THE CHINESE LADY Teacher Information Packet

LONG WHARF THEATRE

T EACHER INF ORM AT ION PACKET

2019-20 SEASON

TE A C H E R INF ORM AT ION PACKET Compiled and Written by:

Madelyn Ardito Director of LEARNING

Jacqueline S. Brown Education Program Coordinator

LEARNING

LAYOUT by:

Claire Zoghb GRAPHICS DIRECTOR

you’ll look at her.

But will you see her?

JACOB G. PADRóN ARTISTIC Director

19 20

KIT INGUI

MANAGING Director

PRESENTS

LONG WHARF THEATRE

By lloyd

directed By rAlph B.

Suh peña COLLABORATING SPONSOR

#TheChineseLadyLWT

MAR 18 >APR 12 2020

LONG WHARF THEATRE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE GENEROSITY OF OUR EDUCATION SUPPORTERS

New Haven, Long Wharf

Anna Fitch Ardenghi Trust Frederick A. D E Luca Foundation, Inc. The Ethel & Abe Lapides Foundation, Inc. The George A. and Grace L. Long Foundation Seymour L. Lustman Memorial Fund Henry Nias Foundation, Inc. Theatre Forward Wells Fargo Foundation Yale Repertory Theatre

FOR THE FIRST- TIME THEATERGOER Long Wharf Theatre hopes that your first time at the theatre is magical and life changing, but there a few rules we would like to suggest you follow on this new experience.

Please DO arrive early.

Make considerations for traffic, parking, waiting in line, having your ticket taken, and finding your seat. If you need to pick up your tickets from the box office, it is a good idea to arrive at least twenty minutes early. Generally, you can take your seat when “the house is open,” about half an hour, before the show begins. Late seating can be distracting and usually not allowed until intermission or a transition between scenes.

Please DO turn off your cell phone.

Phones and any other noise-making devices should be switched off before you enter the theatre. The intermission is a good time to use your phone, but remember to turn it off again before the next act begins.

Please DON’T leave your garbage in the theatre.

Food and drinks are usually not permitted during student matinees, except for bottled water. Be sure to throw out your trash in a garbage can or recycling bin in the lobby.

Please WAIT for intermission.

Alternatively: feel safe to state access needs to a member of staff.

Intermission is a great time to get a drink of water, use the bathroom, check your cell phone, decompress and talk to your friends about what just happened in the performance.

Doing any of these things during the performance might be challenging for your fellow audience members and distract the actors onstage.

Please ENJOY the Show!

Actors feed off of YOU, the audience, so don’t be afraid to laugh, clap or cry if it moves you. Remember that everyone engages with theater in a different way so please be mindful of your neighbors

contents A B O U T T H E P L AY

8 Brief Summary

9 Setting

10 Characters

11

Who’s Who

13

About the Playwright

15

About the Director

T H E W O R L D O F T H E P L AY

17

18 Timeline of Historical Events

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22 Foot-Binding

Human Zoos P.T. Barnum’s Most Famous Freaks

25 Unbound: China’s last ‘lotus feet’ – in pictures

Look for this symbol to find discussion and writing prompts, discussion questions and classroom activities!

27 Chinese Tea

30 Opium Wars & 19th Century China 35 The Chinese Exclusion Act: Flash Cards

36 Women and the Chinese Exclusion Act

37

‘A Cloak for Discrimination’…

S U P P L E M E N TA L M AT E R I A L S

40

43 READ a review – then WRITE your own!

46

47 Works CIted

Glossary of Relevant Terms Helpful Resources

about the play “I am very pleased to be here in this great country. I am very pleased to represent my country, my family, my culture, and my history to you in hopes that this may lead to greater understanding and goodwill between China America, and between all peoples of the world.”

— Afong Moy

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BRIEF SUMMARY

T

he Chinese Lady begins in 1834, when we meet Afong Moy, a fourteen-year-old Chinese girl who is on display

as an exotic oddity at Peale’s Museum in New York. She is accompanied by her attendant, Atung, who translates for her and serves her as part of the act. The play follows Afong throughout her life, as she tells her story to different audiences around America. In each scene, we see Afong in her exhibition room, reciting her script, and then elaborating on her life experiences.

Summary provided by: MilwaukeeRep.com

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8

SETTING

Where does the play take place?

Daniel K. Isaac and Shannon Tyo in “The Chinese Lady” at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass.

(Courtesy Eloy Garcia)

“Lights up on Afong Moy, 14 years old, in her Room. The Room is a box placed in the center of a larger stage. Outside the box, the stage is unadorned. Inside the box, it is ornate, decorated with various types of Chinoiserie- watercolor paintings, vases, curtains, silks, furniture, etc.

She wears a traditional Chinese gown, and jade or lacquered jewelry in her hair.”

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CHARACTERS

Who are the people in the play?

Lisa Helmi Johanson as Afong Moy and Jon Norman Schneider as Atung in the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s production of The Chinese Lady

AFONG MOY The “First Chinese Lady to Set Foot on American Soil.” She was brought to the US in 1834 at the young age of 14 from her home in Guangzhou Province. Based on a real historical figure.

ATONG Afong’s irrelevant translator that assists her in her act, protects her and feeds her. The closest person to a friend Afong has even known.

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Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s presentation of The Chinese Lady at the Stiemke Studio featuring Lisa Helmi Johanson as Afong Moy. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

Who’s Who? Who are the actors portraying the characters in this play?

