Old St. Mary’s Church
On the south side across the street from the church were houses of prostitution, openly operated day and night, not by Chinese, but by white women. Such an environment surrounding the church was not acceptable to the congregation. A new St. Mary’s Church was completed on Van Ness Avenue on January 11, 1891, and Old St. Mary’s was slated for demolition. The Paulist Fathers saved the day and took over the site to do missionary work among down and out elements in the surrounding area. In 1902, missionary work with the Chinese began.
(See Chinese St. Mary’s Mission.)
St. Mary’s Square
California and Grant Streets
Standing in St. Mary’s Square is an imposing stainless steel statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen designed by Benny Bufano, commissioned by the Chinese Six Companies to commemorate October 10, 1911, the day Dr. Sun’s revolutionary party overthrew the Manchu government and established the Republic of China. For almost a century, October 10th, known by the Chinese as “Ten Ten,” was a major day of celebration in the community. Banners stretched across Grant Avenue. Organized by the Chinese Six Companies, drum & bugle corps and pupils from every Chinese language school dutifully paraded through the streets. Today the celebration no longer has 100% community support. Members of the Chinese Six Companies are divided; some still embrace the Kuomintang (KMT) Party of the former Republic of China (now the Taiwanese Government), while others support the People’s Republic of China.
Plaque commemorating Chinese American Veterans of World Wars I and II.
Across from the statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen is a less imposing but more significant monument, with 97 names of Chinese American soldiers of our community, who made the supreme sacrifice in World War I and II. Every year on Veteran’s Day, the Cathay Post No. 384 and the VFW Chinatown Post march to the square to honor those who died for us, that they never be forgotten. This commemorative plaque and day of remembrance are more symbolic of Chinese America than Sun Yat-sen’s statue and the “Ten Ten” celebration.
CENTRAL GRANT AVENUE
(Sacramento to Jackson Street)
This area marks the beginning of San Francisco (then Yerba Buena) when William Richardson set up his tent on June 25, 1835 (now 823 Grant) and Jacob Leese built his house on the southwest corner of Clay Street on July 4, 1836.
Whereas after the ‘06 quake, southern Grant developed into a section of Oriental bazaars for tourists, central Grant remained the heart of Chinatown, where businesses were owned and operated by Chinese and for Chinese. In the early 20th century, manufacturing of shoes, boots, and cigars declined while the import and export activities of the Jop faw poh (general merchandise stores) increased. Chinatown had begun to make the transition from light manufacturing to import and export activities. Stores hung out their Wells Fargo Express signs daily. Goods imported from China were shipped throughout the numerous Chinese communities in California and across the United States. The sidewalks were blocked with merchandise, and the streets teemed with horses and wagons hauling cargo back and forth to the waterfront. Chinese called the waterfront “mah ta’ow” (“horse-front,” meaning where horses headed to).
Chinese engaged in the drayage activities were Tom Gunn (later the aviator), his brother Tom Wing, and Frank Dunn (son of the owner of Wing Sang Mortuary), who hauled food across the Bay to Chinese refugees in Oakland. After a year with the Tom brothers, Frank partnered with three others to form the Canton Express, contracting with the China Mail to carry passengers and baggage. Likewise, Joseph Tape—father of Mamie Tape (see Gordon Lau Elementary School)—had an exclusive contract with Southern Pacific Railroad. Peck Drayage Company and two white-owned drayage companies also operated in Chinatown. The Canton Express was the first to buy a three-ton truck driven by Frank and contracted exclusively with Lew Hing’s Cannery to haul fruit and vegetables.
Drayage wagons on Grant Avenue.
