Chinese identity, a fact revealed by his supreme intelligence at school--the result of arcane kung fu studies--and his willingness to take on the schoolyard bullies, even to deceive them in rather grotesque ways, such as urinating in a schoolmate's beverage and taunting the whites by putting a dead cat in his lunch. That mischief is to be associated with mythical creatures, and it is to be ...