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Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous With American History
“An ingenious and absorbing book…It will permanently change the way we tell this troubled yet gripping story.” —Jonathan Spence
Hailed as “irrepressibly spirited and entertaining” (Pico Iyer, Time) and “a fascinating cultural survey” (Paul Devlin, Daily Beast), this provocative first biography of Charlie Chan presents American history in a way that it has never been told before. Yunte Huang ingeniously traces Charlie Chan from his real beginnings as a bullwhip-wielding detective in territorial Hawaii to his reinvention as a literary sleuth and Hollywood film icon. Huang finally resurrects the “honorable detective” from the graveyard of detested postmodern symbols and reclaims him as the embodiment of America’s rich cultural diversity. The result is one of the most critically acclaimed books of the year and a “deeply personal . . . voyage into racial stereotyping and the humanizing force of story telling” (Donna Seaman, Los Angeles Times).
Shortlisted for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography and the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Book.
Hailed as “irrepressibly spirited and entertaining” (Pico Iyer, Time) and “a fascinating cultural survey” (Paul Devlin, Daily Beast), this provocative first biography of Charlie Chan presents American history in a way that it has never been told before. Yunte Huang ingeniously traces Charlie Chan from his real beginnings as a bullwhip-wielding detective in territorial Hawaii to his reinvention as a literary sleuth and Hollywood film icon. Huang finally resurrects the “honorable detective” from the graveyard of detested postmodern symbols and reclaims him as the embodiment of America’s rich cultural diversity. The result is one of the most critically acclaimed books of the year and a “deeply personal . . . voyage into racial stereotyping and the humanizing force of story telling” (Donna Seaman, Los Angeles Times).
Shortlisted for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography and the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Book.
354 pages, Hardcover
First published August 30, 2010
54 people are currently reading
758 people want to read
About the author
Yunte Huang
10 books70 followersYunte Huang a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of Transpacific Imaginations and Charlie Chan. Born in China, he lives in Santa Barbara, California.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews
October 24, 2019
I bet there are some of us out there who remember watching the old black and white films on tv featuring Chinese detective Charlie Chan on week-end nights when our parents allowed us to stay up late. The books and the films were the stuff of 1930-1940 mystery and were favorites with the public. But who was Charlie Chan?
The author was fascinated by the Chan series and was convinced that Earl Derr Biggers based his character on an actual person......and he was right. Years of research and study revealed that indeed there was a real Charlie Chan....his name was Chang Apana and he was the only Chinese member of the Hawaiian police force. It must be remembered that racism was rampant during the early part of the 20th century (even in Hawaii) and the Chinese were pretty much on the bottom rung of society. But Chang's bravery and intelligence caught the attention of the authorities and he became one of the most famous of the detectives in the islands. But here, his similarities to the fictional Charlie Chan ended......Chang was five feet tall and carried a bullwhip! Nor did he spout Confucius aphorism like his fictional other. But the author, Diggers, was impressed after meeting Chang and decided to use his basic story for this character.
Even if you are not a fan of Charlie Chan, this biography is worthwhile reading. It is an interesting look at Hawaii during the early-20th century, the social structure, and the effects of racism on the people. It is a biography as well as a social study of the times. Recommended.
The author was fascinated by the Chan series and was convinced that Earl Derr Biggers based his character on an actual person......and he was right. Years of research and study revealed that indeed there was a real Charlie Chan....his name was Chang Apana and he was the only Chinese member of the Hawaiian police force. It must be remembered that racism was rampant during the early part of the 20th century (even in Hawaii) and the Chinese were pretty much on the bottom rung of society. But Chang's bravery and intelligence caught the attention of the authorities and he became one of the most famous of the detectives in the islands. But here, his similarities to the fictional Charlie Chan ended......Chang was five feet tall and carried a bullwhip! Nor did he spout Confucius aphorism like his fictional other. But the author, Diggers, was impressed after meeting Chang and decided to use his basic story for this character.
Even if you are not a fan of Charlie Chan, this biography is worthwhile reading. It is an interesting look at Hawaii during the early-20th century, the social structure, and the effects of racism on the people. It is a biography as well as a social study of the times. Recommended.
September 18, 2025
I found this to be a fascinating story--about the "real" Charlie Chan, Chinese- Hawaiian detective Chang Apana. A fearless man, standing only five feet tall, he became a legend in Honolulu. And he was the inspiration for the fictional Chinese detective "Charlie Chan," created by an Ohioan named Earl Derr Biggers. Indeed, Apana would come to be called "Charlie Chan"--and he was proud to be identified with the famous fictional character. For me, the best part of the book was about Chang Apana, and Huang shows the strong racism against Asians in Hawaii ( and America ) as the backdrop to Apana's life. However, I also found it fascinating that Biggers --who knew next to nothing about China and the Chinese--was able to create a fictional Chinese character who became so popular in both books and film.
Huang, the author, is a native-born southern Chinese who became a professor of English (at UC, Santa Barbara), and relates his own story about his growing interest in Charlie Chan. He follows the trail of Chan, taking him to Ohio, Hawaii, and Shanghai. While the author's part in his story seemed to detract from the main story concerning Apana, Chan, and Biggers, it reminded me of Bill Bryson or Tony Horwitz ( "Confederates in the Attic"), who are two authors I enjoy very much..
While Charlie Chan is now seen as a stereotyping of Asians-and an example of "yellowface," as the Chinese detective was mainly portrayed by Caucasians, Huang sees the positive side of Charlie Chan, as, after all, Charlie Chan was one of the first and most famous Asian heroes in books and film for Americans.
Huang, the author, is a native-born southern Chinese who became a professor of English (at UC, Santa Barbara), and relates his own story about his growing interest in Charlie Chan. He follows the trail of Chan, taking him to Ohio, Hawaii, and Shanghai. While the author's part in his story seemed to detract from the main story concerning Apana, Chan, and Biggers, it reminded me of Bill Bryson or Tony Horwitz ( "Confederates in the Attic"), who are two authors I enjoy very much..
While Charlie Chan is now seen as a stereotyping of Asians-and an example of "yellowface," as the Chinese detective was mainly portrayed by Caucasians, Huang sees the positive side of Charlie Chan, as, after all, Charlie Chan was one of the first and most famous Asian heroes in books and film for Americans.
May 21, 2017
In 350 odd pages for less than 12 bucks - you will get: a biography of the real Charlie Chan; the biography of the man who wrote the legendary Charlie Chan books; some of the filmography of the Charlie Chan actors and flicks plus more. The author is a Chinese born - American citizen, Ph. D. English professor and expert on subjects transpacific. The writing is breezy, easy to read and neither too scholarly (good!) nor too tightly edited (maybe not so good).
The real Charlie Chan was a Chinese peasant born self - made man. His real name: Chang Apana. Chang began as a cowboy on a Hawaiian ranch and in steps earned his way from: Animal Control Officer (first in Hawaii) to a highly respected police detective. He achieved all of this at a time and in a place where his race would be held against him. His police work would routinely be more dangerous than his self-made, preferred side arm: a bull whip.
Earl Biggers was a competent mystery writer from the east coast of the US. On a visit to Hawaii, he would get to know about Chang Apana and build from this real person, one of the few ethic mystery detectives to become famous in the west. Biggers' Charlie Chan would be the wizened solver of crimes and source of "Confucian" aphorisms in 6 Biggers' books and more than 50 Movies.
In fleshing out the histories of these two men, Yunte Huang will tells us about his personal climb from Chinese poverty to the position of respected American Scholar and his travels to locate information on the several threads of this book. He will also give us his take, as a spokesman for Asians, on the problems of racism and stereotyping related to the continued popularity of the Charlie Chan character. This last point is worthy of its own study. However, this study like my abbreviated summary will not be as interesting as this book.
Chang Apena is a fascinating person. I would have liked to know more about him.
The tale of Biggers is about right in terms of detail and depth. There is perhaps too much on the Charlie Chan films. Then again, it is possible that the movies connect most people to Charlie Chan.
Besides, where else will you learn that the secret to speaking in the pigeon English that the directors wanted for Chan; was to be half drunk?
Professor Yunte Huang has a breezy, easy to read style. He is not tied to a tightly written narrative style. This can make the text more personal, but can also produce padding. He has a passion for his topic. The result is something like fan boy scholarship. The payoff is that you won't feel like you are being dragged through a college lecture.
Charlie Chan is designed to be light reading. This many layered biography is true to that model and therefore fun to read.
The real Charlie Chan was a Chinese peasant born self - made man. His real name: Chang Apana. Chang began as a cowboy on a Hawaiian ranch and in steps earned his way from: Animal Control Officer (first in Hawaii) to a highly respected police detective. He achieved all of this at a time and in a place where his race would be held against him. His police work would routinely be more dangerous than his self-made, preferred side arm: a bull whip.
Earl Biggers was a competent mystery writer from the east coast of the US. On a visit to Hawaii, he would get to know about Chang Apana and build from this real person, one of the few ethic mystery detectives to become famous in the west. Biggers' Charlie Chan would be the wizened solver of crimes and source of "Confucian" aphorisms in 6 Biggers' books and more than 50 Movies.
In fleshing out the histories of these two men, Yunte Huang will tells us about his personal climb from Chinese poverty to the position of respected American Scholar and his travels to locate information on the several threads of this book. He will also give us his take, as a spokesman for Asians, on the problems of racism and stereotyping related to the continued popularity of the Charlie Chan character. This last point is worthy of its own study. However, this study like my abbreviated summary will not be as interesting as this book.
Chang Apena is a fascinating person. I would have liked to know more about him.
The tale of Biggers is about right in terms of detail and depth. There is perhaps too much on the Charlie Chan films. Then again, it is possible that the movies connect most people to Charlie Chan.
Besides, where else will you learn that the secret to speaking in the pigeon English that the directors wanted for Chan; was to be half drunk?
Professor Yunte Huang has a breezy, easy to read style. He is not tied to a tightly written narrative style. This can make the text more personal, but can also produce padding. He has a passion for his topic. The result is something like fan boy scholarship. The payoff is that you won't feel like you are being dragged through a college lecture.
Charlie Chan is designed to be light reading. This many layered biography is true to that model and therefore fun to read.