SHANNON TYO

(Afong Moy) (she/her) Long Wharf Theatre debut. Off-Broadway: The Chinese Lady, Kentucky, Bikeman, Dear Edwina. Select regional: The Good Book (Berkeley Rep), Fun Home (Baltimore Center Stage), Smart People (Geva Theatre Center), Bright Half Life (Kitchen Theatre Co.), Broadway Bounty Hunter (Barrington Stage), The White Snake (The Old Globe), Miss Saigon (Pioneer Theatre Co., Cape Fear Regional Theatre, Music Theatre Wichita), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Northern Stage, Tuacahn Center, Pioneer Theatre Co.). TV: “30 Rock,” “Rediscovering Christmas” (Lifetime), “The Last O.G.” BFA, Syracuse University.

JON NORMAN SCHNEIDER (Atung) (he/him) is thrilled to be back at Long Wharf Theatre after last appearing in Julia Cho’s Durango in 2006. Earlier this year, he played the Fool in Northern Stage’s production of King Lear. Select New York credits include the title role in Henry VI (NAATCO), Awake and Sing! (NAATCO/ The Public), Lunch Bunch (Clubbed Thumb), The Oldest Boy (Lincoln Center), Queens Boulevard (the musical) (Signature), Durango (The Public), A Map of Virtue (13P), among others. London: Paper Dolls (Tricycle).

Regional: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alley Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Barrington Stage Co., Dorset Theatre Festival, Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theatre Co., Kennedy Center, Magic Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Mosaic Theatre Co. of DC, and The Old Globe. Film: Bitter Melon, Manila Is Full of Men Named Boy, The Normals, and HBO’s Angel Rodriguez. TV: “Succession,” “Jessica Jones,” “Veep,” “30 Rock,” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”

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Who’s Who? continued

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: Ultimately Afong’s life after the age of 14, was spent in a box as she was put on display for others to watch. In the play Afong says, “It is human nature to be curious. Curiosity is evolution. We migrate, from trees, through the jungle, across oceans and rivers, we are constantly searching.… This is what brings me here. We want to see… You want to look at me. You want to understand more about the world.”

Do you agree with Afong’s point of view? Is our curiosity an excuse to put the things we admire in a box? How has this changed over the years?

Write about a time when you felt like you were put in a box. Was this a real instance or perceived? What did you learn from this experience? What would you like others to know about your journey through this period of time.

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ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

P

Lloyd Suh

https://herbalpertawards.org/artist/2019/lloyd-suh

laywright Lloyd Suh excavates ignored, pivotal moments of Asian American history, exploring them in a variety of forms and aesthetics, from historical realism and punk rock musicals to sci-fi plays and comedies for young audiences. He has brought to life the story of America’s first female Chinese immigrant and carnival attraction, Afong Moy, and is currently grappling with the legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. He has re-imagined

the “lost years” of Jesus of Nazareth journeying in the East and, via a murder mystery featuring the fictional detective Charlie Chan, considered the history and politics of yellowface, the emerging Asian American identity of the 1960’s, and the work of pioneering Chinese American playwright Frank Chin. As Director of Artistic Programs at The Lark, a leading new play laboratory, he is an advocate for new works and a mentor to many Asian American writers.

Awards: New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship 2004 for playwriting New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship 2016 for playwriting New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist grant 2005 for American Hwangap Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Family Show 2014 for The Wong Kids…

2014 American Alliance for Theatre & Education Distinguished Play Award for The Wong Kids… non Ma-Yi productions of Lab developed work: Jesus in India – Magic Great Wall Story - Denver Center American Hwangap - Magic, CCP?, PCPA in Seoul, Halcyon/A-Squared 13

LLOYD SUH continued

Lloyd Suh talks to Milwaukee Rep about the process of creating The Chinese Lady:

“Lately, over the past several years, they’ve been doing this deep dive in the Asian American History. I read a, just a little blurb, it was like a sentence about Afong Moy umm and it just it – sparked something in my imagination. And it wasn’t an idea yet, it took a long time for that to turn into ah – a play umm… Just that navigation of having to perform an expectation of who you are – um of having an awareness of how people see you and what they expect the performance of your activity to be and how that might differ from who you really are but also how that might influence who you ultimately become. You know there is a lot more information about what happened when she was at the height of popularity but then there is very very little that umm corresponds with anything that happened later. And it was once I started to wrestle with why there is so little after a certain point that’s when the play really began to form. That’s when I realized, ‘Oh that’s what this play is about.’”

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This quote was transcribed from an interview conducted by Milwaukee Rep with Playwright Lloyd Suh. Found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUhkO1-7QBw Photo by: ARIANNE CHRISTIAN TAPAO

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

R

RALPH B. PeñA

ecent directing credits include Felix Starro, Among the Dead, House Rules (Ma-Yi) The Orphan of Zhao (Fordham Theatre), Macho Dancer: A Musical (Cultural Center of the Philippines), Livin’ La Vida Imelda (Ma-Yi), Lloyd Suh’s The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra GO! (Cultural Center of the Philippines, Children’s Theater Co. and Ma-Yi, Off Broadway Alliance Award), Julia Specht’s Down Cleghorn, Joshua Conkel’s Curmudgeons in Love (EST Marathon), Mike Lew’s microcrisis (Youngblood, Ma-Yi), and House/Boy (Dublin and Singapore Theater Festivals). His theatre work has been seen at The NYSF/Public Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, NAATCO, Second Generation, Victory Gardens, and LaMama ETC, among others. He received an Obie Award for his work on The Romance of Magno Rubio. Ralph is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre. He is the Producing Artistic Director of Ma-Yi Theater Company, an Off-Broadway theater dedicated to developing and producing new plays by Asian American playwrights.