By the beginning of the 1930s, the days of peddling goods with horse-drawn carts clip-clopping over the cobblestone and brick streets of Chinatown had come to an end. The few remaining vendors were from other ethnic populations. With the advent of the automobile, Grant Avenue became a two-way street with parking on both sides. The saying was, when you could drive through Chinatown without a scratch, you were ready to take your driving test. The parked cars, most with out-of-state license plates, attested to Chinatown’s popularity as a tourist attraction. At 4:30 p.m., the siren from the Ferry Building signaled the time to head for Chinese school. Kids on the way to school would make a game of seeing who was the quickest to discover a new out-of-state license plate, and, if they had a penny or two, they could stop at one of the corner sidewalk stalls to buy chewing gum.
Sidewalk Stalls
Before the ’06 Earthquake, there were sidewalk businesses conducted alongside the buildings at major street intersections. Crude open cabinets with shelves were propped up against the building walls to display the merchandise. These businesses reflected modest enterprises in premium commercial space. After the quake, the buildings were built to accommodate these businesses by recessing the wall about 16 inches deep and 24 feet in length. The shelves in the stalls were packed with an array of merchandise, from edibles like fresh sugar cane, sugar coconuts and melons, varieties of preserved plums, dried ginger, and olives, to dry goods like toilet paper, cigarettes, and cigars of every brand. One-inch-long dried salted water beetles were a typical treat. A favorite with women was “bun long,” betel nut wrapped in the betel palm leaf with two-inch-long sticks of sugared coconut, sold two for a nickel. Chewing betel nut is a thousand-year-old tradition throughout Asia. For the kids, the favorite was chewing gum, one cent apiece, packed with a 2”x3” card featuring Remington’s paintings of the Wild West. These trading cards provided hours of recreation.
The stalls, formerly at almost every intersection of Grant Avenue, were a distinctive feature in the streetscape of Chinatown. The two remaining stalls along Grant Avenue, at the northwest corners of Clay Street and Washington Street, are mere shadows of their former selves, selling mostly souvenir caps and T-shirts.
At 8:00 p.m. Chinese school was over and the streets came alive with children on their way home, chattering in a mixed jargon of English and Chinese, and marching to the “boom boom” cadence of the bass drum of the Salvation Army, whose members were returning to their headquarters on the northeast corner of Sacramento and Grant, after a night of street preaching. The Salvation Army was euphemistically nicknamed the “Boom Boom Hui” (association) after the sound of their drums. The establishment of the Salvation Army in Chinatown was consistent with the evangelical movement to “save the Chinamen” with her “Chinese Division … to attack China’s four hundred millions in their homeland” (McKinley 1986, 50).
Sidewalk stall on corner of Clay and Waverly.
Streetlamps
Chinatown, in concert with the City, celebrated the San Francisco’s Diamond Jubilee with the installation of the Chinoiserie streetlamps which, along with the “Path of Gold” streetlights on Market Street, were designed by W. D’arcy Ryan. Ryan was the Director of Illumination for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. Around 2005, additional lamps were installed on the side streets off Grant Avenue.
Chinoiserie streetlamp designed by W. D’arcy Ryan.
Chinatown Squad
Standing at the corner of Sacramento and Dupont Streets, Inspector Manion, known by the Chinese as “mow yee” (“the cat”), might have reminisced with fellow plainclothes detectives about the notorious Tong wars of days past, when the Wongs were at war with the Lees, or the Hop Sing Tong with the Suey Sing Tong. The press credited “mow yee” for single-handedly stomping out the Tong wars by forcing the Tongs to sign a peace treaty. The story is somewhat romanticized, as the treaty was written in Chinese, and Manion himself admitted, “no one can stop them, they can only stop themselves.” To his credit, however, Manion did much in the Chinatown community, working with Donaldina Cameron to stamp out the traffic in prostituti
on. Gambling, on the other hand, continued. In the still of the night, from a man standing at a corner, came the chant: “Su’ong ch’eh fot choy” (“Get in the car and make your fortune”). Drivers stood ready to taxi clients to gambling houses across the county line in San Mateo.
The Chinatown Squad.
