title: Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco
author:  Anthony W. Lee 
description: The public perception of San Francisco's Chinatown, home to thousands of ethnic Chinese since the earliest years of the city, has been largely based on the writing and imagery of non-Chinese observers with varied agendas. Portrayed by some as an exotic and dangerous site of tong wars and opium dealing, it was also seen as a crowded living space occupied by sensible, hard-working immigrants. Lee (art, Mount Holyoke Coll.) has attempted to show how outsiders pictured Chinatown by closely analyzing almost 150 photos and paintings from the 1850s to the 1950s. Included are the well-known works of Arnold Genthe and Dorothea Lange, as well as images from the San Francisco Police book of mug shots. Missing from the roster of mostly formal and artistic works are the scores of casual snapshots that must exist in private hands. In addition, Lee does not attempt to use images found in the commercial advertising or popular media of the day. The result is well written, well researched, and beautifully produced, but ultimately this is an academic study that carefully notes crisp facts and then shelves them for other academics to pore over in quiet libraries far from the streets of Chinatown. The real question that Lee approaches but never really descends from the ivory tower to wrestle with is how it feels to have your place in America always defined by other people. David McClelland, Philadelphia <br />Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![cover](resources/_cover_.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  # A Bit of Old China
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Charles Warren Stoddard
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
      
      
      
  
  
  Here little China flaunts her scarlet streamers overhead, and flanks her
  
  
  doors with legends in saffron and gold; even its window panes have a
  
  
  foreign look, and within is a glimmering of tinsel, a subdued light, and
  
  
  china lamps flickering before graven images of barbaric hideousness.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
      
  
  
  China is not more Chinese than this section of our Christian city,
  
  
  nor the heart of Tartary less American.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This description Of Old San Francisco's Chinatown has been taken from
  
  
  Charles Warren Stoddard's book, entitled, "In the Footprints of the
  
  
  Padres," which contains his memories of early days in California.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A Bit of Old China
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  "It is but a step from Confucius to confusion," said I, in a brief
  
  
  discussion of the Chinese 