glassplatenegatives

The signage over the entrance of the eating establishment to which this deliveryman appears to be returning prompts some insights about the emerging politico-culinary culture of Chinatown -- 15 years after, and as a direct response to, the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Heather P. Lee of NYU writes for scholars.org writes about the restaurant industry and its centrality among the strategies used by Chinese America to avoid the immigration ban as follows:

“The vast majority of Chinese originally came to the United States from a small cluster of counties in Southern China, whose economic fortunes became tied to opportunities in North America after the 1849 Gold Rush in California. Young men went to the United States to work, sent money back to relatives in China, and periodically made temporary trips home. But this cycle of work and visits became much harder to execute after the United States passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. This draconian law barred the entry of Chinese laborers, yet also ended up stimulating the formation of Chinese businesses through a system of visa preferences. Owners of particular businesses could obtain “merchant status,” which enabled them to enter the United States and sponsor relatives. After a 1915 court case granted these special immigration privileges to Chinese restaurant owners, entrepreneurial people in the United States and China opened restaurants as a way to bypass restrictions in U.S. immigration law. Flows of newcomers from China were diverted into the restaurant industry.

“The number of Chinese restaurants in the United States exploded during the early twentieth-century. . . Chinese laundries had once been the largest employers of Chinese workers, but by 1930 restaurants became more likely employers of Chinese workers – and retained that distinction thereafter. . .

“For the workers, Chinese restaurants were complex sites of chain migration and familial obligation. The average Chinese restaurant in New York City employed five waiters and four cooks, who were related by kinship or friendship to the primary investors. Family bonds complicated relationships between employers and employees, rendering conflicts between them qualitatively different from the sorts of conflicts found in non-family-run restaurants. For the sake of family, Chinese restaurant employees were expected to work for low wages and perform physically demanding labor without complaint. Consequently, the average employee in such restaurants earned 1/3 less wages than the national average for food service employees. This was true even though Chinese restaurant workers had to support kinfolk in China who depended on them to afford basic necessities such as clothing, food, and educational costs. . . .”
(see: scholars.org/brief/untold-story-chinese-restaurants-america)

The signage itself (aside from the partially obscured English language menu board seen in the lower-right portion of the photo), suggests the adaptation that probably began with the beginnings of the community in the 1850’s of Chinese culinary practices to North American tastes and foodstuffs. The ideograms on the faded sign are written in traditional style -- from right to left. As rewritten here in modern style from left to right, “seasonal western style cuisine” under the likely tradename of “Wah Ying.” Literally: 時款 [canto: see foon] = seasonal or current; 華英 [canto: wah ying] shorthand for Chinese/English (or Chinese American); 番菜 [canto: faan choy] literally “foreign (barbarian) dishes.

The characters seen on the partially obscured sign to the left of the worker read 隆麵 [canto: loong mein] reads as “prosperous noodles” which could denote, absent additional context, a particular brand name (describing grand, prosperous, thriving, eminent, or even intense) of noodles made on premises or elsewhere.

After comparing a photo by Oscar Maurer of the same block (in the OMCA collection), the "Wah Ying" eatery can be located at no. 120 Waverly Place in pre-1906 Chinatown. My explanation can be viewed here: demospectator.tumblr.com/post/693870314745217024/untitled...

Letter Writer -- c. 1900

One of the photographers of old Chinatown, D.H. Wulzen, captured this image of a somnolent, professional letter writer who made his piece of sidewalk his office al fresco.

One of the founders of the Chinese Historical Society of America, Thomas Chinn (1909-1997), was a keen observer and chronicler of the collective life of Chinese America. He also served as the founder, publisher, and editor of the Chinese Digest, the first English-language weekly newspaper for Chinese Americans in the United States, and later the Chinese News.

In 1993, Mr. Chinn sat down with Ruth Teiser for an interview that was published under the title of "A Historian's Reflections on Chinese-American Life in San Francisco, 1919-1991: Oral History transcript/Thomas Chinn" for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

In this excerpt from an interview, he described how Chinese immigrants communicated with friends and family in China, using a system of letter writers, small Chinese-owned businesses, and messengers.

"I must tell you how the Chinese in America, in the beginning, managed to maintain correspondence with their folks in China. When they first arrived here, unable to understand English or how to start making a living, it was through the handful of Chinese who were able to speak some English who guided the new arrivals and helped them get started. These "interpreters" were also the ones who helped those Chinese who were unable to write letters to their families back in China to do their letter writing for them. Of course, they charged for this service, but generally not much.

"Then there was the matter of letters from China. How were they addressed, when their men were constantly moving around in their need to make a living as well as to send money home? That is where the Chinese stores come into play. The Chinese generally looked for business houses run by relatives or people from their own village in China. These business houses also acted as "bankers," receiving money from busy laborers who had "messengers" from small Chinese groups working too far away to come into town to run their errands. These messengers would deliver the money or letters to the business house designated to act for these laborers. The address written from China used the business house address and then kept these letters until the addressee was able to come to the store to pick up the mail. In return, aside from actual cost of stamps or money orders, etc., which was naturally reimbursed to the store, it was expected of each laborer that he would patronize the store for all of his needs."
-- From “Chinese Immigrants Maintain Ties with Home,” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed April 23, 2021, shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/990.

As Mr. Chinn recounts, the letter writers performed a vital service for the single, often illiterate, male workers who comprised the bulk of the population of Chinatown; they served as the sole communications link to home villages through revolutions, a world war, civil war, communist liberation, the Cold War, and Cultural Revolution. Through all that, many families considered the letters from America as worthy of safekeeping, separated as they were by exclusion. I can attest to their simple power. When visiting my ancestral village in Zhongshan, I was given a letter that my grandfather had written to his brother (who had remained in the village) almost a half-century earlier -- bearing a return address from 652 Sacramento St.

Thanks to the sharp eyes of friend Wong Yuen-Ming, one can interpret the significance of the four-character text of the wall advertisement appearing just above the somnolent letter writer’s head.

The wall ad prominently reads as follows: 大小方脈. The signage represents an ad for a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine applying his skills, according to Wong, "the old subjects of paleo-medicine, the cure of adult miscellaneous diseases and the cure of children's disease (i.e. pediatrics).”

Wong writes as follows: 古醫學舊分十三科，治大人雜病的稱大方脈，治小孩病的稱小方脈(即小兒科)。合稱 “大小方脈” In English terms, he clarifies that ancient medicine is divided into 13 departments. The treatment of adult diseases is called Dafangmai (i.e., 大方脈 or canto: dai fong mak), and the treatment of children's diseases is called “Xiaofangmai” (i.e., 小方脈 or canto: siu fong mak).

Although the term for the branch of Chinese pediatrics can literally translate to the phrase "small and small square pulses," the 方in 方脈 does not mean “square” in this context. As Wong explains, the fang ideogram is drawn from the full term of doctor or 醫方 (canto: yee fong) which is derived from an older term, 方士 (canto: fong see), which denoted proto-medicine or alchemy). Moreover, to identify a Chinese doctor as a 方脈 would refer to a doctor (方) who would know how to read the pulse (脈) in caring for a patient. Thus, the ad’s reference to a 大小方脈 informs the public that the practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine could care for both adults and children.

Date is off a bit. The Alhambra Theater, pictured here, only had that name between Sept. 1917, and August, 1919.