June 1, 2025
This month was ANHPI month. This was my first read to challenge myself to read outside of my comfort zone this month.
This story told the dual story of the life of Chang Apana, the real-life Charlie Chan who formed the basis of books, written by a white man in the Mid-West with no real interest in getting the facts straight. These books were soon made into movies by producers eager to capitalize on the success of the books, who saw no problems with hiring white actors adorning yellowface and no interest in hiring Asian actors.
I got to learn a lot about the relationship between the Chinese and the Hawaiians and the history of Hawaii in it's "wild west" days starting out before it was claimed as a state by the U.S. rather than merely a territory.
This book tells how the character of Charlie Chang was viewed across the U.S. vs. China, how whites vs. Asians saw him, and how people's viewpoint about Charlie have changed over time. In the early 20th century, China banned many of America's films depictions of the Chines because of their negative portrayals. Yet they embraced the Charlie Chan series because they viewed it as the first positive depiction of a Chinese character. "Not only Chan, in the eyes of the Chinese, a sea change from the master Fu Manchu stereotypes in earlier movies, but also, as a Chinese hero he appeared at a time when China was looked down upon by Western powers." Today, many of Chan's detractors have "regarded Chan as no more than a 'personality reduced to a Chinese takeout menu," a Yellow Uncle Tom."
My only complaint was that I wished Chang Apana had a larger role in this story but I understand why he didn't.
This book was a fascinating glimpse into the past with no black and white answers.
This story told the dual story of the life of Chang Apana, the real-life Charlie Chan who formed the basis of books, written by a white man in the Mid-West with no real interest in getting the facts straight. These books were soon made into movies by producers eager to capitalize on the success of the books, who saw no problems with hiring white actors adorning yellowface and no interest in hiring Asian actors.
I got to learn a lot about the relationship between the Chinese and the Hawaiians and the history of Hawaii in it's "wild west" days starting out before it was claimed as a state by the U.S. rather than merely a territory.
This book tells how the character of Charlie Chang was viewed across the U.S. vs. China, how whites vs. Asians saw him, and how people's viewpoint about Charlie have changed over time. In the early 20th century, China banned many of America's films depictions of the Chines because of their negative portrayals. Yet they embraced the Charlie Chan series because they viewed it as the first positive depiction of a Chinese character. "Not only Chan, in the eyes of the Chinese, a sea change from the master Fu Manchu stereotypes in earlier movies, but also, as a Chinese hero he appeared at a time when China was looked down upon by Western powers." Today, many of Chan's detractors have "regarded Chan as no more than a 'personality reduced to a Chinese takeout menu," a Yellow Uncle Tom."
My only complaint was that I wished Chang Apana had a larger role in this story but I understand why he didn't.
This book was a fascinating glimpse into the past with no black and white answers.
January 30, 2012
p.296 ...his name in Chinese, (Zheng Ping in Mandarin or Chang Pung in the Cantonese pronunciation). For a long time, I had wondered what kind of name “Apana” was. Now I can be certain that “Apana” is a Polynesian variation of the Cantonese “Pung.” The first A derives from the Chinese custom of adding “Ah” to a given name as a casual way of addressing someone. The last A is a Polynesian addition, because in that langauge, as Herman Melville reminded us in his first book, Typee, all words end with a vowel.
...In Chinese, Ping means “peace, equilibrium,”
Visiting the library, as I could not fathom this book under APANA, I asked the desk for help, "I didn't see this book on the shelf." She did. The title is bold and red. Not quite a misdirect for Yunte Huang does write of Chan and aphorisms and Earl Derr Biggers and Warner Oland as method actor and Hawaii's history. Nothing in the description nor the jacket indicates Chang Apana, a paniolo, a cook, first Humane Society officer and HPD detective. "Action speak louder than French." (Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo) And here Yunte Huang (or Publisher) advertises Charlie Chan, because it is the best bait. With a semi-colon title this long, I would add "and Chang Apana." Also, Charlie Chan and Warner Oland Rendezvous With China.
...In Chinese, Ping means “peace, equilibrium,”
Visiting the library, as I could not fathom this book under APANA, I asked the desk for help, "I didn't see this book on the shelf." She did. The title is bold and red. Not quite a misdirect for Yunte Huang does write of Chan and aphorisms and Earl Derr Biggers and Warner Oland as method actor and Hawaii's history. Nothing in the description nor the jacket indicates Chang Apana, a paniolo, a cook, first Humane Society officer and HPD detective. "Action speak louder than French." (Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo) And here Yunte Huang (or Publisher) advertises Charlie Chan, because it is the best bait. With a semi-colon title this long, I would add "and Chang Apana." Also, Charlie Chan and Warner Oland Rendezvous With China.
June 21, 2011
Written by a naturalized Chinese American, this fascinating book tells the story of the real Chinese detective who worked for the Honolulu Police--as well as the development of the famed detective created by Earl Derr Biggs. The surprising conclusion the author comes to--while giving all sides a fresh hearing--is that Charlie Chan is not the racist figure he's cracked up to be. Instead, he is a canny and wise man, often offended by the racism of his times, who never lets the white man's world cloud his vision. Love or hate the Chan, you have to read this book.
February 28, 2025
The book is a biography of both of author Earl Derr Biggers and Chang Apna, the real life Hawaiian police officer on whom Charlie Chan is based on. The author goes onto discuss the role the character of Charlie Chan played/plays in American culture.
August 3, 2011
Boy, am I ever fatigued by publishing hype. Granted, an examination of the Charlie Chan phenomenon certainly sounded like a great concept, and it’s buttressed by an attractive book cover and catchy subtitle, “The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History.” Who can resist a “rendezvous with American history?” Well, not me.
Alas, from the first pages, I detected the whiff of a reworked doctoral thesis -- and, in fact, at the end of the book the author reveals that a chapter of his doctoral dissertation was devoted to Charlie Chan. It figures.
Huang’s defense of Charlie Chan would have made an interesting and spirited essay, and in fact I found his last chapter, which is the most germane, to contain some ideas I very much enjoyed reading and completely agree with:
“…it is certainly true that there are stereotypical aspects of Charlie Chan that smack of racial parody and mockery. After all, he is a product of his time, born in the nativist era of the 1920s and rising to stardom before the civil rights movement attempted to raise America’s consciousness. But if every time we smelled the odor of racism in arts and literature we went out and rallied in the street, then we probably would have killed off everything from jazz to hip-hop, from George Carlin to Jerry Seinfield. Out of the crucible we call art, there is rarely if ever what might be described as good clean fun.” [emphasis mine]
Hear, hear!
Unfortunately, as so many with book contracts under their belts seem to do these days, Huang takes an idea, spins it out and pads it until – voilá! – it’s a book. No subject however peripheral to Charlie Chan/Chang Apana goes unexamined. Reading, for example, that Charlie Chan author Earl Derr Biggers checks into the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on his visit to Honolulu, I brace myself. Sure enough, the author launches into a digression about the hotel and its history. A few pages later on, the reader is treated to a similar description of movie palaces, most notably Grauman’s Chinese Theater. If this in any way advanced the ideas of the book, I wouldn’t mind, but in most cases it seems to be whatever caught Huang's magpie attention.
In short, this book is all over the place. It can’t, alas, simultaneously be a biography of Chang Apana, Earl Derr Biggers, and all the various actors that played Charlie Chan and an examination of American racial attitudes, particularly towards Chinese and an examination of popular culture and -- what the heck – an account of the author’s personal odyssey. But boy does it ever try, throwing just about everything into the pot.
I read along gamely, though, as I’m interested in Hawaii and the idea of super detectives, among other things. I had mentally given this book three stars until I hit the chapter entitled “The Fu Manchurian Candidate,” which conflates Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, the film “The Manchurian Candidate” and all sorts of “yellow peril” alarmist ideas that sprang out of the 50’s and 60’s.
This chapter stretched the whole silly notion of “C” (for Chinese) words and other peripheral references to anything Chinese into an inflated notion of oriental menace. The idea of brain-washing, in particular, is noted as a central feature of this menace.
However, as even a casual reader of pulp fiction is well aware, this is a stock feature not just of 1950’s American paranoia, but harkens back to 19th century sensational writers. Glancing over at my shelves, I spy several novels featuring the insidious Dr. Nikola written by Australian author Guy Boothby in the late 19th century. The evil and hypnosis-inducing doctor seeks occult secrets of immortality in China and plots world domination. Sound familiar? What of Richard Marsh’s The Beetle or another Boothby novel Pharos the Egyptian? Here the oriental menaces are of a distinctly ancient Egyptian cast. Or, heck, why not cast the net further and draw in Count Dracula? Surely Transylvania is close enough to Russia to be tainted with Orientalism, and the archetypal vampire's repertoire also includes the ability to hypnotically bend humans to his will.
My point here is that with this sort of analysis, there is virtually limitless scope. Take a concept. Any concept. Start to pull in things that remind you of other things. String it all together. Is this a meaningful analysis? I don’t think so.
Two and a half stars, then – three for the concept and two for the execution.
Alas, from the first pages, I detected the whiff of a reworked doctoral thesis -- and, in fact, at the end of the book the author reveals that a chapter of his doctoral dissertation was devoted to Charlie Chan. It figures.
Huang’s defense of Charlie Chan would have made an interesting and spirited essay, and in fact I found his last chapter, which is the most germane, to contain some ideas I very much enjoyed reading and completely agree with:
“…it is certainly true that there are stereotypical aspects of Charlie Chan that smack of racial parody and mockery. After all, he is a product of his time, born in the nativist era of the 1920s and rising to stardom before the civil rights movement attempted to raise America’s consciousness. But if every time we smelled the odor of racism in arts and literature we went out and rallied in the street, then we probably would have killed off everything from jazz to hip-hop, from George Carlin to Jerry Seinfield. Out of the crucible we call art, there is rarely if ever what might be described as good clean fun.” [emphasis mine]
Hear, hear!
