And in (additional) honor of the Giants' World Series win...

[Paul Frank]

On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 12:30 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The popular American stereotype of the Chinese in the early 20th C. was not
> that they were "cheap," but that they were inscrutable, violent, probably
> unassimilable, often sinister, users and purveyors of opium, eaters of dogs,
> cats, and rats, atheistic, extremely prolific, and occasionally possessed of
> odd but profound wisdom unattainable by anybody else. Â (Thus Earl D.
> Biggers' Charlie Chan, inspired by a real detective, was a giant step
> forward in ethnic understanding.)

Purveyors of opium? The Chinese fought, and lost, two wars to try to
stop British opium trafficking.

Paul

Paul Frank
Translator
Chinese, German, French, Italian > English
Espace de l'Europe 16
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
paulfrank at bfs.admin.ch
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu

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