Tragic Case of History Repeating Itself

        The life of  Chinese restaurant deliverymen is a dangerous one as they can be assaulted, robbed, and even killed.  A recent case in Wilmington, N. C. in June, 2012, involved six adolescent boys robbing and killing a 60 year-old Chinese after which the murderers polished off the delivered food.  Star News Online reported that:

      Similar instances of this type of crime  have occurred many times over decades.  For example, in 2009 in North Hanover, Massachusetts, another Chinese man was murdered when delivering food to a fake order to an unoccupied address that was made using a phone number that police traced to a throwaway cell phone.

     Another case occurred in 2000 when a Queens, New York restaurant owner was bludgeoned to death late one evening when he was making a delivery to an isolated area of town.  According to the New York Times article:

                        

     Sadly, these men must risk their lives regularly to eke out a living, support their families, and in some cases, send money back to China to help relatives.  Predatory hoodlums look on them as easy and helpless prey.

Interactive Map of Number of Asian Americans Per County

         The just released Pew Center Survey Report, The Rise of Asian Americans has a handy mapping of the number of Asian Americans for 6 major subgroups for each county in the U.S.  If you place your cursor over any spot on the map on this link, you will see how many Chinese (or you can choose another of the 6 Asian American subgroups surveyed by the Pew Center) live in that county as well as its total number of all Asian Americans and its total population.
      The illustrative map below for Hyde County, S. D. shows there is 1 Chinese out of the 7 Asian Americans among the 1420 residents there.

Chinatown Inside Out (1936)

       Many accounts of Chinatown(s) I've read have been written by 'outsiders' who dwell on "oriental" aspects to emphasize its exotic and foreign features.  I recently discovered a fascinating "insider"perspective published in 1936 by a somewhat "mysterious" Leong Gor Yun. The noted historian, Sucheng Chan, asserts, without any documentation, that no one knows for sure if the author was a man or woman, Chinese or non-Chinese, and that the name is actually a pseudonym that can be translated into Cantonese as "two persons."
   
       It is, of course, just the views of one (or two) persons. Nonetheless, I found it to be a revealing discussion of what goes on behind-the-storefronts of Chinatown written in an authoritative, but breezy and sometimes flippant style.

       And, guess what,  Chinatown Inside Out is available to read online for free on the website for HathiTrust Digital Library.

Renewing Acquaintances with Long Lost Friends

    One of the wonderful experiences associated with giving book talks, especially out of town, is that once in a while I bump into people I have not seen or been in contact with for decades.  For example, during my visit to the San Francisco area to give a book talk on Chinese in the Deep South at the Foster City Library,  I had the opportunity to meet with two Chinatown pals from my youth, both of whom had the same name, "Mel Lee."  The last time I had seen or heard anything about them was about 60 years ago!
    One Mel Lee is now a successful developer of senior residences. He gave me a tour of the wonderful facilities at the "Avenue" in the heart of San Francisco. I noticed photos of Mel posing with virtually every prominent civic leader in town as well as some nationally prominent politicians.

Mel Lee and I at the "Avenue" at Van Ness and Geary St.

  A few days later, the other Mel Lee came up to me after my book talk at Foster City and asked me if I remembered him.  I was hesitant and not sure although he 'looked' familiar even after 60 years! Once he told me he was Mel Lee, old memories were activated such as the fact that his girl friend was (and still is, now his wife) named Jeannie and that he drove a Peugeot 403 with a sunroof back in the late 1950s and that one semester I commuted with them from U. C. Berkeley where we went to college back across the bay to San Francisco.

Mel Lee and I at the Foster City Library after my book talk.

A Darwinian View: How Chinese Survive on Less Food

DOCUMENT #10: Debate Over the Chinese, California Constitutional Convention

Delegate J. H. Miller, Demr 9, 1878.

Miller was from San Francisco. He was a lawyer who had played an important role in Indiana

politics. He had been a Brigadier General in the Union Army and came to California after the

Civil War. A conservative Republican, Miller had run on the Non-partisan ticket.

"| answer, cheap labor may, under certain conditions, be in an economic sense, an

advantage, but not so to us. immigration has been a blessing to the United States; not

because it cheapened labor, but because it brought within our borders, in aid of the great

work at development, men who established homes, whose accumulations swelled the

aggregate of the wealth of the nation; men who have become a part of the nation and

contributors to Anglo-Saxon civilization... For thousands of years, China has been tilled to the

verge with a redundant population. The life of the average Chinaman has been a mere

struggle tor animal existence. He bears with him the heredity of poverty and unrelenting toil

for food for thousands of years. His physical organs have become adapted to insufficient

food. There has been a process of selection going on in China under which the heavy

feeders have fallen out and under the law of the 'survival of the fittest' none but those who

can practice the most rigid self-denial as to food remain. They have also been trained by

centuries of incessant toil to procure the maximum of subsistence from the soil.”

