The Robot
Yang is an android designed to be as human-like as possible. But still, when all is said and done, he is a robot; a work of advanced engineering technology. The story early on subtly situates the emotional chasm such a being is likely to provoke:
“Early on I attempted such outings to create a sense of companionship, as though Yang were a foreign exchange student in our home.”
Physicality
The story begins with the moment that Yang goes haywire. He appears to no longer be in working condition and Jim, the narrator, is moved to take him to a shop to see if he can be repaired. Notably, however, even his physical reactions are not quite aligning right with Yang being merely a machine. Well, not any machine that isn’t a car, anyway:
“My legs feel wobbly and the sky above us seems thinner, as though there’s less air.”
Russ and His Kind
The first repairman that Jim takes Yang to is Russ Goodman. Russ considers Korea and China to be interchangeable and that is just the beginning of the problems that his personality presents to Jim. Russ is exactly the kind of guy whose legs would get wobbly and have trouble breathing if his car—which probably has a name, too—suddenly stopped working:
“As I park alongside the rusted mufflers and oil drums…they eye my solar car like they would a flea-ridden dog.”
Dissection
Yang has been pronounced dead by two different repairmen. However, the machinery which allows him to speak remain still in working condition and has been removed from the surrounding body parts. Jim is conflicted about this turn of events:
“Ever since I was handed Yang’s voice box, time has slowed down. The light of the setting sun had stretched across the wood floors of our home for what seemed an eternity.”
The Funeral
The body parts that no longer work are only briefly a point of conflicted emotions. Almost from the beginning, Jim seems to be determined to treat with the respect of an actual human body. And so, as such, the family holds a little funeral service in their yard at which Yang’s robot body is buried. The only conflict here is in what Jim imagines the neighbors might think, but his concern barely extends far enough to cover the time it takes to express what they be thinking:
“I imagine what the three of us must look like to the neighbors. A bunch of kooks burying their electronic equipment like pagans.”