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: Playwright Lloyd Suh makes a remark about the importance of being aware of how people see you and how that awareness can influence who you ultimately become. Do you believe people see you for who you are? Have you allowed others to see the real you or the person you think they want to see?

GOING FURTHER: Ask the following discussion questions: Why do people hide their true selves from others? How can we begin to make people feel comfortable enough to be their authentic selves?

If You Really Knew Me… • Make a standing circle with 1 student in the middle.

• The student in the middle makes a statement beginning with: • I f you really knew me you’d know… (ie I love pizza, I have four siblings, I am passionate about…)

• If those in the outside circle agree with the statement, they (and the student in the middle) must find a new place to stand in the circle.

• One person will be left without a new spot. This person will step into the middle of the circle and make a new statement.

• C ontinue until everyone has had the opportunity to be in the middle of the circle.

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THE WORLD OF the play “In Cincinnati, we went to a zoo… I did not think much about what the animals were thinking. If they had hopes or ambitions, or what they hoped to achieve in their lives behind glass. I admired them for the way they moved, their hair, their eyes.

If I am in a cage, what sort of animal am I?”

— Afong Moy

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Human zoos

These horrifying ‘human zoos’ delighted American

audiences at the turn of the 20th century ‘Specimens’ were acquired from Africa, Asia, and the Americas by deceptive human traffickers Written by: Shoshi Parks Mar 20, 2018

M

ore than 20 million people attended the 1904 World’s Fair. They came to St. Louis to see electricity for the first time, to hear the first telephone, and to witness around 3,000 “savages”

from Africa, Asia, and the Americas living in “displays” that resembled their native villages. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Western world was desperate to see the “savage,” “primitive” peoples described by explorers and adventurers scouting out new lands for colonial exploitation. To feed the frenzy, thousands of indigenous individuals from Africa, Asia, and the Americas were brought to the United States and Europe, often under dubious circumstances, to be put on display in a quasi-captive life in “human zoos.”

These indigenous men, women, and children were brought to the fair to perform their “backwards,” “primitive” culture for eager American masses who could leave feeling a renewed sense of racial superiority.

Due to poor record-keeping, backroom dealing, and the huge number of colonial governments involved, it’s impossible to know the exact number of those who participated in “human zoos,” but it’s not small. In his 1908 autobiography, Carl Hagenbeck, a human rarities agent, bragged that during a ten-year period, he — alone — brought more than 900 indigenous people to the U.S. and Europe for exhibition.

At the fair, the indigenous people on display faced a number of challenges over the eight long months of their stay. African tribal members were required to wear traditional clothing intended for the equatorial heat, even in freezing December temperatures, and Filipino villagers were made to perform a seasonal dog-eating ritual over and over to shock the audience. A lack of drinking water and appalling sanitary conditions led to rampant dysentery and other illnesses. Two “performers” died on the fairgrounds that season, Filipinos whose bodies still reside at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. Others, including kindergartners from Arizona’s Pima Indian tribe, were shipped home at the first sign of sickness — what happened after their return was not the fair’s concern.

Ota Benga at the Bronx Zoo in 1906. Benga was one of 12 Congolese pygmies trafficked to the U.S. for the 1904 World’s Fair. (Bain News Service/Library of Congress) In most cases, there were no bars to keep those in human zoos from escaping, but the vast majority, especially those brought from foreign continents, had nowhere else to go. Set up in mock “ethnic villages,” indigenous people were asked to perform typical daily tasks, show off “primitive” skills like making stone tools, and pantomime rituals. In some shows, indigenous performers engaged in fake battles or tests of strength.

Human rarities agents, the men who acquired human “specimens” for circuses, expositions, and other events in the West, were essential middlemen feeding this popular form of entertainment. Some agents were religious men who had begun their work as missionaries, or early anthropologists who lived in and studied distant communities. Others were entrepreneurs who sought to capitalize on the public’s desire to gawk and objectify.

All, to some degree, were human traffickers.

Full article at: https://timeline.com/human-zoo-worlds-fair-7ef0d0951035

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The Play in the World: Historical Context of Afong Moy’s Life

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Spring 1829 – Andrew Jackson is elected the seventh President of the United States.

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May 28, 1830 – The Indian Removal Act is signed into place by President Andrew Jackson.

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1834 – The 14 yearold Afong Moy arrives in the US and is put on display at Peale’s Museum.

Admission for her exhibit is 25 cents per adult and 10 cents per child.

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May 1838 – The forced removal of indigenous people from the East of the Mississippi River officially begins. This is known as the Trail of Tears. At least 4,000 people do not survive the journey.

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Spring 1842 – The British fleet that attacked and occupied Canton in May of 1841 is counterattacked

by Chinese troops. The British fleet pursued the overtaking of Canton following the confiscation and destruction of 1,400 tons of opium that had been illegally smuggled from India. This counterattack signifies the beginning of the First Opium War.

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August 1842 – Treaty of Nanjing is signed. The First Opium War comes to a close.

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1849 – Peale’s Museum is sold to P.T. Barnum for his American Museum. The cost of viewing Afong’s exhibit is included in the admission fee for the museum.

