Chinatown, San Francisco

“ Chinatown is not far off from the heart of the city. And Chinatown pervades San Francisco. It is as though it distilled some faint oriental perfume with which constantly it suffuses the air. You meet the Chinese everywhere. The men differ in no wise from the men with whom the smaller Chinatowns of the East have acquainted us. The women make the streets exotic. ”

“ So, when I was repeatedly assured that the old-time romance had vanished from San Francisco, and with it the atmosphere that bred Bohemianism and developed literature and art, and kept alive the spirit of the Forty-niner times, and all that, I made my own allowances. Those who mourned for the fire-blasted past may have been right, in a measure. Certainly the old-time Chinatown isn't there any more—or, at any rate, isn't there in its physical aspects. The rebuilt Chinatown of San Francisco, though infinitely larger, isn't so picturesque really or so Chinesey looking as New York's Chinatown. ”

“ You see them in all the downtown quarters of San Francisco—the men with that inscrutable gravity and sagacity that long centuries of civilization seem to have given them, the women and the little girls, of high caste or low, invariably hatless and wearing loose coat and trousers—in many cases of brilliant colors and rare Oriental silks. And when you come to their own city within a city—San Francisco's famous Chinatown—they are the dominant folk upon the street. ”

“ No where else are to be seen such gray and wind-swept streets, where houses stand sidewise, as if mounting flights of stairs, the parlor windows of one house looking through the chimney-pots of its neighbor. Nowhere else are perched palaces like those of San Francisco, or a growth, as huge and strange in its exotic coloring, as Chinatown. ”

“ No visit to Chinatown would be complete without an inspection of its theatre and a study of the audience. Here you see the Celestials en masse, you behold them in their amusements. Let us repair then to the Jackson Street Theatre. The building was once a hotel, now it is a place of pastime; and singularly under the same roof is a small Joss-House,—for the Chinaman couples his amusements with his religion. It rather reminds one of those buildings in Christian lands, which, while used for religious services, yet have kitchens and places for theatrical shows and amusements under the same roof. ”

“ There is indeed a plague spot in Chinatown, the social fester, which can and ought to be removed. But this is true of American San Francisco as well as of Chinatown. What, we may ask, are the men and women of as beautiful a city as ever sat on Bay or Lake or Sea-Shore or River, doing for its purgation, for its release from moral defilement and "garments spotted with the flesh?" This indeed is one of the searching questions to be asked of any other City, such as New York, Chicago, St. Louis, London, Paris, Cairo, Constantinople, as well as San Francisco. ”

“ Temple were on their way by auto to the unique city within a city which constitutes San Francisco’s Chinatown, a quarter housing more than 30,000 Chinese. Oriental in every characteristic, with narrow alleys and courts, cellars, sub-cellars and sub-sub-cellars, the dragon roofs of Chinatown lie just below Nob Hill, the old aristocratic quarter of San Francisco with its veritable palaces of stone. ”

“ In Chinatown the other day a peddler was selling spectacles and somehow the old men trying them on and squinting for “near” and for “far,” seemed so quaint and countrified and like a lot of old Yankees around a country store trying to get a “new pair of eyes, by Heck.” In Chinatown the tong men do not seem at all real and the hair raising movie serial with its Chinatown terrors, Buddhist idols that open and swallow the movie actors and floors that drop into dungeons, seem very remote. ”

“ The curiosity of the tourist is an available asset to Chinatown, and with queer houses and queerer articles on sale there is always plenty of uninitiated to keep the guides busy, but from a city of more than twenty-five thousand Orientals in the midst of an enlightened city—an Asiatic city that had its own laws and executed its criminals with the most utter disregard for American laws, it has changed into one of the most law-abiding parts of the great city. ”

“ You are diverted by the bizarre on all sides, Grant avenue, the main artery of Chinatown, stretching before you in a many-hued arabesque of shop fronts, no two quite alike in tone or in the stuff they have to sell. ”

