Silas Fung, a Chinese American artist from a family with two other artists, Paul and Timothy, was a successful commercial artist in Chicago. He was fascinated by the 1933 Chicago World's Fair and collected artifacts from the exhibition. Fung’s “Miniature Fair House” was a subject of Ripley’s “Believe It or Not!” on September 6, 1937.
His wife,
Edythe Julius Shum, proved to a highly successful Sun Life Assurance of Canada sales agent who traveled all over Canada and much of the U.S. to sell life insurance to Chinese immigrants. (We were the only Chinese in Macon, Georgia during the 1930s-1950s and had Sun Life insurance and while I do not know if she sold it to my father, it would not surprise me if she was the one who sold it to him).
In the 1930s home movie cameras were becoming increasingly affordable and Silas made many 16 mm. home movies of his family in often candid scenes in and out of their home. Eventually, the movie collection went missing for decades until one day they suddenly were listed for sale on eBay!
An Indian-Canadian filmmaker, Ali Kazimi, was excited to learn of the availability although he did not know who made the home movies. He wanted non-portrait images of Asian Americans, but few, if any, home movies of Asian Americans probably existed. He had to bid for the films in an online auction and paid about $2,000 for the collection, sight unseen. It appears that he had been bidding against Fung's descendants for the films. In any event, the films were in terrible condition and appeared to be unsalvagable but he decided to run the risk of restoring the films at great expense, which would risk being destroyed or incinerated in the attempt. For film historians, this
link goes to his interview about the entire ordeal of restoration.
Ali Kazari's restored home movies combined with his interpretive commentary and help from Fung's daughter, Irena Lum, in providing descriptions of the photographed activities, locations, dates, and identification of the family members created his documentary,
Random Acts of Legacy, an award-winning best documentary at CAAMFEST, 2017.
This link is to the trailer for the film.
"Intertwining a first-person narrative as an outside witness with family accounts and other commentators, Kazimi weaves a rich tapestry of the life of an unusually wealthy family of colour from the Depression era. The retrieved footage offers an intimate and radically different visual perspective on the Chinese American community in Chicago – with a surprising feminist twist. Visually rich and textured, unafraid to show the decaying patina of a family archive, Random Acts of Legacy revels in the making of home movies and memory.
https://worldchannel.org/episode/arf-random-acts-legacy/
"Extraordinary for its unvarnished representation of family life, at home, church, and play, Fung’s moving pictures offer a surprising counter-narrative to stereotypes of Chinese Americans in his day. His films captured birthday celebrations with cake and candles, gatherings and picnics in the park, as well as family fishing and boating outings. Silas Fung's images celebrate the everyday life of his first-generation, upwardly-mobile, Chinese American family; a portrait of lives otherwise omitted from moving-image history." America Reframed
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