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1849 – The Gold Rush is signified by the rapid migration of people to the West in search of gold.

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Late 1857 – Military operations begin that signify the beginning of the Second Opium War.

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August 1860 – Beijing Convention is signed into place, ending the Second Opium War.

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Spring 1860 – Abraham Lincoln is elected the sixteenth President of the United States of America.

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April 12, 1861 – Confederate troops bombard Union soldiers at Fort Sumter which marks the beginning of the American Civil War.

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Jan. 1, 1862 – P.T. Barnum’s American Museum opens to the public in New York City.

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Jan. 1, 1863 – President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation decreeing that “all persons held as slaves” within rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

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1863 – Work begins on the Transcontinental Railroad.

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1864 – Afong Moy, now 44 years old, is dismissed by P.T. Barnum in favor of a newer, younger, more talented 14-year-old girl from Peking. Her feet are bound to be one half inch smaller than Afong’s.

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April 9, 1865 – Confederate troops are defeated by the Union Army at the Battle of Appomattex.

General Robert E. Lee surrenders and the American Civil War ends.

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April 14, 1865 – President Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth. He dies the following day.

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May 10, 1869 – A golden spike is driven into the ground in Promontory, Utah to signify the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, officially connecting the East to the West.

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1871 – a race riot in Los Angeles, California leaves seventeen Chinese Americans dead.

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1882 – Afong is sixty-two years old. The Chinese Exclusion Act is signed into place by President Chester A. Arthur. It is the first major law restricting immigration into the United States.

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1885 – The Rock Springs Massacre marks one of the most significant acts of violence against Chinese immigrants in United States history. At least twenty eight Chinese American coal miners are killed.

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1886 – Karl Benz pattens his Benz-Patent Motorwagon, known widely as the First Modern Automobile.

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May 1887 – Afong Moy is sixty-seven years old. As many as thirty four Chinese gold miners are ambushed and murdered by a gang of horse thieves and school boys from Wallowa County, Oregon. Though it goes to trial, no one is punished for the crime.

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1892 – Afong is seventy-two years old. The Geary Act is signed into place by the 52nd Congress of the United States, renewing the Chinese Exclusion Act for another 10 years.

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1902 – Afrong Moy is now eighty-two years old. The Geary Act is extended indefinitely. The Chinese Exclusion Act is regarded as being permanent.

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1908 – The Model T produced by the Ford Motor Company is regarded as the first affordable automobile.

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April 15, 1912 – The RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage.

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June 28, 1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is assassinated in Sarajevo and sparks the First World War.

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June 28, 1919 – The Treaty of Versailles is signed, formally ending WWI.

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Sept 1, 1939 – Germany invades Poland. Great Britain and France respond by declaring war on Germany, signifying the beginning of the Second World War.

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Dec 17, 1943 – The Magnuson Act is signed into law. It allows Chinese immigration for the first time since 1882 and permits some Chinese immigrants already residing in the country to become naturalized citizens. The Magnuson Act provides for the continuation of the ban against the ownership of property and businesses by Chinese people. In many states, Chinese Americans (including US citizens) are denied property-ownership rights either by law or de facto until the Magnuson Act is fully repealed in 1865.

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P.T. Barnum’s

Most Famous ‘Freaks’

Some of them join Hugh Jackman in “The Greatest Showman.”

Others may be a bit much for Hollywood.

By: Sean Cunningham Dec. 21, 2017 Link: https://www.insidehook.com/article/history/p-t-barnums-famous-freaks

H

e never actually said, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but P.T. Barnum understood B.S. could be big business.

Take the case of Joice Heth. In 1835, Barnum acquired partial “ownership” of an African-American woman who was alleged to be the slave who raised George Washington. There was reason to be wary of this story, since Washington had died in 1799 at age 67. It was insisted that the timeline still made sense, because she was 161. Barnum charged audiences 25 cents to hear her tell tales of Washington’s childhood.

It gets stranger. Heth died in 1836, but Barnum squeezed out one final payday: 1,500 people paid 50 cents each to watch her autopsy. It revealed she was likely about 80, not 160. Refusing to let facts get in the way of a great story, Barnum deepened the deception by 20

leaking to a newspaper that she was in fact still alive.

Born on July 5, 1810, in Bethel, Connecticut, Phineas Taylor Barnum’s name lives on more than 200 years later. (Indeed, he’s the subject of the new Hugh Jackman musical The Greatest Showman.)

While we tend to associate Barnum with the circus, he didn’t get involved in those until the 1870s. The bulk of his career was built around P.T. Barnum’s American Museum, which existed from 1841 to 1865. Located

at Broadway and Ann in Lower Manhattan, it was in some ways a standard museum, with taxidermied creatures (albeit sometimes of organisms that didn’t actually exist—more on this shortly) and artifacts from the American Revolution.

It also featured living exhibits, such as a wide array of animals.

Indeed, when a fire destroyed it in 1865, two whales were reportedly boiled alive. (An attempt to reopen the museum was aborted when it burned again in 1868.)

But the greatest attractions were the “human curiosities.” These individuals were displayed at the American Museum, on tours, and as circus sideshows.

While they were essential to Barnum’s fame, today they are largely forgotten. Here are some of Barnum’s leading attractions, ranging from the oddly inspiring to the horrifyingly exploitive: General Tom Thumb (above): Discovered by Barnum at age four, Charles Stratton performed for 40 years until his death in 1883 at 45. At his tallest, he stood roughly three feet.