Unfortunately, as so many with book contracts under their belts seem to do these days, Huang takes an idea, spins it out and pads it until – voilá! – it’s a book. No subject however peripheral to Charlie Chan/Chang Apana goes unexamined. Reading, for example, that Charlie Chan author Earl Derr Biggers checks into the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on his visit to Honolulu, I brace myself. Sure enough, the author launches into a digression about the hotel and its history. A few pages later on, the reader is treated to a similar description of movie palaces, most notably Grauman’s Chinese Theater. If this in any way advanced the ideas of the book, I wouldn’t mind, but in most cases it seems to be whatever caught Huang's magpie attention.
In short, this book is all over the place. It can’t, alas, simultaneously be a biography of Chang Apana, Earl Derr Biggers, and all the various actors that played Charlie Chan and an examination of American racial attitudes, particularly towards Chinese and an examination of popular culture and -- what the heck – an account of the author’s personal odyssey. But boy does it ever try, throwing just about everything into the pot.
I read along gamely, though, as I’m interested in Hawaii and the idea of super detectives, among other things. I had mentally given this book three stars until I hit the chapter entitled “The Fu Manchurian Candidate,” which conflates Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, the film “The Manchurian Candidate” and all sorts of “yellow peril” alarmist ideas that sprang out of the 50’s and 60’s.
This chapter stretched the whole silly notion of “C” (for Chinese) words and other peripheral references to anything Chinese into an inflated notion of oriental menace. The idea of brain-washing, in particular, is noted as a central feature of this menace.
However, as even a casual reader of pulp fiction is well aware, this is a stock feature not just of 1950’s American paranoia, but harkens back to 19th century sensational writers. Glancing over at my shelves, I spy several novels featuring the insidious Dr. Nikola written by Australian author Guy Boothby in the late 19th century. The evil and hypnosis-inducing doctor seeks occult secrets of immortality in China and plots world domination. Sound familiar? What of Richard Marsh’s The Beetle or another Boothby novel Pharos the Egyptian? Here the oriental menaces are of a distinctly ancient Egyptian cast. Or, heck, why not cast the net further and draw in Count Dracula? Surely Transylvania is close enough to Russia to be tainted with Orientalism, and the archetypal vampire's repertoire also includes the ability to hypnotically bend humans to his will.
My point here is that with this sort of analysis, there is virtually limitless scope. Take a concept. Any concept. Start to pull in things that remind you of other things. String it all together. Is this a meaningful analysis? I don’t think so.
Two and a half stars, then – three for the concept and two for the execution.
June 15, 2018
Wow, it is not often that you can say the person who inspired a character is WAY more impressive than the character himself, but that is the case here. Chang Apana seems like a fictional character, with his bullwhip reminiscent of Indiana Jones, his integrity, and his frankly astonishing time on the police force it is difficult to believe that such a man existed. Yet, he did.
Okay, I really enjoy history but most history books are hard for me to read because there isn't much of a story. Yunte Huang made history interesting and relatable by directly connecting it to the life of the impressive Chinese-American detective. I learned about Chinese immigration, Hawaiian history, the early Hawaiian police force, and multiple elements of societal nuances of the time.
If anything, the biggest problem with the book is that Chang Apana is so impressive that the information about Charlie Chan was slightly uninteresting in comparison (I just kept wanting to go back to Chang Apana).
As for the part about Charlie Chan, I have a confession. While I enjoy 1930s and 40s radio shows, I've always shied away from Charlie Chan. I didn't think I would enjoy it because I was sure it would be inadvertently racist (despite the part of me that wanted to look at it for diversity's sake because it was one of the earliest examples of 'positive' representation in pop culture). After reading this book, I had to question, is Charlie Chan offensive or subversive? Really? I think the answer is both. The author just presents the facts, he himself clearly has a fondness for Charlie Chan but plainly presents the faults and problems with the character. I may give Charlie Chan a chance the next time I need an old radio show, with the knowledge I've gain from this book, maybe I'll be able to contextualize it better.
WHY HASN'T ANYONE MADE A CHANG APANA MOVIE?!
Okay, I really enjoy history but most history books are hard for me to read because there isn't much of a story. Yunte Huang made history interesting and relatable by directly connecting it to the life of the impressive Chinese-American detective. I learned about Chinese immigration, Hawaiian history, the early Hawaiian police force, and multiple elements of societal nuances of the time.
If anything, the biggest problem with the book is that Chang Apana is so impressive that the information about Charlie Chan was slightly uninteresting in comparison (I just kept wanting to go back to Chang Apana).
As for the part about Charlie Chan, I have a confession. While I enjoy 1930s and 40s radio shows, I've always shied away from Charlie Chan. I didn't think I would enjoy it because I was sure it would be inadvertently racist (despite the part of me that wanted to look at it for diversity's sake because it was one of the earliest examples of 'positive' representation in pop culture). After reading this book, I had to question, is Charlie Chan offensive or subversive? Really? I think the answer is both. The author just presents the facts, he himself clearly has a fondness for Charlie Chan but plainly presents the faults and problems with the character. I may give Charlie Chan a chance the next time I need an old radio show, with the knowledge I've gain from this book, maybe I'll be able to contextualize it better.
WHY HASN'T ANYONE MADE A CHANG APANA MOVIE?!
November 4, 2014
Thorough to a fault, this book will tell you everything you could ever want to know (and more) about the honorable detective, Charlie Chan: his real-life origins, his literary adventures, his prolific success in Hollywood, the racial controversies he engendered, and the social context underpinning all of the above. Some people will find the extent of Yunte Huang's research rather excessive, but lovers of history are unlikely to mind all the various tangents and rabbit trails that the book explores. Thankfully, Huang is the kind of writer who can make just about any topic interesting, and the only parts of the book that I found dull were the two or three chapters in which he attempts to follow in the footsteps, geographically speaking, of Charlie Chan's creators.
This book casts a very wide net, and you couldn't ask for a more detailed or astute examination of a fictional character. It's so good, in fact, that you don't even need to know a thing about Charlie Chan in order to enjoy it (I speak from personal experience here). Yunte Huang also does an admirable job of discussing the reasons why some people see Mr. Chan as an offensive racial stereotype, and why the character's legacy has lost much of its luster in recent years. Yet, Mr. Huang also recognizes the positive impact Charlie Chan has had on American culture, and he admirably refuses to throw Chan under the bus simply to appease the god of political correctness.
This book casts a very wide net, and you couldn't ask for a more detailed or astute examination of a fictional character. It's so good, in fact, that you don't even need to know a thing about Charlie Chan in order to enjoy it (I speak from personal experience here). Yunte Huang also does an admirable job of discussing the reasons why some people see Mr. Chan as an offensive racial stereotype, and why the character's legacy has lost much of its luster in recent years. Yet, Mr. Huang also recognizes the positive impact Charlie Chan has had on American culture, and he admirably refuses to throw Chan under the bus simply to appease the god of political correctness.
July 28, 2015
Well-written and wide-ranging discussion of all things Charlie Chan. I especially appreciated the author's sense of humor, and his willingness to allow his audience to enjoy the Chan character's wit without denying the racism behind his creation.
When some people complain about Charlie Chan’s deferential docility, especially in the presence of white men, they have simply underestimated the real strength of his character. Chan is a peculiar American brand of trickster prevalent in ethnic literature and incarnated by Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Herman Melville’s Confidence Man (curiously named China Aster). It is a brand that also included Jim Crow, the Bunker brothers, Al Jolson’s Jazz Singer, and Stepin Fetchit and his numerous step-chillun. All these characters are indeed rooted in the toxic soil of racism but racism has made their tongues only sharper, their art more lethally potent. Whether it’s a jazzy tune coming from the lips of a blackface Jew or a yellow lie told by a ventriloquist Swede [i.e., Werner Oland, the Swedish actor who played Chan in the best-known films], the resilient artistic flower has blossomed in spite of as well as because of racism. This undeniable fact, insulting and sobering, has uniquely defined America.Not only is Huang's book relevant to Charlie Hebdo debate, but it serves as an antidote to all the humorless readings of cultural symbols that are reductionist and literal-minded.
December 18, 2011
Another "best-seller" that always verges on being Interesting.
The Chinese-b. author, now a US professor, comingles his personal
odyssey with that of Chang Apana, the #1 Law & Order man (also
Chinese) who tackled opium gangs, gambling dens and assorted
thugs in Hawaii in the early 20thC. Costarring is Earl Derr
Biggers, the American who created the iconic Charlie Chan.
Biggers, who grew up in Ohio, began writing stories when weekly
zines w fiction flooded the US. He visited Hawaii once, then
allegedly read about Apana in a news clip at the NYPL. His
first Chan mystery appeared in 1925. Chan's pidgen English and
fortune cookie lingo made him an instant hit.
Giving this slight triangle weight is its history of Chinese
immigration - once called America's "Chinese Problem" - along
with accounts of ethnic violence and bias. Who knew that yonks
ago Hawaii had a health issue: leprosy. (Think about that the
next time you sniff a leis). Legal mouth Clarence Darrow stumped
his last court drama there -- and lost in 1932. (the Thomas Massie
case). Darrow was on the wrong side.
The author explores these digressions because, frankly, he has
scant material on his "stars." So there's a lot of padding. His
visits to the homes of Biggers & Apana are just blather. He juggles
a plethora of facts and his researcher lets him down, kerplunk.
He pulls in "The Manchurian Candidate" (for no reason), mentions
the actors and leaves out Laurence Harvey who played IT. As Chan
once said: "Wrong pew, perhaps, but maybe correct church."
The Chinese-b. author, now a US professor, comingles his personal
odyssey with that of Chang Apana, the #1 Law & Order man (also
Chinese) who tackled opium gangs, gambling dens and assorted
thugs in Hawaii in the early 20thC. Costarring is Earl Derr
Biggers, the American who created the iconic Charlie Chan.
Biggers, who grew up in Ohio, began writing stories when weekly
zines w fiction flooded the US. He visited Hawaii once, then
allegedly read about Apana in a news clip at the NYPL. His
first Chan mystery appeared in 1925. Chan's pidgen English and
fortune cookie lingo made him an instant hit.
Giving this slight triangle weight is its history of Chinese
immigration - once called America's "Chinese Problem" - along
with accounts of ethnic violence and bias. Who knew that yonks
ago Hawaii had a health issue: leprosy. (Think about that the
next time you sniff a leis). Legal mouth Clarence Darrow stumped
his last court drama there -- and lost in 1932. (the Thomas Massie
case). Darrow was on the wrong side.