On June 19, 1954, Lee Dai Ming, editor of the Chinese World, pointed out the racial profiling inherent in the continued existence of the Chinatown Squad and called for its dissolution. Although feature writers of local newspaper agreed that the Squad’s existence perpetuated past stereotypes of hatchetmen and Tong wars, Chief Michael Gaffey resisted and made no changes. It wasn’t until September 14, 1970, that the Chinatown Squad was disbanded. In the era of Civil Rights when the spirit of equality prevailed, Chinatown should not be treated differently from other districts of the City.
Cathay Band
For over fifty years the Cathay Band could be seen on Sundays marching somberly on Grant Avenue, leading a funeral procession to the tune of “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” The Band began in 1911 with thirteen boys, ages nine to sixteen, from the Chung Wah Chinese school drum and bugle corps, which petitioned the Chinese Six Companies for help. These thirteen boys were Edward Dong, James Hall, brothers Frank and Thomas Kwan and brothers Thomas, Francis, Herbert, and Frank Lym, Charles Mar, Lee Quong, Andrew Quon Gong, Chang Yoke Liang, and Hugh Liang.
In the prevailing climate of discrimination, Chung Wah asked the Chinese Six Companies to sponsor the Cathay Band, who would become musical goodwill ambassadors to help change public opinion of the Chinese. After one year of practice the band made their debut. Secretary Thomas Kwan wrote: “This first engagement was a great success, not in music … but these impressions of the modern Chinese youths was [sic] adequate.”
Seventeen years later, in April 1928, the Cathy Band appeared with their newly fashioned Chinese uniforms at the grand opening of the new Los Angeles City Hall. With patriotic fervor and ethnic pride, they played John Philip Sousa’s “Stars & Stripes Forever.” Band member Chester Look remembered: “The eyes of many nations were upon us, the sons of Hon … pride of the Celestial Kingdom. Our last note floating away … the thunderous applause … was a thrill that neither time nor space can erase!”
Cathay Band.
Jop Faw Poh (General Merchandise)
After the ’06 Earthquake, San Francisco’s Chinatown was the export and import center for Chinese commodities for Chinese communities throughout the Nation. Chinese everywhere depended on China for rice, cooking oil, and other food staples. Bundles of rice weighing about fifty pounds came wrapped in rattan mats.
East side of Grant Avenue between Jackson and Pacific.
At the counter, a bookkeeper could be seen tallying up the accounts payable and receivable with his abacus or taking bets on the day and night Chinese lottery called “white pigeon.” The casinos of Reno and Las Vegas copied this lottery and called it “Keno,” using numbers in lieu of the Chinese characters on the Keno tickets. For almost a century, the policemen of the Chinatown Squad raided and battered down doors with axes to stop the illegal gambling, to no avail. However, when the federal government established the Kefauver Committee in 1950 to investigate narcotic trafficking and organized crime nationwide, Chinatown lotteries stopped abruptly. Congress enacted legislation requiring a federal tax stamp to operate gambling operations. Most of the Chinese lotteries were operated by Chinese with questionable immigration status. Rather than subject themselves to the scrutiny of federal authorities, they chose to close their operations.
A local legend has been woven around the thousand-year-old abacus versus America’s then-latest technology, the adding machine. The story goes that a white salesman carried this new bulky invention from store to store, trying to convince Chinese owners to purchase it. One owner said he would buy it if the salesman could demonstrate it to be more efficient than the abacus. The race was on! Of course the outcome of the story is that the salesman walked off defeated, as ethnic one-upmanship must prevail.
Since the purpose of treaties made by the United States with China was for the privilege of trade, Chinese merchants and their families were exempted from the exclusion laws and permitted to immigrate. Chinese circumvented the exclusion laws by claiming merchant status. It was not unusual to find twenty or more members invested in a relatively small jop faw poh operation.
It was common practice for stores to provide meals for their employees and makeshift lodging to accommodate single men. In the basement of the stores, a brick stove was built in place with two woks, much like ones in Chinese villages. Instead of using dry branches for fuel, however, gas burners fired up the woks.