“ TO a visitor unacquainted with oriental customs and manners the most picturesque and mysterious spot in the region of the Golden Gate was Chinatown, now blotted out, which laid in the heart of San Francisco, halfway up the hillside from the bay and was two blocks wide by two blocks long. In this circumscribed area an Oriental city within an American city, more than 24,000 Chinese lived, one-half of whom ate and slept below the level of the streets. The buildings they occupied were among the finest that were built in the early days of the gold fever. ”

“ Most of the opium dens were underground.
The majority of the people of Chinatown lived in what were little better than rat holes, dark, poorly ventilated little cells on the side of narrow passages in basements. The rich merchants and importers lived well, but the middle and poorer classes lived in the basements where rent was cheap. Of the 24,000 Chinese population only about 900 were women so Chinatown was a bachelor’s town by a large majority, though some of the residents had [Pg 249] wives in China to whom they expected to return some day. ”

“ Tar Flat and the Barbary Coast he knew as well as the Mission and North Beach, and as for Chinatown, he had ransacked it for queer jars, jade and hand-made jewelry, exhausting its possibilities long before San Franciscans had realized the presence, in that quarter, of anything but an ill-smelling purlieu of tourists' bazaars.
He had "discovered" women as well—women, for the most part, whose attractions few other persons seemed to appreciate. His last find was Clytie Payson—a much more valuable tribute to his taste than any heretofore. ”

“ I did not stay to see whether or not he came to.”
“Strange is the scene where San Francisco’s Chinatown stood,” said W. W. Overton, after reaching Los Angeles among the refugees. “No heap of smoking ruins marks the site of the wooden warrens where the slant-eyed men of the orient dwelt in thousands. The place is pitted with deep holes and seared with dark passageways, from whose depths come smoke wreaths. All the wood has gone and the winds are streaking the ashes.
“Men, white men, never knew the depth of Chinatown’s [Pg 112] underground city. ”

“ As the gold fever attracted the Chinese to the Pacific coast, San Francisco was made a headquarters and the Orientals soon established themselves in a building on the side hill. As they continued to swarm over, gradually the American tenants were crowded out until a certain section was set apart for the Chinese residents and Chinatown became as distinct a section of the city as the Bowery in New York used to be, “where they do such things and say such things.” ”

“ But while Chinatown is the most extraordinary feature of San Francisco, and is visited by tourists who naturally look upon it somewhat in the light of forbidden and hence exceptionally attractive fruit, it is not by any means the most interesting or most important feature of one of the finest cities in the world. ”

“ There are about 25,000 Chinese in and around San Francisco. A small proportion of these have abandoned the worst features of their race, and make themselves comparatively useful as domestic servants. In order to retain their positions they have to assimilate themselves more or less to the manners and customs of the country, and they are only objectionable in certain respects. But the one-time dwellers in the Celestial Empire, who make their homes in Chinatown, have very few redeeming qualities, and most of them seem to have no tangible excuse whatever for living. ”

“ The magnificent manner in which the whole nation responded with aid and the conduct of the relief work are told in a way that brings a thrill of pride to every American heart.
“Fighting the Fire with Dynamite” is a thrilling chapter of [Pg 9] personal bravery and heroism, and the work of the “Boys in Blue” who patrolled the city and guarded life and property is adequately narrated.
Chinatown in San Francisco was one of the sights of the world and was visited by practically every tourist that passed through the Golden Gate. ”

“ The Latin Quarter, the Spanish and Mexican districts out toward the end of Powell street at the Bay, the Japanese streets east of Fillmore, and the Greek settlement centering around Third and Folsom are all, however, highly expressive of their habitants.
With its pagoda-like roofs, its bazaars, its restaurants of amazing orchestration and stranger East-West decoration, it is easy to. understand why Chinatown sways the imagination of wayfarers in San Francisco. Every street and alley in it is obviously exotic. ”