The author explores these digressions because, frankly, he has
scant material on his "stars." So there's a lot of padding. His
visits to the homes of Biggers & Apana are just blather. He juggles
a plethora of facts and his researcher lets him down, kerplunk.
He pulls in "The Manchurian Candidate" (for no reason), mentions
the actors and leaves out Laurence Harvey who played IT. As Chan
once said: "Wrong pew, perhaps, but maybe correct church."
January 15, 2011
This is immensely readable and the material is fascinating. I knew about Chang Apana because he appeared in a novel I'd read last year--Honolulu, I think--but Huang fleshed him out more fully,and the material about Biggers and about the movies was terrific.
The problem with this--and the reason I am giving it 3 rather than 4 (think about 3.75) is that in his eagerness to fully cover his multiple topics, Huang meanders over everything from his relationship with his own child to conditions in 19th century China and it becomes distracting. Still, a fascinating piece of work with a lot to think about in terms of the Asian American experience, and a portrait of a man whose life was even more interesting than the character he inspired.
The problem with this--and the reason I am giving it 3 rather than 4 (think about 3.75) is that in his eagerness to fully cover his multiple topics, Huang meanders over everything from his relationship with his own child to conditions in 19th century China and it becomes distracting. Still, a fascinating piece of work with a lot to think about in terms of the Asian American experience, and a portrait of a man whose life was even more interesting than the character he inspired.
October 11, 2012
I did not finish this book. Yunte Huang never quite settled on a consistent tone; it was drier than a popular history should be, but insufficiently scholarly to be an academic book. And for an academic book, he broke the fundamental rule of not intruding on the story by deliberately making himself a part of the story. This attempt to straddle two audiences led to some issues, namely it is never quite clear what this book is really about. It wandered away from its stated purpose quite quickly.
December 4, 2010
Huang's is a balanced examination of the history of Charlie Chan, his creator and the original detective which inspired him. Somewhat disjointed at times because of the author's attempt to cover all three subjects, it is still an enjoyable read. He shows why he thinks a knee-jerk rejection of Chan as a racist creation gives short shrift to his cleverness and capability.
October 11, 2017
The author of this book is a professor of English, which is ironic; his text is badly in need of a good editor. I bet if one of his students put this much padding into a term paper, he'd fail them. The title suggests a biography of the fictional detective, and/or the real-life police officer who inspired the stories. Well, it is, and it isn't--but mostly it isn't. It's mostly about "ME and Charlie Chan"--the author's love affair with the books, the movies and the concept (especially the concept) of a strong, wise Asian American hero that goes one better than the entire police force in every case. In that sense, I was strongly reminded of The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and 1930s America, which purports to be about Shirley Temple and mostly isn't. Digressions abound; a good 100 pages could have been cut to the immeasurable improvement of the final product.
The author's much-discussed research seems to have let him down. How could a native speaker of Chinese, with a PhD in English, not acknowledge the immense semantic differences between the two languages, and the consequent difficulties an uneducated speaker would have learning one or the other? (I'm a translator myself, and I know fine and well Chinese is beyond me--I couldn't even manage Russian.) We are repeatedly told that Chang Apana was illiterate, in the sense of being unable to either read nor write in either Chinese or English--so how could he "autograph" Charlie Chan novels for the tourists? The author speaks of the Ku Klux Klan as being "long defunct" in 1915; this only goes to show how lopsided all that historical research was! If he truly believes that, he obviously didn't consult any African American sources, of which there are many. The author refers to one of the earliest Charlie Chan novels by the mistaken title "Behind the Curtain" on the page where the cover is reproduced. Anyone who gives the photo half a glance will see that the real title isBehind That Curtain Ouch. The author speaks of anyone born after 1964 as a member of Generation X, a term which wasn't even invented until the 90s and at that time referred to the children born in the 1980s. I remember when Charlie Chan and the Chan Clan came out in about 1972, and we certainly weren't GenXers then! We won't even discuss the author's inclusion of one of his own poems (and a plug for the book it comes from), a propos of absolutely nothing.
Now let us turn to the writing itself. Oh dear oh my. English is the author's second language; very good. But where were the proofreaders/editors? Prophecy is a noun. Prophesy is a verb. They are spelled differently, pronounced differently, and have different meanings. Neither the author nor his proofreaders seem to be aware of that. He says at one point that someone "was frank to admit" how he obtained a job. Whatever happened to the adverb "frankly"? Or even "openly"?
And then there are the similies. The text is larded with the most far-fetched, painful examples I've run into since I trudged through Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha. A gambling den is described as being "as empty as a last-year's bird's nest." "The last rays of the sun burned the edges of the clouds as hot as prairie fire. Over the western horizons the sun hung like a Chinese lantern about to be extinguished." (Oh really? My first question, as an English literature tutor, would be: "Does a Chinese lantern hang differently when it's about to be extinguished?") Even in the last chapter of the book we are not set free of horrendous similies. There, we are told in the search for Apana's grave that the number 8 was "like a broken 8-ball that could tell no fortune."Now, I know the number 8 is auspicious to many Asian people, but I was unaware until now that it went around telling people's fortunes. In an attempt to contrast the Chan character with the accepted noir detective, he speaks of "apple pie and a spicy chop suey." Except that chop suey is not real Chinese food (being an adaptation of Chinese cuisine for the American masses) and both Charlie Chan and Chang Apana were Chinese; also, anyone who's ever eaten it knows that chop suey is not spicy!
I had picked this book up out of curiousity, but by the end I was struggling to finish it. Many would not bother, and I couldn't fault them. If the padding had been cut and the writing tightened up, it would have been a sure 4 stars. As it stands, it's a shaky 3.
The author's much-discussed research seems to have let him down. How could a native speaker of Chinese, with a PhD in English, not acknowledge the immense semantic differences between the two languages, and the consequent difficulties an uneducated speaker would have learning one or the other? (I'm a translator myself, and I know fine and well Chinese is beyond me--I couldn't even manage Russian.) We are repeatedly told that Chang Apana was illiterate, in the sense of being unable to either read nor write in either Chinese or English--so how could he "autograph" Charlie Chan novels for the tourists? The author speaks of the Ku Klux Klan as being "long defunct" in 1915; this only goes to show how lopsided all that historical research was! If he truly believes that, he obviously didn't consult any African American sources, of which there are many. The author refers to one of the earliest Charlie Chan novels by the mistaken title "Behind the Curtain" on the page where the cover is reproduced. Anyone who gives the photo half a glance will see that the real title isBehind That Curtain Ouch. The author speaks of anyone born after 1964 as a member of Generation X, a term which wasn't even invented until the 90s and at that time referred to the children born in the 1980s. I remember when Charlie Chan and the Chan Clan came out in about 1972, and we certainly weren't GenXers then! We won't even discuss the author's inclusion of one of his own poems (and a plug for the book it comes from), a propos of absolutely nothing.
Now let us turn to the writing itself. Oh dear oh my. English is the author's second language; very good. But where were the proofreaders/editors? Prophecy is a noun. Prophesy is a verb. They are spelled differently, pronounced differently, and have different meanings. Neither the author nor his proofreaders seem to be aware of that. He says at one point that someone "was frank to admit" how he obtained a job. Whatever happened to the adverb "frankly"? Or even "openly"?
And then there are the similies. The text is larded with the most far-fetched, painful examples I've run into since I trudged through Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha. A gambling den is described as being "as empty as a last-year's bird's nest." "The last rays of the sun burned the edges of the clouds as hot as prairie fire. Over the western horizons the sun hung like a Chinese lantern about to be extinguished." (Oh really? My first question, as an English literature tutor, would be: "Does a Chinese lantern hang differently when it's about to be extinguished?") Even in the last chapter of the book we are not set free of horrendous similies. There, we are told in the search for Apana's grave that the number 8 was "like a broken 8-ball that could tell no fortune."Now, I know the number 8 is auspicious to many Asian people, but I was unaware until now that it went around telling people's fortunes. In an attempt to contrast the Chan character with the accepted noir detective, he speaks of "apple pie and a spicy chop suey." Except that chop suey is not real Chinese food (being an adaptation of Chinese cuisine for the American masses) and both Charlie Chan and Chang Apana were Chinese; also, anyone who's ever eaten it knows that chop suey is not spicy!
I had picked this book up out of curiousity, but by the end I was struggling to finish it. Many would not bother, and I couldn't fault them. If the padding had been cut and the writing tightened up, it would have been a sure 4 stars. As it stands, it's a shaky 3.
April 22, 2020
Ce livre est une biographie en bande dessinée consacrée au plus grand artiste du 9ème art qu’ait connu Singapour, Charlie Chan Hock Chye. Ce grand auteur n’a eu de cesse tout au long de sa carrière de militer pour la liberté de son pays avec comme seules armes ses crayons, ses pinceaux et sa planche à dessin. L’étude de son oeuvre offre un panorama complet de l’histoire contemporaine si mouvementée – et si méconnue, au moins par moi – de son pays. Son travail n’a pourtant été reconnu que sur le tard et cette retrospective rassemblant en un seul volume ses BD et ses illustrations enrichies de récits (reconstitutions) de sa vie arrive à point nommé. Sur le plan graphique et sur celui de la narration c’est un petit chef d’oeuvre alliant originalité et minutie. Le tout est présenté dans un très bel écrin – je n’ai pas pu résister 5 min à l’acheter lorsque je l’ai eu entre les mains, ce fond de matérialisme sera ma perte.
J’ai oublié une chose importante Charlie Chan Hock Chye n’a jamais existé. SONNY LIEW le scénariste et dessinateur a inventé ce personnage de toutes pièces pour s’en servir de fil rouge et retracer du même coup l’histoire de son pays et celle de la bande dessinée. Ce pari très ambitieux – il faut être fou pour se lancer dans un truc pareil – est parfaitement réussi et on ne peut qu’être admiratif devant une telle réalisation. Par certains aspects la minutie avec laquelle cet album a été réalisé me fait penser au travail de CHRIS WARE – un autre fou. On ne peut que s’incliner devant une telle prouesse sur le plan formel. Pourtant, je mentirais en disant que j’ai été passionné par le propos – dommage tout de même. La raison est simple, je ne connais ni ne m’intéresse suffisamment à l’histoire de Singapour pour pleinement en apprécier le fond.