Chang & Eng (opposite page, bottom): Born

in what’s now Thailand, the conjoined twins (called Siamese twins due to their birthplace) earned enough as a sideshow attraction that they were able to buy a plantation in North Carolina and had 22 children between them. The Civil War wiped out their fortune, however, with the result later in life they agreed to a tour of Europe for Barnum. They died in 1874 at age 62, with Chang passing first and Eng following a few hours later.

The Bearded Lady (a.k.a. The Infant Esau) Annie Jones (right): literally grew up in Barnum’s world. Born in Virginia in 1865, her facial hair attracted such interest that she was placed on display in Barnum’s Museum when she was barely a year old.

She would come to be celebrated as the “top-selling bearded lady in the country” and developed into a respected musician.

Before her death in 1902, she was known for her efforts to stop the usage of the word “freak.”

In the Classroom

“Curiosity is evolution.” – Afong Moy DISCUSSION: The differences between people P.T. Barnum collected for his side shows were exploited instead of celebrated. How do we see these tendencies reflected in our society, in modern day? How has social media influenced our perceptions of all the things that make us stand out?

GOING FURTHER: Have your students design posters advertising themselves as members of P.T. Barnum’s crew. Have them pitch their identities as if they were being interviewed for their own reality television show.

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Foot-Binding

D

By: Mark Cartwright Published on 27 September 2017 https://www.ancient.eu/Foot-Binding/

efinition Foot-binding was a practice first carried out on young girls in Tang Dynasty

China to restrict their normal growth and make their feet as small as possible. Considered an attractive quality, the effects of the process were painful and permanent. Widely used as a method to distinguish girls of the upper class from everyone else, and later as a way for the lower classes to improve their social prospects, the practice of foot-binding would continue right up to the early 20th century.

Rohan, Musée Louise Weiss, Saverne, France)

woman continued to wrap her deformed feet in bindings, wearing them at all times in public and when bathing.

The aimed result of the long and excruciating process was to have feet no longer than 7.5-10 cm (3-4 inches), when they were known as jinlian - “Golden Lotus” or “Lotus” feet after the central life symbol of Buddhism.

The smaller the feet the more attractive they were, even erotic for some, and it became a distinct mark of elegance.

The same was true of the style of walking a woman with bound feet was now forced to adopt - small, light steps.

With servants to perform menial tasks, a lady’s mobility was limited even in normal circumstances, but with bound feet, walking must have only been achieved with great difficulty. Smaller feet required especially dainty shoes, and these, made of silk or cotton and often beautifully embroidered, have been found in abundance in tombs of Chinese upper-class women.

The Process

Historical Origins & Spread

Chinese girls had their feet bound typically from the age of five to eight. The process began by choosing an auspicious day in the calendar. Next prayers and offerings were offered to the Tiny-Footed Maiden Goddess; another recipient was the Buddhist figure of Guanyin, a bodhisattva or enlightened one who was thought to protect women in general. When all was ready, the task was done by the older women of the family or by a professional foot-binder. The big toe was left facing forwards while the four smaller toes were bent under the foot. In this position, the feet were tightly bound using long strips of cloth, which then restricted any future growth and gave the foot a pronounced arch. The feet were unbound after one month, any ulcerations of the skin treated, and the foot rebound again. The bindings were loosened and retightened thereafter once each month until the girl reached her early teens (or even longer depending on the desired effect). It was not uncommon for one or more toes to be lost or to have infections in the foot or gangrene. Even as an adult a

The practice of binding feet may have started with the dancer Yaoniang, who performed in the Tang dynasty court, or more generally the Turkic dancers who performed there during the 10th century CE. These dancers were known for their small feet and “bow-shoes” which had upturned toes. The first mention in historical records dates to when the Tang court was at Nanking between 937 and 975 CE.

A Chinese silk shoe designed to be worn by a woman witrh bound-feet. 18th century CE. (Musées du château des

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Photo by Donna Jo Napoli

Zhang Yun Ying, 75 Photo by Jo Farrell Certainly, the binding of feet to reduce their size was long-associated with women who earned their money entertaining men in one way or another. Another reason for its popularity may have been a desire to clearly differentiate upper-class Chinese women, the Han in particular, from the lower classes, those women from the provinces, and those belonging to cultures from newly acquired territories. Conversely, people in the provinces and peripheral regions of China wanted to copy the ‘civilizing’ practices of imperial China.

Finally, aristocratic young men of the Tang period were becoming more refined in dress and appearance so that foot-binding may have been an attempt to further distinguish the sexes.

The practice became widespread among the upper classes during the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE), especially in central and northern China. Subsequently, foot-binding was performed on girls of all classes.

The widespread nature of the practice by aristocrats meant that lower class parents saw foot-binding as an

opportunity to raise the prospects of their own children.

Eventually, the trait became something to take careful note of by parents arranging the marriage of their son.

Tiny feet, despite the origins amongst dancers and courtesans, came to symbolize not only elegance but also moral virtue and modesty. There thus developed a certain peer pressure amongst families to perform the process on their daughters or risk not finding them eligible husbands. An additional test of a girl’s suitability was her being set the task of making small shoes for the bound feet of her future in-laws.

That foot-binding became very common is evidenced by the fact that Chinese writers from the 12th to 14th century CE anticipate their readers are familiar with it.