“ If asked any questions at that time, after certain Chinese words have been repeated, a Chinaman will tell the truth, so the police believe. Although all Chinaman are smooth faced and have their heads shaved they do not “look alike” to the policemen, who have no trouble in telling them apart. This, of course, applied only to the policemen detailed to look after Chinatown. If it were not that the Chinamen kill only men of their own race and let alone all other men, the citizens of San Francisco would have sacked and burned Chinatown. ”

“ It goes without saying that one seldom sees a Chinaman eating in the restaurants that are most attractive to Americans. Some serve both white and yellow and others serve but the Chinese, and a few favored white friends.
Probably the best restaurant in Chinatown is that of the Hang Far Low Company, at 723 Grant avenue. Here is served such a variety of strange dishes that one has to be a brave Bohemian, indeed, to partake without question. Ordinarily when Chinese restaurants are mentioned but two dishes are thought of—chop suey and chow main. ”

“ As for the people of Chinatown, however, no one knows or will ever know the extent of the dread fate that overcame them, for no one knows the secrets of that dark abode of infamy and crime, whose inhabitants burrowed underground like so many ants ”

“ Ajax said that two heads were better than one, and that it was not wise to trust oneself alone in the stews of San Francisco. The police will not tell you how many white men are annually lost in those festering alleys that lie north of Kearney Street, but if you are interested in such matters, I can refer you to a certain grim-faced guide, who has spent nearly twenty years in Chinatown, and you can implicitly believe one quarter of what he says: that quarter will strain your credulity not a little. ”

“ You can also have chicken, rice, and vegetables, and fruits, after the Chinese fashion. You can eat with your fingers if you like, or use knives and forks, or, if you desire to play the Chinaman, with the chop-sticks. In Chinatown the men and the women do not eat together. This is also the custom of China, and hence there is not what we look upon as an essential element of home-life—father and mother and children and guests, if there be such, gathered in a pleasant dining-room with the flow of edifying conversation and the exchange of courtesies. ”

“ They said that the old Chinatown would be driven away to Hunter’s Point in the southeastern portion of the city near the slaughter-houses. They said the business district should be given a chance to go over there where it belonged, by right of commanding and convenient position. They talked of magnificent palaces to take the place of those that had fallen before the earthquake, fire and dynamite. Courage conquers. We are proud of the American spirit which arises above all difficulties. ”

“ It has long been a question in San Francisco what should be done with Chinatown, and moving the Chinese in the direction of Colma has been agitated. Now they are without homes and without prospects of procuring any. They can get no land. The limits of Oakland’s Chinatown have already been extended, and the strictest police regulations are in force to prevent further enlargement. On this side of the bay they are camping in open lots. Unless the government undertakes their relief, they are in grave danger. Those who have money cannot purchase property, as no one will sell to them. ”

“ Outside of the city, at Burlingame, there was a fine country club centering a region of country estates which stretched out to Menlo Park. This club had a good polo team, which played every year with teams of Englishmen from southern California and even with teams from Honolulu.
The foreign quarters are worth an article in themselves. Chief of these was, of course, Chinatown, of which every one has heard who ever heard of San Francisco. A district six blocks long and two blocks wide, housed 30,000 Chinese when the quarter was full. The dwellings were old business blocks of the early days ”

“ But I wonder San Francisco does not build a Chinatown, somewhere in the breezy suburbs, and lay a tramway to it for the use of the Chinamen, and then insist upon its sanitary regulations being properly observed. San Francisco would be rather surprised at the result. For the settlements of the Chinese are very neat and cleanly in appearance, and the people are very fond of curious gardening and house-ornamentation. ”

“ Some there are who still cling to their old superstitions, but they are few. The march of commerce levels all prejudices, and the telephone is an established fact in Chinatown. They have their own exchange, a small building built in Chinese style, and their own operators. Even the San Francisco telephone book has one section devoted to them, and printed in Chinese characters. And so civilization goes marching on, the old order changeth, and even the Chinaman must of necessity conform to our ways. ”