P.-S.: Pour insister sur le fait que l’exercice est périlleux, j’ai le souvenir d’un autre livre qui mettait en scène un auteur fictif et qui m’avait profondément ennuyé, WILLIAM BOYD A livre ouvert.
https://www.aubonroman.com/2019/08/ch...
J’ai oublié une chose importante Charlie Chan Hock Chye n’a jamais existé. SONNY LIEW le scénariste et dessinateur a inventé ce personnage de toutes pièces pour s’en servir de fil rouge et retracer du même coup l’histoire de son pays et celle de la bande dessinée. Ce pari très ambitieux – il faut être fou pour se lancer dans un truc pareil – est parfaitement réussi et on ne peut qu’être admiratif devant une telle réalisation. Par certains aspects la minutie avec laquelle cet album a été réalisé me fait penser au travail de CHRIS WARE – un autre fou. On ne peut que s’incliner devant une telle prouesse sur le plan formel. Pourtant, je mentirais en disant que j’ai été passionné par le propos – dommage tout de même. La raison est simple, je ne connais ni ne m’intéresse suffisamment à l’histoire de Singapour pour pleinement en apprécier le fond.
P.-S.: Pour insister sur le fait que l’exercice est périlleux, j’ai le souvenir d’un autre livre qui mettait en scène un auteur fictif et qui m’avait profondément ennuyé, WILLIAM BOYD A livre ouvert.
https://www.aubonroman.com/2019/08/ch...
June 4, 2020
Grandioses Sachbuch, das sich der Kunstfigur und dem Phänomen Charlie Chan von wirklich allen erdenklichen Seiten nähert. Nicht nur literaturgeschichtlich und filmgeschichtlich, sondern auch eine historisch hochinteressante Monographie, aus welcher ich eine Menge gelernt habe - über Zeiten, Orte und Personen, für die in normalen Geschichtsbüchern kein Platz ist.
Intelligent und eloquent geschrieben, aus der Sicht und dem Blickwinkel eines chinesischen Literaturwissenschaftlers.
Und immer daran denken: Wenn man den Fluss überqueren möchte, sollte man sich mit der Mutter des Krokodils gut stellen!
Intelligent und eloquent geschrieben, aus der Sicht und dem Blickwinkel eines chinesischen Literaturwissenschaftlers.
Und immer daran denken: Wenn man den Fluss überqueren möchte, sollte man sich mit der Mutter des Krokodils gut stellen!
December 7, 2024
Layered study of the Chinese image in the American mind as revealed in a study of Charlie Chan.
November 2, 2019
review of
Yunte Huang's Charlie Chan — The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendezvous with American History
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 6, 2019
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Almost 6 yrs ago now, I made a 30:05 movie called "CHAN(geling)" (on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/XMP8mU1OfSY ). It's a media analysis of yellowface in Warner Oland movies. I made the movie largely b/c I'd enjoyed the Charlie Chan movies when I'd watched them on TV as a kid & I wanted to revisit them as a more racism-aware adult. I didn't make the movie w/ any claim of being an expert on the subject & my main research for it consisted just of watching as many of the Oland Chan movies as I cd get free or cheap. This Huang bk had come out 4 yrs before but I didn't know about it yet. I like CHAN(geling)" as it is, despite at least one major mistake in it, & think it's probably for the best that I hadn't read Huang's bk at the time b/c I might've gotten bogged down in making the movie even more complex than it already is. At any rate, I'm delighted to have read this for the sake of a Chinese-American's take on the subject — one that more or less completely jibed w/ my own.
"So who is Charlie Chan?
"To most Caucasian Americans, he is a funny, beloved, albeit somewhat inscrutable—that last adjective already a bit loaded—character who talks wisely and acts even more wisely. But to many Asian Americans, he remains a pernicious example of a racist stereotype, a Yellow Uncle Tom, if you will; the type of Chinaman, passive and unsavory, who conveys himself in Broken English. In this book, however, I would like to propose a more complicated view. As a ubiquitous cultural icon, whose influence on the twentieth century remains virtually unexamined, Charlie Chan does not yield easily to ideological reduction. "Truth," to quote our honorable detective, "like football—receive many kicks before reaching goal.""
[..]
"It is no coincidence that Stepin Fetchit, the most celebrated black comic actor in the 1930s, and one of the most reviled since the civil rights movement, had also starred in Charlie Chan movies. Fetchit played a lazy, inarticulate, and easily frightened Negro." - p xvi
Ok, being the natural contrarian that I sometimes am, I immediately find myself in a bit of conflict w/ Huang's statement — even though I agree w/ most of it. Who is he, or anyone, to make the claim that "To most Caucasian Americans"? In other words, here we have a bk that's essentially an analysis of racism &, yet, he feels free to stereotype "Caucasian Americans": what's the data to back this claim?
"But the core strength of Chan's character lies in his pseudo-Confucian, aphoristic wisdom. Unlike the Kung Fu movies, which showcase a Chinese penchant for ass-kicking and sword-brandishing, Chan reveals the Chinaman as a sage: a wise, calm, responsible, and commonsensical man who also happens to be a hilarious wisecracker." - p xix
"The Hawaiian Islands, also known as the Sandwich Islands" (p 9) So-called b/c imperialists gobbled them up (JK = Just Kidding).
"Unlike on the U.S. mainland, where the clamor of "The Chinese must go!" was a clarion call for almost all parties in the mid-nineteenth century (more on this point later), the general sentiment in Hawaii was "The Chinese must come!" Economy, as they say, is the king, and several economic factors joined forces to create increasing demands for labor in Hawaii; among them were whaling, the nascent sugar industry, and the ripple effects of the California gold rush." - p 17
Mark Twain, whose work I generally have deep respect for but whose depiction of Native Americans is utterly suspect, is quoted:
"The sugar product is rapidly augmenting every year, and day by day the Kanaka race is passing away. Cheap labor had to be procured by some means or other, and so the Government [of Hawaii] sends to China for coolies and farms them out to the planters at $5 a month for five years, the planter to feed them and furnish them with clothing. The Hawaiian agent fell into the hands of Chinese sharpers, who showed him some superb coolie samples and then loaded his ships with the scurviest lot of pirates that ever went unhung. Some of them were cripples, some were lunatics, some afflicted with incurable diseases, and nearly all were intractable, full of fight, and animated by the spirit of the very devil. However, the planters managed to tone them down and now they like them very well. Their former trade of cutting throats on the China seas has made them uncommonly handy at cutting cane. They are steady, industrious workers when properly watched." - p 19
What's wrong w/ this picture? Plenty. Who're the 'pirates'? The wage slaves or the people paying them?
"The secret, Twain concluded, lay not in the fertile soil or advantageous weather but also "in their cheap Chinese labor." When one company paid only $5 a month for labor that another company had to hire for $80 and $100, there was no question which business would fare better."" - p 20
Twain can be such a disappointment.. & yet..
"The publisher hired Twain, who had only recently lost his newspaper job in Nevada due to his sympathy for Chinese miners, to assess the lay of the land in Hawaii." - p 19
"Only four years after Twain penned these letters, his close friend and collaborator, Bret Harte, would publish "The Heathen Chinese," one of the most popular poems about Chinese to rear its racist head in the nineteenth century. In the poem, white miners lamented, "We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor."" - p 20
I never can understand these idiots!!: Why do they blame the victims instead of the exploiters?! Well, actually, I know why, it's the way of all cowards: side w/ power & hope to benefit.
"Ah Pung, in fact, never learned to read in either Chinese or English, even though later in life he taught himself to read Hawaiian. Toys were rare in a family like his.
"It is worth noting that even a full century later, little has changed. When I was growing up, for example, in a small village in the waning days of Mao's China, my "toys" were mud-pies, tadpoles, ants, fire-flies, grasshoppers, and whatever luckless insects fell into my hands." - p 25
Hence, earning the author the nickname of "Dragon Fly" in the insect underworld. (JK, OK?!, JK!!)
"In such a harsh environment, a child prone to accident and disease would be lucky to grow to maturity. Child kidnapping was a common, daily fear in Ah Pung's day. Occasionally, when a famine broke out, cannibalism might be the last resort for the families on the brink of starving to death; they were forced by necessity to make exchanges with other equally desperate families so they could at least avoid eating their own children or siblings." - p 26
'Do you like breast meat or wings from the little angel?'
That's why cultures all over the world don't want their children to be spoiled — who wants to eat rotten meat?
"In the hierarchical world of late nineteenth-century Hawaii, where the racial pyramid put white plantation owners and missionaries on top," [hence, the "Missionary Position"] "even above the indigenous chiefs and queens, an uneducated man like Chang Apana" [the model for Charlie Chan] "would not have stood a "Chinaman's chance" without luck or help.
"Unlike earlier times, when hospitable Hawaiians would extend alohas and leis to people of all races arriving on their shores, racism became more visible as the haoles became more established in the islands. Steadily and persistently, an elite group of American businessmen and missionaries and their decendents had begun, since the midcentury, to consolidate power. The Provisional Government under their control, while severely corroding the role of native monarchy, had passed laws and implemented policies that all too often became carbon copies of what existed on the racist mainland." - p 38
"Ever since the annexation in 1898, the question of statehood had been in almost every Hawaiian's mind. Territorial status had huge disadvantages. The governor of Hawaii was appointed by the president of the United States. The people of Hawaii could not take part in presidential elections. They could elect a territorial delegate to Congress, but the delegate had no vote in the House of Representatives, Hawaii paid taxes as if it were a state, but it was not entitled to all the federal benefits enjoyed by the states." - p 178
In other words, once the big imperial power successfully invaded Hawaii the people there didn't stand a chance of not being railroaded & their resources exploited.
"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" - Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi (1969) from "Ladies of the Canyon"
On the subject of haoles see this: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/tENTHon... .
