The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. The Paper Menagerie deals heavily with race, including segregation, prejudice, and stereotyping as well as heritage, ancestry, and pride. What are some examples of cultural insensitivity or outright prejudice that you have seen recently in the news or on social media? What effect do these kinds of actions and attitudes have on people in the targeted group? How do people retain their pride in their heritage in spite of such treatment from others?

Teaching Suggestion: Although many of the book’s characters encounter judgment and segregation, they also feel a sense of pride in who they are. Students can discuss the difference between positive and negative stereotypes and consider whether they’ve ever been guilty of negatively (or positively) stereotyping others.

• “Five Ways to Be More Culturally Aware” from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing offers some tips for people cautious about exploring cultures outside their own.
• “Understanding America: Asian American History, Contributions, and Current Challenges” is a Foreign Press Center briefing that explores the place Asian Americans hold in United States history and the challenges they continue to face today.

2. The title story in this collection, “The Paper Menagerie,” is an example of magical realism. What are the characteristics of this genre? What makes magical realism different from fantasy and from science fiction?

Teaching Suggestion: Although Liu’s collection is likely to be shelved as science fiction in a library, the stories span several different genres. You might ask students to brainstorm a few examples of science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, and/or speculative fiction that they have read and ask them to consider what aspects of each work help them categorize it.

• “What Is Magical Realism?” from MasterClass provides a detailed definition of magical realism, its history, and examples of novels in the genre.
• “The Difference Between Magical Realism and Fantasy” by Madeleine Rose Jones offers a thorough analysis of the genres and how they differ.

Short Activity

Write a short journal entry from the point of view of someone arriving in your country for the first time. What sights, sounds, smells, or sensations might be surprising to someone from another culture?

Teaching Suggestion: Many of the stories in Liu’s collection feature immigrants and expatriates finding their way in a strange country—on both sides of the Atlantic. Students are encouraged to imagine what their day-to-day lives might look like to someone seeing it for the very first time and connect more deeply with The Immigrant Experience in America.

• “The Stories We Tell, and Don’t Tell, About Asian-American Lives” is a New Yorker article that explores challenges Asian Americans (a broad terms that covers a diversity of backgrounds) face, such as isolation, alienation, and dissociation. (Subscription may be needed for viewing.)
• “What to Know About Living in China as an American” outlines some cultural differences Westerners may face when moving to Asia.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

The book’s title, The Paper Menagerie, refers to a collection of origami animals a mother in one of the stories makes for her son. Choose an art or craft form from your own family heritage. Bring in an example or photo, then describe how it’s made and its significance to your family.

Teaching Suggestion: This is a good opportunity for students to explore their own heritage in a hands-on way. If they have an example of a cultural craft at home, they might bring it in and explain how it’s made and how it functions; otherwise, they could write a description or illustrate it to share with other students.

• “How to Make an Easy Origami Swan” gives students step-by-step instructions to create a very simple animal and engage with this Japanese art form.
• “23 Wonderful Origami Woodland Animals” offers a gallery of elaborate origami figures.

Differentiation Suggestion: The goal is to explore craft forms of other cultures, which is open to a range of different approaches. Depending on students’ learning styles, they could give an oral presentation (“Show and Tell”), write a journal entry, illustrate a guide to making the item, create a photo collage, or use a combination of words and pictures.