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1mirrani
The California that Fong Dun Shung entered was a peculiar place filled with nature’s bounty—fertile soil, a wide variety of animal life, mountains, deserts, valleys, and rich mineral deposits. It was a land destined to be forever built on dreams. The same hopes for gold nuggets the size of babies that had originally enticed early Chinese sojourners had also enticed men to leave their town houses in Boston, farms in Ohio, ranches in Montana, and plantations in Georgia. These men had come alone, for the West was no place for womenfolk. Until 1869, when the transcontinental railroad would be completed, California was seventy percent male, and they were a lawless bunch—rowdy, rough, filthy. Few “good” women lived among them. One result of this lack was that there were no women to wash clothes. Wealthy men sent their clothes to Hong Kong to be laundered, starched, and ironed. A dozen shirts cost an outlandish twelve dollars and took two to four months to make the round trip. But for years people looked forward to “steamer day,” when loads of clean wash would enter San Francisco Bay and be distributed to its owners. For at least one week, everyone would be smartly dressed and starched.
Very interesting history is shared in this book, and it’s written well too!
The Big Four—Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, and C. P. Huntington—embraced the grandiose idea and the potential profits of a transcontinental railroad.
Please tell me why 16 people highlighted this line? Is it like… for a textbook or something? Because while I can see the significance of this… It just doesn’t seem… highlight worthy otherwise, you know?
But then again, I highlighted this:
With a shorter, less arduous trip, more women might make their homes out West—the prospect not only of clean wash but of company in bed proved to be a powerful motivator for California’s mostly male population.
Which probably made people wonder as well. :p
His countrymen were popular among landowners and factory owners. The Chinese, it was said, were always at their work stations on time. They didn’t lag or loiter; they didn’t gossip like American factory girls. But, to the public at large, these jobs were invisible. No man ever considered who rolled his cigar, cut the wood for his fireplace, or made his underwear. So the importance of the Chinese in supporting the whites’ rising standard of living went largely unappreciated. Still, a few believed that any sudden expulsion of the Chinese would throw the entire state into confusion.
No one ever thinks of where things come from any more. As soon as people stopped making their own way in the world (and I mean COMPLETELY) it changed the mindset of the human race. No one respects the work of others as much as they used to. Honestly.
The Exclusion Act of 1882 was devastating. Under this law, Chinese laborers wouldn’t be allowed to enter the United States for ten years. The wives of current resident laborers were also barred from entry. All Chinese needed to be registered and carry their residency papers at all times. Finally, they were declared totally ineligible for citizenship. (This clause alone allowed the United States to join Nazi Germany and South Africa as the only nations ever to withhold naturalization on purely racial grounds.) Only Chinese who were teachers, merchants, students, tourists, and diplomats would still be permitted entry.
A much more worthy highlight made by a large number of people.
He hated his father’s idea of child-rearing: “If you love your boy, apply a stick. If not, stuff him with candy.”
You know, there IS something to be said for this. I don’t mean physical abuse, but the strict nature of things… that I can agree with. Respect of elders has vanished along with so many things in the modern concept of what is “abuse” and what is not. A child’s parent is someone who makes the rules and should be respected and obeyed, they can be fun, happy and energetic as well, but that does NOT make them the child’s best friend.
The fact that the Exclusion Act remained on the books undermined the United States’ stance as the protector of democracy.
That’s the USA for you. We say we’re one thing, but we’re really something else. Being based on the idea that men are equal doesn’t mean we successfully kept that idea alive as time moved on.
At one point the book describes a nineteenth century wedding bed:
The most spectacular purchase was a nineteenth-century freestanding Chinese conjugal bed designed for a house where all the relatives—aunts, uncles, in-laws, and children—lived together. In China the bed had served as private quarters—with an anteroom, then the bed itself—encased in panels of boxwood, fruitwood, and rosewood. In Los Angeles the bed became a playroom for the See grandchildren and great-grandchildren who came to visit the store.
and I had to go look it up to see. My GOSH, that’s beautiful!
Very interesting history is shared in this book, and it’s written well too!
The Big Four—Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, and C. P. Huntington—embraced the grandiose idea and the potential profits of a transcontinental railroad.
Please tell me why 16 people highlighted this line? Is it like… for a textbook or something? Because while I can see the significance of this… It just doesn’t seem… highlight worthy otherwise, you know?
But then again, I highlighted this:
With a shorter, less arduous trip, more women might make their homes out West—the prospect not only of clean wash but of company in bed proved to be a powerful motivator for California’s mostly male population.
Which probably made people wonder as well. :p
His countrymen were popular among landowners and factory owners. The Chinese, it was said, were always at their work stations on time. They didn’t lag or loiter; they didn’t gossip like American factory girls. But, to the public at large, these jobs were invisible. No man ever considered who rolled his cigar, cut the wood for his fireplace, or made his underwear. So the importance of the Chinese in supporting the whites’ rising standard of living went largely unappreciated. Still, a few believed that any sudden expulsion of the Chinese would throw the entire state into confusion.
No one ever thinks of where things come from any more. As soon as people stopped making their own way in the world (and I mean COMPLETELY) it changed the mindset of the human race. No one respects the work of others as much as they used to. Honestly.
The Exclusion Act of 1882 was devastating. Under this law, Chinese laborers wouldn’t be allowed to enter the United States for ten years. The wives of current resident laborers were also barred from entry. All Chinese needed to be registered and carry their residency papers at all times. Finally, they were declared totally ineligible for citizenship. (This clause alone allowed the United States to join Nazi Germany and South Africa as the only nations ever to withhold naturalization on purely racial grounds.) Only Chinese who were teachers, merchants, students, tourists, and diplomats would still be permitted entry.
A much more worthy highlight made by a large number of people.
He hated his father’s idea of child-rearing: “If you love your boy, apply a stick. If not, stuff him with candy.”
You know, there IS something to be said for this. I don’t mean physical abuse, but the strict nature of things… that I can agree with. Respect of elders has vanished along with so many things in the modern concept of what is “abuse” and what is not. A child’s parent is someone who makes the rules and should be respected and obeyed, they can be fun, happy and energetic as well, but that does NOT make them the child’s best friend.
The fact that the Exclusion Act remained on the books undermined the United States’ stance as the protector of democracy.
That’s the USA for you. We say we’re one thing, but we’re really something else. Being based on the idea that men are equal doesn’t mean we successfully kept that idea alive as time moved on.
At one point the book describes a nineteenth century wedding bed:
The most spectacular purchase was a nineteenth-century freestanding Chinese conjugal bed designed for a house where all the relatives—aunts, uncles, in-laws, and children—lived together. In China the bed had served as private quarters—with an anteroom, then the bed itself—encased in panels of boxwood, fruitwood, and rosewood. In Los Angeles the bed became a playroom for the See grandchildren and great-grandchildren who came to visit the store.
and I had to go look it up to see. My GOSH, that’s beautiful!