"While The Chinese Parrot (1926), the second Charlie Chan novel but the first featuring Chan as the central character, is fictional, there is a striking resemblance between the early life of Chang Apana and the fictional Charlie Chan." - p 41
"Chan's resumé, as described in this novel, closely resembles Apana's career. "Detective-Sergeant Chan, of the Honolulu police," is the way Sally Phillimore introduces him to her friends in San Francisco. "Long ago, in the big house on the beach, he was our number one boy. . . . Charlie left us to join the police force, and he's made a fine record there."" - pp 41-42
"On February 27, 1897, Helen was deputized by the Marshal of the Republic of Hawaii to enforce animal cruelty laws. She now had the legal authority to stop horse owners from beating their animals. Her organization came to the aid of neglected cattle, and it rescued cats and dogs abused by their owners. Helen served without pay, but she and her friends pooled their resources to hire an animal case investigator. That new job went to Chang Apana, the charismatic stableman of Helen's parental home, a former pianola versatile in roping and riding. Thus, the future "Charlie Chan" debuted before the public as the first humane officer in Honolulu." - p 43
What?! Chan(g) was an animal rights terrorist?! No wonder that part didn't make it into the Charlie Chan character.
"The undersigned, sensible of the cruelties inflicted upon dumb animals by thoughtless and inhuman persons, and desirous of suppressing same—alike from considerations affecting the well-being of society as well as mercy to the brute creation—consent to become patrons of a Society having in view the realization of these objects. —Henry Burgh, drafting the first charter for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" - p 44
My own modest contribution to this cause was the founding of the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea-Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers): http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/spcsmef... .
"There is no evidence to suggest that before he wrote the first three Chan novels, including The Chinese Parrot, Earl Biggers had known much about Apana's life. The two would not meet until 1928, but Biggers seemed to have an uncanny ability to imagine the complexity of being a Chinese law enforcer in a multiracial society like Honolulu around the turn of the century." - pp 46-47
I've yet to read one of Biggers' novels, including any of the Chan ones, but I keep looking for them in my favorite used bookstore. After reading Huang's Charlie Chan I'm anticipating liking them. I have read 2 knock-off novels: Michael Avallone's Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) & Robert Hart Davis's Charlie Chan in Walk Softly, Strangler (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... )
"What if one day Hawaii became a state? "How can we endure our shame?," he asked, "when a Chinese Senator from Hawaii, with his pigtail hanging down his back, with his pagan joss in his hand, shall rise from his curule chair and in pidgin English proceed to chop logic with George Frisbie Hoar or Henry Cabot Lodge?"*"
[..]
"* Clark's hypothetical nightmare did, in fact, come true: When Hawaii became the fiftieth state in 1959, "a rabble" of predominantly brown and yellow voters in the islands sent the nation's first Chinese senator, Hiram Fong, to Washington. A self-made millionaire and son of a Chinese immigrant, Senator Fong would take his seat in the Congressional chamber across from Strom Thurmond and James Eastland, two staunch segregationist Dixiecrats." - p 50
On the subject of Strom Thurmond, see my movie entitled "Filibuster" ( https://youtu.be/7iU87E_2Y2s ). Here's a relevant excerpt from the text:
"The following is mostly culled from online sources: Filibusters are interesting. In a filibuster, a senator may continue to speak indefinitely to prevent a final vote on a bill. The longest such filibuster on record is that of Strom Thurmond's. He spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to try to prevent the Civil Rights Act of 1957 from passing. It passed anyway.
"After Thurmond's death, it was discovered that he had an unacknowledged mixed-race daughter named Essie May Washington-Williams whose black mother Carrie Butler had been working as Thurmond's family's maid. Butler was either 15 or 16 years old when a 22-year-old Thurmond impregnated her in early 1925. (Butler's birth date is unknown, and the age of consent was 16, leaving only a short window for the possibility that Thurmond might not have committed statuatory rape.) For some 'Good Ole Boys' the times of slavery just never ended." - http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/MereOut...
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Yunte Huang's Charlie Chan — The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendezvous with American History
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 6, 2019
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Almost 6 yrs ago now, I made a 30:05 movie called "CHAN(geling)" (on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/XMP8mU1OfSY ). It's a media analysis of yellowface in Warner Oland movies. I made the movie largely b/c I'd enjoyed the Charlie Chan movies when I'd watched them on TV as a kid & I wanted to revisit them as a more racism-aware adult. I didn't make the movie w/ any claim of being an expert on the subject & my main research for it consisted just of watching as many of the Oland Chan movies as I cd get free or cheap. This Huang bk had come out 4 yrs before but I didn't know about it yet. I like CHAN(geling)" as it is, despite at least one major mistake in it, & think it's probably for the best that I hadn't read Huang's bk at the time b/c I might've gotten bogged down in making the movie even more complex than it already is. At any rate, I'm delighted to have read this for the sake of a Chinese-American's take on the subject — one that more or less completely jibed w/ my own.
"So who is Charlie Chan?
"To most Caucasian Americans, he is a funny, beloved, albeit somewhat inscrutable—that last adjective already a bit loaded—character who talks wisely and acts even more wisely. But to many Asian Americans, he remains a pernicious example of a racist stereotype, a Yellow Uncle Tom, if you will; the type of Chinaman, passive and unsavory, who conveys himself in Broken English. In this book, however, I would like to propose a more complicated view. As a ubiquitous cultural icon, whose influence on the twentieth century remains virtually unexamined, Charlie Chan does not yield easily to ideological reduction. "Truth," to quote our honorable detective, "like football—receive many kicks before reaching goal.""
[..]
"It is no coincidence that Stepin Fetchit, the most celebrated black comic actor in the 1930s, and one of the most reviled since the civil rights movement, had also starred in Charlie Chan movies. Fetchit played a lazy, inarticulate, and easily frightened Negro." - p xvi
Ok, being the natural contrarian that I sometimes am, I immediately find myself in a bit of conflict w/ Huang's statement — even though I agree w/ most of it. Who is he, or anyone, to make the claim that "To most Caucasian Americans"? In other words, here we have a bk that's essentially an analysis of racism &, yet, he feels free to stereotype "Caucasian Americans": what's the data to back this claim?
"But the core strength of Chan's character lies in his pseudo-Confucian, aphoristic wisdom. Unlike the Kung Fu movies, which showcase a Chinese penchant for ass-kicking and sword-brandishing, Chan reveals the Chinaman as a sage: a wise, calm, responsible, and commonsensical man who also happens to be a hilarious wisecracker." - p xix
"The Hawaiian Islands, also known as the Sandwich Islands" (p 9) So-called b/c imperialists gobbled them up (JK = Just Kidding).
"Unlike on the U.S. mainland, where the clamor of "The Chinese must go!" was a clarion call for almost all parties in the mid-nineteenth century (more on this point later), the general sentiment in Hawaii was "The Chinese must come!" Economy, as they say, is the king, and several economic factors joined forces to create increasing demands for labor in Hawaii; among them were whaling, the nascent sugar industry, and the ripple effects of the California gold rush." - p 17
Mark Twain, whose work I generally have deep respect for but whose depiction of Native Americans is utterly suspect, is quoted:
"The sugar product is rapidly augmenting every year, and day by day the Kanaka race is passing away. Cheap labor had to be procured by some means or other, and so the Government [of Hawaii] sends to China for coolies and farms them out to the planters at $5 a month for five years, the planter to feed them and furnish them with clothing. The Hawaiian agent fell into the hands of Chinese sharpers, who showed him some superb coolie samples and then loaded his ships with the scurviest lot of pirates that ever went unhung. Some of them were cripples, some were lunatics, some afflicted with incurable diseases, and nearly all were intractable, full of fight, and animated by the spirit of the very devil. However, the planters managed to tone them down and now they like them very well. Their former trade of cutting throats on the China seas has made them uncommonly handy at cutting cane. They are steady, industrious workers when properly watched." - p 19
What's wrong w/ this picture? Plenty. Who're the 'pirates'? The wage slaves or the people paying them?
"The secret, Twain concluded, lay not in the fertile soil or advantageous weather but also "in their cheap Chinese labor." When one company paid only $5 a month for labor that another company had to hire for $80 and $100, there was no question which business would fare better."" - p 20
Twain can be such a disappointment.. & yet..
"The publisher hired Twain, who had only recently lost his newspaper job in Nevada due to his sympathy for Chinese miners, to assess the lay of the land in Hawaii." - p 19
"Only four years after Twain penned these letters, his close friend and collaborator, Bret Harte, would publish "The Heathen Chinese," one of the most popular poems about Chinese to rear its racist head in the nineteenth century. In the poem, white miners lamented, "We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor."" - p 20
I never can understand these idiots!!: Why do they blame the victims instead of the exploiters?! Well, actually, I know why, it's the way of all cowards: side w/ power & hope to benefit.
"Ah Pung, in fact, never learned to read in either Chinese or English, even though later in life he taught himself to read Hawaiian. Toys were rare in a family like his.
"It is worth noting that even a full century later, little has changed. When I was growing up, for example, in a small village in the waning days of Mao's China, my "toys" were mud-pies, tadpoles, ants, fire-flies, grasshoppers, and whatever luckless insects fell into my hands." - p 25
Hence, earning the author the nickname of "Dragon Fly" in the insect underworld. (JK, OK?!, JK!!)
"In such a harsh environment, a child prone to accident and disease would be lucky to grow to maturity. Child kidnapping was a common, daily fear in Ah Pung's day. Occasionally, when a famine broke out, cannibalism might be the last resort for the families on the brink of starving to death; they were forced by necessity to make exchanges with other equally desperate families so they could at least avoid eating their own children or siblings." - p 26
'Do you like breast meat or wings from the little angel?'
That's why cultures all over the world don't want their children to be spoiled — who wants to eat rotten meat?
"In the hierarchical world of late nineteenth-century Hawaii, where the racial pyramid put white plantation owners and missionaries on top," [hence, the "Missionary Position"] "even above the indigenous chiefs and queens, an uneducated man like Chang Apana" [the model for Charlie Chan] "would not have stood a "Chinaman's chance" without luck or help.
