Chinatown Tour Bus

One hundred years ago today … the nighttime bus ride for people who wanted to go slumming in Chinatown was a disappointment to Tribune writer Dwight S. Perrin. His "With Memory as your Guide," complains about the omission of violence and exoticism. The article’s orientalist fantasy is heightened by caricatures by Douglas Ryan.

Trigger warning: the article below contains racist language, including the n-word.

The bus party is conducted to the Midnight Mission and whisked past a washboiler of coffee being prepared for the down and outs when he might be shown what remains of the Mercis Club, where dead Chinese gambiers were pushed under the tables by the croupiers and laid out after closing hours by the porters. It is led to a curio store and implored to buy the trick images of the Chinose, "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil," when it might be taken next door and shown where the monarchs of the On Leon Tong of the older days stacked the gold from pi gow and fan tan profits until the Hip Sings began to shoot for it with .45-caliber navy revolvers, right through the obstructing persons of the On Leons. "Nigger Mike" Slater's once infanious dive is passed with a wave of the hand, and a witticism from the lecturer that probably makes Chuck Connors turn in his grave every night, if it is employed that often.

Since Chuck died there appears to be nobody left in Chinatown who can tell the story of Peroxide Nellie, the Opium Cat, or Sadie, who came from the upper West Side to be a part of Mott Street, and went out by way of the lower East Side and Bellevue Morgue.

Couple quick explanations:

“Pi gow” is a form of poker derived from the Chinese game of “pai gow.” “Fan tan” is a gambling game similar to roulette.

Chuck Connors was a white man originally from Providence, Rhode Island, who anointed himself “Mayor of Chinatown.” His 1904 memoir Bowery Life popularized stereotypes of Chinese American culture in NYC. 

Note: NY1920s has previously featured racist romanticizations of Chinatown and its community in posts about, for example, a popular song, a film shoot on Doyers Street that turned violent, and an article in the News similar in tone to the Tribune one above.

– Jonathan Goldman, Oct 30, 2021

 TAGS: Chinese, Asian, immigration, AAPI history, race, ethnicity, journalism