Chinese Culture and Lifestyle in the American West
How did Chinese-American culture develop in the early Chinese community when Chinese immigrants first arrived, especially in San Francisco, California?
During the Gold Rush, a popular and crowded area called Chinatown rose up and consisted of little shops and restaurants, and by 1900, 45 percent of Chinese in California lived in the San Francisco Bay area.(1) Known as Dai Fou, or “Big City,” Chinatown was a “bustling colony of thirty-three general merchandise stores, fifteen apothecaries, five restaurants, five herb shops, three boarding houses, five butcher stores, and three tailor shops.”(2) The area of Chinatown served as a comfort zone for many immigrants who felt unfamiliar in a new country and who were often greeted with hostility. As the oldest and largest Chinese community in America, San Francisco’s Chinatown “was the economic, cultural, and political center of Chinese America for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."(3)
Apart from their time at work, the Chinese were entertained with Chinese opera, traditional Oriental music, and games like Chinese chess and mahjong were widely played.(4) Chinese immigrants built Taoist and Buddhist Temples in Chinatown to honor their ancestors and to respect and pray to Chinese gods. Among the celebrated holidays in Chinatown were Chinese New Year, Qingming Festival, or the Chinese memorial day for ancestors, and the Moon Festival.(5) Chinatown was where the Chinese could “live a warmer, freer, and more human life among [their] relatives and friends than among strangers.”(6)
In the late 19th century, Chinatown was almost a city itself, as the community had its own government and politics. There were several organizations that sprung up in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Some Chinese societies offered protection to immigrants who felt insecure in a new country and aided them in finding new economic opportunities, cultivating friendships and creating a network of relationships. However, as time went on, these organizations multiplied in the United States, and their purpose branched out from support and mutual help to involvement in criminal activities. In addition, there were also places where families could meet and stay close with village members. These family associations created temples, sent letters to faraway family, and shipped deceased relatives' bodies to family back home in China. Many organizations were created according to the Chinese immigrants' previous districts in their homeland and were responsible for helping new immigrants to settle down and find employment. During the 1850s, six specific district associations made up the Chinese Six Companies, or the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. The Chinese Six Companies was the main association speaking on behalf of the Chinese community in America, and they took action to protest discriminatory anti-Chinese legislation and brutality.(7) The leaders of the Chinese Six Companies were mostly wealthy merchants who “translated their economic good fortune into political power.”(8)
Sources:
(1) Lee, The Making, 77.
(2) Takaki, Strangers from, 117.
(3) Lee, The Making, 77.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Takaki, Strangers from, 120.
(6) Lee, The Making, 78.
(7) Takaki, Strangers from, 113.
(8) "San Francisco Chinatown: Chinese in California," The Bancroft Library, accessed February 13, 2017, http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/chineseinca/sfchinatown.html.
(1) Lee, The Making, 77.
(2) Takaki, Strangers from, 117.
(3) Lee, The Making, 77.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Takaki, Strangers from, 120.
(6) Lee, The Making, 78.
(7) Takaki, Strangers from, 113.
(8) "San Francisco Chinatown: Chinese in California," The Bancroft Library, accessed February 13, 2017, http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/chineseinca/sfchinatown.html.