Food Facts and Fables
Chinese food was first introduced to our Western frontier during the Gold Rush. For the next 100 years, all Chinese food in America came only from immigrants coming from Guangdong Province. In fact, until 1961, all the restaurants featured by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in its New Year publication were Cantonese.
Pedi-food carrier on north side of Washington Street, between Grant and Stockton.
In the madness of the Gold Rush, few prospectors thought to provide service for the burgeoning population. Ever astute, some Chinese found their “gold” in opening restaurants. These Chinese served not only Cantonese food that the ’49ers raved about, but also many genuine English dishes with tea and coffee, which were judged “unsurpassed” (Taylor 1850, 117).
The early acceptance of Chinese food was short-lived, however; rumblings of anti-Chinese sentiments beginning in the Mother Lode echoed throughout California for over five decades. Rumors of “meows, bow wows, and rats” (i.e., cats, dogs, and rats) in the larder discouraged even the boldest from setting foot in a Chinese restaurant, save for the occasional banquet welcoming political visitors.
Following the 1906 Earthquake, a new positive image of Chinatown prevailed and guidebooks began to encourage visitors to enjoy a dining experience in Chinatown. That experience was “chop suey,” the origin of which was attributed to Chinese envoy Li Hung Chang, who visited the United States in 1897. It was claimed to be his favorite dish. Legends associating chop suey with Li Hung Chang abound, with each generation embellishing the story. It is not a dish found in China but originated in Chinese America. One such legend was, while on his stay in Washington, D.C., late one evening after all restaurants were closed, Chang was hungry for Chinese food. His chef at the hotel hustled up some available ingredients of chicken, pork, celery, onions, and mushrooms, stir-fried it, and served it to Chang. Voilà! He loved it and asked what the dish was called. The chef replied “chop suey,” meaning “miscellaneous mixture.” Whether the story is fact or fable, the spread of chop suey’s popularity across the United States was phenomenal. In San Francisco, huge chop suey signs, two to three stories high with hundreds of incandescent lightbulbs, lit up Chinatown by night and dominated the skyline by day. Chop suey, chow mein, fried rice, and egg foo yung initiated the novice in Chinese cuisine. For the five decades after the ’06 quake, chop suey remained synonymous with Chinese food in America. As late as 1972, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wrote: “Chinatown is still a mysterious world to most whites … who only know how to order … chop suey and beetle juice.”
Adding to the streetscape of Chinatown was the pedi-food carrier with a wooden tray on his head, delivering anything from a ten-cent waffle to a complete Chinese dinner to households or establishments in the Chinese quarters. Jackson Café charged 30 cents for a tenderloin steak dinner including coffee, bread, and field potatoes, delivered free. Wearing his “golf ” cap to keep his tray from slipping, the carrier trudged from the restaurant onto streets, rain or shine, at all hours of the day and night, into the “wee hours” of the morning. When it rained, a black oilcloth was draped over the tray, fastened down at the corners with clothespins. Empty bowls and dishes were placed outside doorways to be picked up by the carriers. Lost dishes were deducted from their monthly wages, which averaged six
ty dollars. With his meager pay, the carrier supported his family and/or his parents and siblings in China. This was not the promise of Gold Mountain he heard in his childhood. No one knows when or how this service began but, like many traditions, it faded with World War II when food was scarce and rationed.
With the more liberal immigration laws following the 1960s, new Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other regions of the Republic of China, as well as Chinese from all parts of Southeast Asia, introduced an infinite variety of Chinese food, which was no longer limited to Cantonese cuisine.
Herb Shops and Herb Doctors
When the Chinese joined the Gold Rush of the ’40s, they brought two notable forms of culture baggage with them, worship of the gods and the ancient art of healing. Herb shops existed well into the 20th century, until 1949, when the embargo on goods from Communist China brought an abrupt end to the business. Today, after the normalization of the relationship between the U.S. and China, the use of herbal medicine has begun to thrive once again.
San Francisco Chinatown Page 7