"Unlike earlier times, when hospitable Hawaiians would extend alohas and leis to people of all races arriving on their shores, racism became more visible as the haoles became more established in the islands. Steadily and persistently, an elite group of American businessmen and missionaries and their decendents had begun, since the midcentury, to consolidate power. The Provisional Government under their control, while severely corroding the role of native monarchy, had passed laws and implemented policies that all too often became carbon copies of what existed on the racist mainland." - p 38
"Ever since the annexation in 1898, the question of statehood had been in almost every Hawaiian's mind. Territorial status had huge disadvantages. The governor of Hawaii was appointed by the president of the United States. The people of Hawaii could not take part in presidential elections. They could elect a territorial delegate to Congress, but the delegate had no vote in the House of Representatives, Hawaii paid taxes as if it were a state, but it was not entitled to all the federal benefits enjoyed by the states." - p 178
In other words, once the big imperial power successfully invaded Hawaii the people there didn't stand a chance of not being railroaded & their resources exploited.
"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" - Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi (1969) from "Ladies of the Canyon"
On the subject of haoles see this: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/tENTHon... .
"While The Chinese Parrot (1926), the second Charlie Chan novel but the first featuring Chan as the central character, is fictional, there is a striking resemblance between the early life of Chang Apana and the fictional Charlie Chan." - p 41
"Chan's resumé, as described in this novel, closely resembles Apana's career. "Detective-Sergeant Chan, of the Honolulu police," is the way Sally Phillimore introduces him to her friends in San Francisco. "Long ago, in the big house on the beach, he was our number one boy. . . . Charlie left us to join the police force, and he's made a fine record there."" - pp 41-42
"On February 27, 1897, Helen was deputized by the Marshal of the Republic of Hawaii to enforce animal cruelty laws. She now had the legal authority to stop horse owners from beating their animals. Her organization came to the aid of neglected cattle, and it rescued cats and dogs abused by their owners. Helen served without pay, but she and her friends pooled their resources to hire an animal case investigator. That new job went to Chang Apana, the charismatic stableman of Helen's parental home, a former pianola versatile in roping and riding. Thus, the future "Charlie Chan" debuted before the public as the first humane officer in Honolulu." - p 43
What?! Chan(g) was an animal rights terrorist?! No wonder that part didn't make it into the Charlie Chan character.
"The undersigned, sensible of the cruelties inflicted upon dumb animals by thoughtless and inhuman persons, and desirous of suppressing same—alike from considerations affecting the well-being of society as well as mercy to the brute creation—consent to become patrons of a Society having in view the realization of these objects. —Henry Burgh, drafting the first charter for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" - p 44
My own modest contribution to this cause was the founding of the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea-Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers): http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/spcsmef... .
"There is no evidence to suggest that before he wrote the first three Chan novels, including The Chinese Parrot, Earl Biggers had known much about Apana's life. The two would not meet until 1928, but Biggers seemed to have an uncanny ability to imagine the complexity of being a Chinese law enforcer in a multiracial society like Honolulu around the turn of the century." - pp 46-47
I've yet to read one of Biggers' novels, including any of the Chan ones, but I keep looking for them in my favorite used bookstore. After reading Huang's Charlie Chan I'm anticipating liking them. I have read 2 knock-off novels: Michael Avallone's Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) & Robert Hart Davis's Charlie Chan in Walk Softly, Strangler (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... )
"What if one day Hawaii became a state? "How can we endure our shame?," he asked, "when a Chinese Senator from Hawaii, with his pigtail hanging down his back, with his pagan joss in his hand, shall rise from his curule chair and in pidgin English proceed to chop logic with George Frisbie Hoar or Henry Cabot Lodge?"*"
[..]
"* Clark's hypothetical nightmare did, in fact, come true: When Hawaii became the fiftieth state in 1959, "a rabble" of predominantly brown and yellow voters in the islands sent the nation's first Chinese senator, Hiram Fong, to Washington. A self-made millionaire and son of a Chinese immigrant, Senator Fong would take his seat in the Congressional chamber across from Strom Thurmond and James Eastland, two staunch segregationist Dixiecrats." - p 50
On the subject of Strom Thurmond, see my movie entitled "Filibuster" ( https://youtu.be/7iU87E_2Y2s ). Here's a relevant excerpt from the text:
"The following is mostly culled from online sources: Filibusters are interesting. In a filibuster, a senator may continue to speak indefinitely to prevent a final vote on a bill. The longest such filibuster on record is that of Strom Thurmond's. He spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to try to prevent the Civil Rights Act of 1957 from passing. It passed anyway.
"After Thurmond's death, it was discovered that he had an unacknowledged mixed-race daughter named Essie May Washington-Williams whose black mother Carrie Butler had been working as Thurmond's family's maid. Butler was either 15 or 16 years old when a 22-year-old Thurmond impregnated her in early 1925. (Butler's birth date is unknown, and the age of consent was 16, leaving only a short window for the possibility that Thurmond might not have committed statuatory rape.) For some 'Good Ole Boys' the times of slavery just never ended." - http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/MereOut...
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
June 27, 2011
Yunte Huang was teaching in the English department at Harvard University when his new book was released and he was scheduled to do a book signing at the Harvard book store. With a title like Transpacific Displacement: Ethnography, Translation, and Intertextual Travel in Twentieth-Century American Literature (yawn), it was a challenge to get a crowd to attend so the English department secretary made up a poster for the event and in an attempt to make it more appealing she included a photo of Charlie Chan.
Now some Chinese-Americans are a bit sensitive about Charlie Chan, seeing him as an Asian Uncle Tom figure, a stereotypical racist image of a Chinaman. So the author was a little disturbed about the poster.
Being polite (the Chinese he tells us are very polite, kind of like Charlie Chan), he thanked the woman for the poster and asked her why she had included Charlie Chan? “Oh,” she replied, “I grew up watching Charlie Chan movies. He was so smart and wise and they called him in to solve the most difficult murders and he was always able to figure them out and he was witty and polite . . . He was my hero!”
This set Yunte Huang to thinking and eventually to investigating the Charlie Chan books and movies and this book is the result. The story is fascinating.
There really was a Charlie Chan, called Chan Apana, a detective with the Honolulu Police Department in the late 19th and early 20th century. He spent a decade in his youth as a cowboy (the second largest cattle ranch in the US is in Hawaii.) As a police officer he was delegated to keep Honolulu’s Chinatown under some semblance of control (closing gambling dens, brothels, opium dens, etc.) Although he was only 5 ft tall and weighed 130 pounds at his heaviest, he carried only a bull whip and he routinely rounded up 40 bad guys single-handedly.
Enter Earl Derr Biggers, a Harvard graduate (from a town in Ohio very near Canton, interestingly) who needed to make some money when he graduated from college. He decided to write a book and the first Charlie Chan mystery, The House Without a Key, was the very popular result. Published in 1925 it was set in Hawaii and the exotic tropical setting, combined with the clever and witty Chinese detective, made it a best-seller. Biggers went on to write five more Charlie Chan books before his early death in 1933.
Yunte Huang’s book takes off from the mystery, its author, and the man who was its inspiration to talk about the history of Hawaii and the story of Chinese in America, the figure of Charlie Chan in the movies and the various actors who played him, the two most famous being Scandinavians, Werner Oland and Sidney Toler. He describes the years when Chinese laborers were encouraged to come to the US to do the dangerous work on the trans-continental railroad, and the years when they were forbidden to immigrate to this country or to become citizens. Things were always a little better for various racial groups in Hawaii but when the islands became a US territory in 1898, the Chinese Exclusion Act applied there. (Hawaii became our 50th state in 1959.)
2011 No 92 Coming soon: Son, by Jack Olsen
Now some Chinese-Americans are a bit sensitive about Charlie Chan, seeing him as an Asian Uncle Tom figure, a stereotypical racist image of a Chinaman. So the author was a little disturbed about the poster.
Being polite (the Chinese he tells us are very polite, kind of like Charlie Chan), he thanked the woman for the poster and asked her why she had included Charlie Chan? “Oh,” she replied, “I grew up watching Charlie Chan movies. He was so smart and wise and they called him in to solve the most difficult murders and he was always able to figure them out and he was witty and polite . . . He was my hero!”
This set Yunte Huang to thinking and eventually to investigating the Charlie Chan books and movies and this book is the result. The story is fascinating.
There really was a Charlie Chan, called Chan Apana, a detective with the Honolulu Police Department in the late 19th and early 20th century. He spent a decade in his youth as a cowboy (the second largest cattle ranch in the US is in Hawaii.) As a police officer he was delegated to keep Honolulu’s Chinatown under some semblance of control (closing gambling dens, brothels, opium dens, etc.) Although he was only 5 ft tall and weighed 130 pounds at his heaviest, he carried only a bull whip and he routinely rounded up 40 bad guys single-handedly.
Enter Earl Derr Biggers, a Harvard graduate (from a town in Ohio very near Canton, interestingly) who needed to make some money when he graduated from college. He decided to write a book and the first Charlie Chan mystery, The House Without a Key, was the very popular result. Published in 1925 it was set in Hawaii and the exotic tropical setting, combined with the clever and witty Chinese detective, made it a best-seller. Biggers went on to write five more Charlie Chan books before his early death in 1933.
Yunte Huang’s book takes off from the mystery, its author, and the man who was its inspiration to talk about the history of Hawaii and the story of Chinese in America, the figure of Charlie Chan in the movies and the various actors who played him, the two most famous being Scandinavians, Werner Oland and Sidney Toler. He describes the years when Chinese laborers were encouraged to come to the US to do the dangerous work on the trans-continental railroad, and the years when they were forbidden to immigrate to this country or to become citizens. Things were always a little better for various racial groups in Hawaii but when the islands became a US territory in 1898, the Chinese Exclusion Act applied there. (Hawaii became our 50th state in 1959.)
2011 No 92 Coming soon: Son, by Jack Olsen
October 8, 2014
This book was eye-opening on many levels. Not only does it cover the Hawaiian and Chinese American history generally, it brings those strands together with early twentieth century American literature and popular culture. While some reviewers have criticized the book for being broken into sections, the final impression is one of amazing connections among all these aspects of the character "Charlie Chan," and how truth and fiction weave together. The life of Chang Apana, the Chinese detective, is truly amazing in and of itself, and Huang's biography of him blasts through all the naive ideas that I had long held about Hawaiian history, and made my understanding of it much richer as a result. The fact that Huang also connects Chang Apana's origins in Guangdong with the leaders of early Republican China, many of whom spent time in Hawaii while Chang was fighting crime there, highlights how small a world it was. Huang doesn't flinch from exploring all the ugly racist issues of that time in American history, particularly the bizarre prejudices that made yellowface in film "normal," but ultimately he contends that the character Charlie Chan is more than just a racist cariacature. Werner Oland (a Swedish-American) as Charlie Chan was one of the most popular film characters in 1930s China, and Chang Apana himself loved watching Charlie Chan movies--the author himself discovered the detective when he bought some old books at a yard sale and became a great fan.