There developed certain proverbs, too, like Teng er bu teng xue, teng nu bu, teng jiao, meaning something like “if you care for your children, do not worry if your son suffers for his studies or your daughter for her feet” (Blake, 681). The lack of mobility would not have greatly affected working women in their traditional 23

FOOT-BINDING

continued

household employment of spinning, weaving, sewing, and embroidery. In those regions of China where women were more involved in agricultural work such as the cultivation of wet rice, foot-binding was less common.

The process even came to the attention of some foreign visitors, and one such source is Friar Odoric of Pordenone who visited northern China between 1322 and 1328 CE. The friar made the following note on the practice: And with the women the great beauty is to have little feet; and for this reason mothers are accustomed, as soon as girls are born to them, to swathe their feet tightly so that they can never grow in the least. (Gamble, 181).

Studies of a sample village of over 500 families in 1929 CE (Tinghsien) showed that it was almost a universal practice amongst women over 40 years of age but reduced to around half when considering the female population as a whole.

Resistance & Criticism Obviously being a painful process and leaving women so treated with permanent problems of mobility, which also seriously limited any role they could take on in wider society, the practice was not without its critics. The Qing poet Yuan Mei (1716-1797 CE) was one notable figure who was publicly against foot-binding, and Confucian scholars remained unimpressed, associated as it was with women of the ‘entertainment’ industry and having the sole purpose of making the woman more attractive.

The emperor Chun Chi, of the Manchu dynasty which never practiced foot-binding at court, tried to impose a ban in 1645 CE but the measure was not successful.

Emperor K’ang Hsi made another attempt in 1662 CE but, realizing he was fighting a losing battle against parents; he withdrew the ban in 1668 CE. By the 18th century CE there were occasional popular movements to stop the practice but still, despite the pains and consequences, foot-binding remained a common practice in China into the early 20th century CE.

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: Foot-binding was a mark of beauty and high social class.

How have beauty standards changed in our society over the last 180 years? How has access to technology influenced our perceptions of beauty? What are some dramatic lengths we go to as a society to be considered beautiful?

GOING FURTHER: Have the class create a list that defines what beauty means to them. Examine the list and determine which of the things they have referenced are superficial, otherwise physical traits. Challenge them to reassess their preconceived notions of beauty (which are heavily dictated by society’s perceptions) and create a new list that exemplifies true, authentic beauty that is more than skin deep. What characteristics must a person possess to be sincerely beautiful (i.e. kindness, fairness, empathy)

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Unbound: China’s last ‘lotus feet’ – in pictures 103 Years after foot binding was banned, a few women still live with the severe deformity it caused. Jo Farrell tracked down 50 of them, all in old age, and photographed some for her book Living History: Bound Feet Women of China. The last women in China with bound feet: ‘They thought it would give them a better life’ Joe Farrell Mon 15 Jun 2015 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/jun/15/unbound-chinas-last-lotus-feet-in-pictures

Pue Hui Ying, 76 Years old in 2011, Yunnan province

Hou Guan Yu, 89 years old in 2010, Shandong province 25

Unbound: China’s last ‘lotus feet’ – in pictures

continued

Si Yin Zhin, 90 years old in 2011 Pue’s feet were bound at seven and were briefly unbound at 12 (in 1949), as was required at that time.

Unbinding hurt as it forced the women to readjust the way they stood, and walk with broken toes. Because of this, Pue has kept her feet bound to this day. An avid bowler, she told me she travelled to Kunming once a month to take part in a tournament.

Her sister taught her how to bind her feet when she

was six years old, and they remained bound until 2010.

When I asked her why she had decided to unbind her feet after so long, she said that it was because she now needs help with the binding and no one does it correctly.

Si Yin’s feet were the most distorted that I have seen. To me, they no longer look like feet - they have taken the shape of the shoes. Her feet had never been unbound, and she had managed to keep them hidden.

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: Foot-binding was a mark of beauty and high social class. How have beauty standards changed in our society over the last 180 years? How has access to technology influenced our perceptions of beauty? What are some dramatic lengths we go to as a society to be considered beautiful?

GOING FURTHER: Have the class create a list that defines what beauty means to them. Examine the list and determine which of the things they have referenced are superficial, otherwise physical traits. Challenge them to reassess their preconceived notions of beauty (which are heavily dictated by society’s perceptions) and create a new list that exemplifies true, authentic beauty that is more than skin deep. What characteristics must a person possess to be sincerely beautiful (i.e. kindness, fairness, empathy)

26

Chinese Tea

T

ea is an important part of Chinese tradition. As Chinese society developed and progressed, tea production has played a role in driving economic development while tea consumption has remained a practice of daily life.

The practice of tea culture can bring the spirit and wisdom of human beings to a higher orbit. Tea has an extremely close relationship to Chinese culture, and its study covers a wide field and has very rich content. It not only embodies the spirit of civilization, but also the spirit of ideological form.

There can be no doubt that it has been beneficial in enhancing people’s social accomplishments and appreciation of art.

History of Chinese Tea The history of Chinese tea is a long and gradual story of refinement. Generations of growers and producers have perfected the Chinese way of manufacturing tea, and its many unique regional variations.

The original idea is credited to the legendary Emperor Shennong, who is said to have lived 5,000 years ago. His far-sighted edicts required, among other things, that all drinking water be boiled as a hygienic precaution. A story goes that, one summer day, while visiting a distant part of his realm, he and the court stopped to rest. In accordance with his ruling, the servants began to boil water for the court to drink. Dried leaves from a nearby bush fell into the boiling water, and a brown substance was infused into the water.

