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/1158289-charlie-biggers-huang?chapter=1

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/tENTHonolulu.html .

"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.html .

"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/2921171508 ) & Robert Hart Davis's Charlie Chan in Walk Softly, Strangler (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2921653576 )

"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/MereOutline2018.html

For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1158289-charlie-biggers-huang?chapter=1 ( )

There was an actual person that Charlie Chan was based on: Chang Apana, a detective in Hawaii. Yunte Huang uses the biography of Chang Apana, and the creation and enduring popularity of Charlie Chan to discuss issues of Chinese identity, both in America and in China. Fascinating, and a good read, too. ( )

Droned on. Too much about racism against Asians than the novels, movies and people. ( )

First his real name was Chang Apana and he was of Chinese descent born in Hawaii in the 1860's. He returned to China @ 3 years of age, but was sent back to Hawaii w/ his uncle and worked as a Paniolo (Hawaiian Cowboy). Later he worked w/ the first Hawaiian ASPCA and then became a Detective w/ the Hawaiian Police force.

As for being "Charlie Chan", Earl Dere Biggers had already been writing about the fictitious Chan before ever hearing about or meeting Chang Apana. Their coming together was merely a fluke of fate.

I was very disappointed in this book, there was actually very little about Chang Apana, but more about Biggers, Chan and the rampant abuse of non-white people & racism that was allowed to run amok throughout Hawaii. There was also a lot of side information about Hollywood & the Charlie Chan movies which came to be after Biggers died.

I really did not like this book..... I wanted to know more about the "Real Life Charlie Chan". ( )

I found this book fascinating and educational look at the development of Hawaii as a state, racism both past and somewhat present, the creation of an iconic character and the history of a fascinating man who became one of Hawaii's most decorated police officers. I enjoyed it and learned a lot but at the end I still don't see how Chang Apana influenced the character of Charlie Chan.

It was still well worth reading and showed how so many different factors influence our popular culture and how we in turn are influenced back and reflected back by our popular culture. Many times in unpleasant ways.

The author has a very accessible style and never stayed on one subject thread long enough to make you loose interest or long enough to loose the thread he was weaving between the different though connected stories.

I learned many things I never knew before, was influenced to watch my first Charlie Chan movie based on this book and will soon try reading Earl Derr Biggers books as well and now at least I have a much better understanding of the character and peoples various reactions to him. ( )