Being a fan of classic mysteries, I am inspired to read them for myself, because I only know Charlie Chan as a cultural reference. Ironically, it is difficult to find the original books to encounter Chan for oneself. Earl Biggers' Chan mysteries aren't available any more at the local public libraries (even in Pasadena, where Biggers wrote them!), and only the first one is available out of copyright through archive.org ... so I will file a later report on it.
The big question for all mystery fans that Yunte Huang's book forces is this: are we allowed to appropriate detective characters (who by the rules of the genre must be "others" in some fashion) and refashion them to suit our contemporary needs and cultural visions, even if their authors could only see them through the lens of their own place, time and (often) prejudice?
Being a fan of classic mysteries, I am inspired to read them for myself, because I only know Charlie Chan as a cultural reference. Ironically, it is difficult to find the original books to encounter Chan for oneself. Earl Biggers' Chan mysteries aren't available any more at the local public libraries (even in Pasadena, where Biggers wrote them!), and only the first one is available out of copyright through archive.org ... so I will file a later report on it.
The big question for all mystery fans that Yunte Huang's book forces is this: are we allowed to appropriate detective characters (who by the rules of the genre must be "others" in some fashion) and refashion them to suit our contemporary needs and cultural visions, even if their authors could only see them through the lens of their own place, time and (often) prejudice?
May 15, 2011
This extremely well researched & well written book was a total joy to read. I've always liked Charlie Chan movies but never really knew that much about the character. This book tells the story about Charlie Chan in a very unique way, from many different angles. First, there's "Charlie Chan" as he existed inside a Fictional Book. Then, the "Movie persona". There's a lot of information about him but also covers the real-life story of the Hawaiian Police Detective that inspired the Author. It also covers all the Actors who portrayed the most honorable Detective. Speaking of the Author ( of the Chan books ), there is also a Biography of him too, ha! I also liked the various stories about the many different Chinese Stereotypes that helped to define the Fictional Detective. There's a lot of American History here about the "Chinese-American Experience". I mean, you learn about this character from like 100 different angles...it's a great read! Oh yeah, there's also a little bit about the Author of this book blended inside that gives you an extra layer of meaning. Like, what the Chan character has meant to a real Chinese person.
December 10, 2015
This is another book I have to read for my history class, I’m not reading the entire book just sections of it. We’ve been learning about the prejudices towards people and the civil rights movements. Instead of looking at the typical racism that blacks suffered we’re looking at what the Chinese went through.
“The winter of 1865-66 was particularly brutal, with a record forty-four snowstorms that piled snowdrifts more than sixty feet high. Avalanches, a constant threat on the job, buried camps and crews. Not until the following spring would the thawing corpses be found, standing upright, ‘their cold hands griping shoves and picks and their mouths twisted in frozen terror.’”—page 123
Jesus. That’s a horrible image.
All this racism is really uncomfortable.
The problem with this book is, when it’s not talking about the outrageous racism, it gets pretty boring. All the stuff about the actors past is beyond dull.
“The winter of 1865-66 was particularly brutal, with a record forty-four snowstorms that piled snowdrifts more than sixty feet high. Avalanches, a constant threat on the job, buried camps and crews. Not until the following spring would the thawing corpses be found, standing upright, ‘their cold hands griping shoves and picks and their mouths twisted in frozen terror.’”—page 123
Jesus. That’s a horrible image.
All this racism is really uncomfortable.
The problem with this book is, when it’s not talking about the outrageous racism, it gets pretty boring. All the stuff about the actors past is beyond dull.
October 6, 2010
I thought this was an outstanding work of a personal quest and of the intersection of history, legend and pop culture. The author, himself Chinese, having escaped from China following the Tienanmen Square incident, worked hard to become part of America, where he now teaches literature in an American University, just as Chang Apana, the Hawaiian police officer who served as the inspiration for Charlie Chan, also worked hard as he rose from worker to cowboy to police officer in turn of the century Hawaii. But Earl Derr Biggers' Chan, though inspired by Chang, is quite a different character, and is himself the result of a lot of racial stereotyping in America in the 20s and later, the same typing that produced Fu Manchu. Very readable, this work shows a lot of hard work on Huang's part and good scholarship.
June 1, 2011
I wasn't too sure I'd like a book about a B actor, but this book came highly recommended by Bookmarks. And I always enjoy the books they highly recommend! This book was much more than the story of the actor and the movies I remembered. This book looked at the Chinese who came to this country, why and how they came, and what affect they had on the history of the US. The character of Charlie Chan was based on a real dectective in the early 20th century in Honolulu. The book examined this dectective, the author who wrote the original Charlie Chan books, and the Hollywood productions that followed.
September 6, 2010
A fascinating and worthy read.
Here's a link to a New Yorker Magazine Video blurb, Chan, The Man you may find interesting if you need help in considering whether or not to read this book.
'm reading an ARC, so I'll hold my review until after the book is in general circulation.
Here's a link to a New Yorker Magazine Video blurb, Chan, The Man you may find interesting if you need help in considering whether or not to read this book.
'm reading an ARC, so I'll hold my review until after the book is in general circulation.
November 2, 2010
In a relatively short book, Yunte Huang manages to use the fictional figure of Charlie Chan and his real life prototype to give a surprisingly wide ranging and insightful look into the dynamics of Chinese immigration, resurgent white nationalism, and US global expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as it played out in Hawai'i and the US mainland.
August 19, 2016
I did not enjoy this book. There was so much history. It went from talking about one thing to going on a tangent about something else. Maybe if you're interested in that stuff you'd like it. This book was not my cup of tea though.
February 15, 2020
It's very well worth reading. I learned so much!
It was hard to read, because there is so much about the racist history of Hawai'i and USA, and the shameful annexation of Hawai'i by USA.
I am impressed by Yunte Huang's English. Very precise and beautiful. It's hard to remember that this is not his first language, that he learned it by listening to an illegal radio broadcast... and then improved after having moved to USA.
My experience was also colored by the fact that I was reading this along with several other books;
Beloved by Toni Morrison - which is about the lives of black slaves before and after liberation
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf - which is about the early days of women's suffrage
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism - which is about the fear of having to share the "dibs" with all the other human beings in one's community
Even The Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy, Mariel of Redwall, Red Queen, and Dark and Deepest Red touch the themes of exploitation and racism.
It was also interesting that here we have a Chinese person who doesn't find yellowface inherently offensive. Makes me think about all the things we just automatically classify as racist (or something else "bad") without thinking about if it is or not; the reason why "politically correct" and "social justice warrior" have become "bad words".
(Also, OF COURSE it would have been better if they had used a Chinese person to play the Chinese person. OF COURSE it would have been better if Charlie Chan's character had not been some of the things it was, BUT it was not all bad. Also, OF COURSE it would have been better if there had been more, a lot more Chinese characters of every kind in USonian movies during the 20th century, so that people wouldn't have associated all Chinese with the few characters that did exist - and of course it would have been better if the people wouldn't associate people with movie characters at all. BUT - it was not all bad. There were some very good things there as well, and it's these good things Yunte Huang brings up, together with the bad things.)
I was thinking about the fact that PC is washing away even the few depictions of diversity and cleaning up the history so that it will become impossible to even explain to people that there is a reason why we still speak about racism, 60 years after the Civil Rights Movement. That even though we might have the same rights and privileges on paper, we don't, because of the inherent xenophobia of human race. To erase all "yellowfaces" from the history, we'll make it impossible to discuss about it, to understand why it happened - which is more important than the fact that it happened - and to educate people to understand why none of those things is good. We'll have Cloud Atlas with people in all-the-colors-faces, and people don't understand why it is problematic.
It was hard to read, because there is so much about the racist history of Hawai'i and USA, and the shameful annexation of Hawai'i by USA.
I am impressed by Yunte Huang's English. Very precise and beautiful. It's hard to remember that this is not his first language, that he learned it by listening to an illegal radio broadcast... and then improved after having moved to USA.
My experience was also colored by the fact that I was reading this along with several other books;
Beloved by Toni Morrison - which is about the lives of black slaves before and after liberation
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf - which is about the early days of women's suffrage
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism - which is about the fear of having to share the "dibs" with all the other human beings in one's community
Even The Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy, Mariel of Redwall, Red Queen, and Dark and Deepest Red touch the themes of exploitation and racism.
It was also interesting that here we have a Chinese person who doesn't find yellowface inherently offensive. Makes me think about all the things we just automatically classify as racist (or something else "bad") without thinking about if it is or not; the reason why "politically correct" and "social justice warrior" have become "bad words".
(Also, OF COURSE it would have been better if they had used a Chinese person to play the Chinese person. OF COURSE it would have been better if Charlie Chan's character had not been some of the things it was, BUT it was not all bad. Also, OF COURSE it would have been better if there had been more, a lot more Chinese characters of every kind in USonian movies during the 20th century, so that people wouldn't have associated all Chinese with the few characters that did exist - and of course it would have been better if the people wouldn't associate people with movie characters at all. BUT - it was not all bad. There were some very good things there as well, and it's these good things Yunte Huang brings up, together with the bad things.)
I was thinking about the fact that PC is washing away even the few depictions of diversity and cleaning up the history so that it will become impossible to even explain to people that there is a reason why we still speak about racism, 60 years after the Civil Rights Movement. That even though we might have the same rights and privileges on paper, we don't, because of the inherent xenophobia of human race. To erase all "yellowfaces" from the history, we'll make it impossible to discuss about it, to understand why it happened - which is more important than the fact that it happened - and to educate people to understand why none of those things is good. We'll have Cloud Atlas with people in all-the-colors-faces, and people don't understand why it is problematic.
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