Portland's Canton Grill Menus Over The Years

         Looking at Chinese restaurant menus from different decades provides a glimpse at changes in customer food preferences (as well as the increase in prices over the years).  Comparing menus from the same restaurant, if possible, gives a fairer picture than if they were from different restaurants in different parts of the country.

            Portland's Canton Grill, operating as early as the 1920s, posted several of their menus from 1940 to the 1970s on their website (hopefully they will update with menus from the 1980s to the present).  Even though only one restaurant's menus are presented, it probably is representative of the menu offerings of other Chinese restaurants in the Portland area.

Mississippi Delta Chinese High School Athletes in 1950s

          Prior to the 1950s, Chinese were not even allowed to enroll in white schools in many parts of Mississippi. However, during the 1950s, not only were they admitted but some of them were competing well on high school football, baseball, and basketball teams.  Their participation is somewhat surprising because they had to work many hours to help in the family grocery businesses. In addition, some Chinese parents probably disapproved of their sons competing in physical competition.  However, the motivation of Chinese youth to fit in with American societal customs  prevailed over any opposition from their immigrant parents.

Boyle High Baseball 1951,
Walter Joe, left end front row
and Ed Joe, right end front row.

Boyle High 1953-4 Basketball, Peter Joe (14)

Greenville High, 1956 Football.  Eugene, Hugh, and Watson Lum

Interestingly, a Greenville clothing store, Nels & Blum, featured high school athletes, including Chinese players, as 'fashion models' in their newspaper ads.

Ed Lum, Greenville High, 1959

Ruleville: George Jue
 Boyle High: Walter and Peter Joe,
Greenville High, Charlie Chu

Warren Lum, Greenville High, 1959

Story of Chinese restaurant origins all over the world

Chinese immigrant restaurant in Mexico
   
      Although this documentary features a Chinese immigrant family-run restaurant in Mexico, the story it tells is virtually the same one you'll find all over the world about how Chinese immigrants sought an economic niche in their new homeland despite little knowledge of the new language, customs, and lifestyle.

          Even though they often had little or no experience running restaurants, these Chinese saw it was a means to survival. Their hope was that their children, growing up in the new land, would be able to advance to less arduous and more enjoyable work.

Portland Chinese Scholarship Foundation Fundraiser, May 3, 2012

       I spoke about my Sweet and Sour book on the history of Chinese family restaurants at a fundraiser for the Portland Chinese Scholarship Foundation headed by Bruce Wong, the grandson of the original owner of the no longer operating historic Hung Far Lo restaurant in old Chinatown.

The next day, Bruce and I met at the Canton Grill, opened back in the 1940s, to participate in a  program produced by Annie Yau on Chinese laundries and restaurants as part of a six part documentary on Chinese Immigrant History for Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) to be shown in late summer.
First, the camera crew invaded the kitchen to film the preparation of several iconic Westernized dishes, chop suey, egg foo young, and chow mein. Then seated in a booth in the dining room, Bruce and I sampled the dishes as we conversed about the background of these popular items.

The John Jung Letters

A few years ago I was intrigued to learn that the University of North Dakota had an archive of "John Jung Letters," written in the 1920s by a young Chinese boy whose father ran a laundry in Devils Lake, a small town in North Dakota.  Fascinated by the fact that not only did this boy and I share the same name, but that we seemed to have a common life experience growing up in cultural isolation in a small town in a laundry run by our parents, I had to see these letters that were a collection of letters he wrote to  his fourth grade teacher after she moved to another town.  These letters, written over a span of about seven years open a window on the personal growth of development of John Jung as a Chinese boy in North Dakota where there were few other Chinese. 

I also had my own "John Jung letters, collected from the 1950s after I left my birthplace, Macon, Georgia, to live in San Francisco.  Unlike the North Dakota letters, my collection does not contain letters that I wrote but rather it is a set of letters I received and saved from one of my teachers and two other white adult mentors who were strong influences on my personal growth.

I wrote a paper for a meeting of the Association of Asian American Studies that discussed these two sets of "John Jung letters" and posted the paper on this site, The John Jung Letters.