As a scientist, the Emperor was interested in the new liquid, drank some, and found it very refreshing. And so, according to legend, tea was created in 2737 BC.

several thousand years. Green tea is made from the new shoots of the tea plant, and the tea leaves are dried and processed according to the type of tea desired.

The techniques for processing green tea are sub-divided into three categories: water removing, rolling, and drying.

Traditional green tea has a pale color and a sharp, astringent flavor. It is produced primarily in the provinces of Jiangxi, Anhui, and Zhejiang. The most famous green tea is West Lake Dragon Well Tea, which is produced in Hangzhou.

2. Yellow Tea Yellow tea is produced by allowing damp tea leaves to dry naturally. It has a distinctive aroma, similar to red tea, but its flavor is closer to green and white teas. Yellow tea is also used to describe the high-quality tea that was served to the emperors, as yellow was the traditional imperial color.

Chinese Tea Types The main varieties of Chinese tea are classified as green tea, black tea, Oolong tea, white tea, yellow tea, and dark tea.

1. Green Tea Chinese green tea is the oldest and most popular type of tea; it has been enjoyed in China for 27

chinese tea

continued

3. White Tea White tea is unfermented, uncured green tea that has been quickly dried. It is indigenous to Fujan Province, and is lighter in color than other types of tea with a subtle, delicate flavor.

White tea got its name from the tradition of poor Chinese people offering plain boiled water to guests, if they had no tea, and calling it “white tea”.

4. Oolong Tea Oolong tea, also known as blue tea, is unfermented tea with unique characteristics.

Made from a blend of green and red teas, oolong tea boasts the best flavors and aromatic qualities of both. Sometimes called “green leaves with a red edge”, oolong tea is thought to aid in fat decomposition and is widely regarded as a weight loss aid and a beauty enhancer.

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5. Black Tea Black tea is the second largest category of Chinese tea.

It is made from the new shoots of tea leaves, which are wilted, rolled, fermented, and dried. The resulting infusion yields a lovely red color and a subtle aromatic fragrance.

Keemun is the most popular brand of black tea.

6. Dark Tea Dark tea is a kind of post-fermented tea, which undergoes an actual fermentation process aided by bacteria. The whole process comprises six steps: water removing, first-time rolling, heaping, second rolling, baking, and drying.

Chinese Tea Culture

4. Do not drink with medication. Tea contains large amount of Tannin, which will react with certain elements in the medicine, thus reduce medical effects. You can drink tea a couple of hours after you take medicine.

5. Green tea is the best option for office workers. Green tea contains catechins that help prevent computer radiation and supplement moisture content of the human body.

Drinking tea: Tea is taken as a beverage to quench thirst.

Tasting tea: The quality of the tea is judged by the color, fragrance and flavor of the tea, the water quality and even the tea set. When tasting tea, the taster should be able to savor the tea thoroughly.

Tea art: While drinking, attention is paid to environment, atmosphere, music, infusing techniques and interpersonal relationships.

The highest ambit-- tea lore: Philosophy, ethics and morality are blended into tea activity. People cultivate their morality and mind, and savor life through tasting tea, thereby attaining joy of spirit.

Tips of Effective Tea Drinking Drinking tea offers numerous benefits. It refreshes the mind, clears heat within the human body and helps people lose weight. As you add a cup of tea to your daily routine, please check the following tips which help you reap the maximum health benefits.

1. Drink it hot. Tea oxidizes quickly after brewing, and its nutrients diminish overtime. It is suggested that you drink it hot to get the best out of tea.

2. Do not drink too much strong tea. It is likely to upset your stomach and cause insomnia if you make the tea too strong. Usually you can mix 4 grams (0.13 ounce) of tea leaves with 250 milliliters (0.44 pint) to make a cup of tea. An overall amount of 12 - 15 grams (0.4 - 0.5 ounces) of tea leaves is suitable for daily consumption.

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: Chinese Tea Culture is integral to Chinese Society. What are some traditions and rituals in your culture that you can identify as being of great importance? Why is this?

How does it feel to partake in these customs? How does it feel to not? What are some rituals you hope to pass down to future generations? Why? GOING FURTHER: Ask students to design and present a tradition or ritual that speaks to who they are as individuals. Ask the class to partake in these traditions. How are they all different to each other? How are they the same? What have you learned about your classmate in hearing about and participating in their tradition?

3. The best time to drink is in between meals. Do not drink tea soon after or before meals. Otherwise it may quench appetite when your stomach is empty, or cause indigestion when your stomach is full.

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Opium Wars & 19th Century China

The Opium Wars

The Bloody Conflicts That Destroyed Imperial China By: Sebastien Roblin Aug 1, 2016

I

n 1839, England went to war with China because it was upset that Chinese officials had shut down its drug trafficking racket and confiscated its dope.Stating the historical record so plainly is shocking — but it’s true, and the consequences of that act are still being felt today.

The Qing Dynasty, founded by Manchurian clans in 1644, expanded China’s borders to their farthest reach, conquering Tibet, Taiwan and the Uighur Empire.

However, the Qing then turned inward and isolationist, refusing to accept Western ambassadors because they were unwilling to proclaim the Qing Dynasty as supreme above their own heads of state.

Foreigners — even on trade ships — were prohibited entry into Chinese territory.

The exception to the rule was in Canton, the southeastern region centered on modern-day Guangdong Province, which adjoins Hong Kong and Macao.

Foreigners were allowed to trade in the Thirteen Factories district in the city of Guangzhou, with payments made exclusively in silver.

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The British gave the East India Company a monopoly on trade with China, and soon ships based in colonial India were vigorously exchanging silver for tea and porcelain. But the British had a limited supply of silver.

Opium War: Starting in in the mid-1700s, the British began trading opium grown in India in exchange for silver from Chinese merchants. Opium — an addictive drug that today is refined into heroin — was illegal in England, but was used in Chinese traditional medicine.

However, recreational use was illegal and not widespread. That changed as the British began shipping in tons of the drug using a combination of commercial

loopholes and outright smuggling to get around the ban.

Chinese officials taking their own cut abetted the practice. American ships carrying Turkish-grown opium joined in the narcotics bonanza in the early 1800s.

Consumption of opium in China skyrocketed, as did profits.

The Daoguang Emperor became alarmed by the millions of drug addicts — and the flow of silver leaving China. As is often the case, the actions of a stubborn idealist brought the conflict to a head. In 1839 the newly appointed Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu instituted laws banning opium throughout China.

He arrested 1,700 dealers, and seized the crates of the drug already in Chinese harbors and even on ships at sea. He then had them all destroyed. That amounted to 2.6 million pounds of opium thrown into the ocean.

Lin even wrote a poem apologizing to the sea gods for the pollution.

Angry British traders got the British government to promise compensation for the lost drugs, but the treasury couldn’t afford it. War would resolve the debt.

But the first shots were fired when the Chinese objected to the British attacking one of their own merchant ships.

Chinese authorities had indicated they would allow trade to resume in non-opium goods. Lin Zexu even sent a letter to Queen Victoria pointing out that as England had a ban on the opium trade, they were justified in instituting one too.

It never reached her, but eventually did appear in the Sunday Times.

Instead, the Royal Navy established a blockade around Pearl Bay to protest the restriction of free trade … in drugs. Two British ships carrying cotton sought to run the blockade in November 1839. When the Royal Navy fired a warning shot at the second, The Royal Saxon, the Chinese sent a squadron of war junks and fire-rafts to escort the merchant.

HMS Volage’s Captain, unwilling to tolerate the Chinese “intimidation,” fired a broadside at the Chinese ships. HMS Hyacinth joined in. One of the Chinese ships exploded and three more were sunk. Their return fire wounded one British sailor.

Seven months later, a full-scale expeditionary force of 44 British ships launched an invasion of Canton. The British had steam ships, heavy cannons,

Congreve rockets and infantry equipped with rifles capable of accurate long range fire. Chinese state troops — “bannermen” — were still equipped with matchlocks accurate only up to 50 yards and a rate of fire of one round per minute.

Antiquated Chinese warships were swiftly destroyed by the Royal Navy. British ships sailed up the Zhujiang and Yangtze rivers, occupying Shanghai along the way and seizing tax-collection barges, strangling the Qing government’s finances. Chinese armies suffered defeat after defeat.

When the Qing sued for peace in 1842, the British could set their own terms. The Treaty of Nanjing stipulated that Hong Kong would become a British territory, and that China would be forced to establish five treaty ports in which British traders could trade anything they wanted with anybody they wanted to. A later treaty forced the Chinese to formally recognize the British as equals and grant their traders favored status.

More War, More Opium: Imperialism was on the upswing by the mid-1800s.

France muscled into the treaty port business as well in 1843. The British soon wanted even more concessions from China — unrestricted trade at any port, embassies in Beijing and an end to bans on selling opium in the Chinese mainland.

One tactic the British used to further their influence was registering the ships of Chinese traders they dealt with as British ships.

The pretext for the second Opium War is comical in its absurdity. In October 1856, Chinese authorities seized a former pirate ship, the Arrow, with a Chinese crew and with an expired British registration. The captain told British authorities that the Chinese police had taken down the flag of a British ship.

The British demanded the Chinese governor release the crew. When only nine of the 14 returned, the British began a bombardment of the Chinese forts around Canton and eventually blasted open the city walls.

British Liberals, under William Gladstone, were upset at the rapid escalation and protested fighting a new war for the sake of the opium trade in parliament.

However, they lost seats in an election to the Tories under Lord Palmerston. He secured the support needed to prosecute the war.

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Opium Wars & 19th Century China

continued

hostage, and tortured many in the delegation to death.

China was in no position to fight back, as it was The British High Commissioner of Chinese Affairs, Lord then embroiled in the devastating Taiping Rebellion, a Elgar, decided to assert dominance and sent the army peasant uprising led by a failed civil-service examinee into Beijing. claiming to be the brother of Jesus Christ. The rebels British and French rifles gunned down 10,000 had nearly seized Beijing and still controlled much of charging Mongolian cavalrymen at the Battle of Eight the country.

Mile Bridge, leaving Beijing defenseless. Emperor Once again, the Royal Navy demolished its Chinese Xianfeng fled. In order to wound the Emperor’s “pride opponents, sinking 23 junks in the opening engagement as well as his feeling” in the words of Lord Elgar, British near Hong Kong and seizing Guangzhou. Over the next and French troops looted and destroyed the historic three years, British ships worked their way up the river, Summer Palace. capturing several Chinese forts through a combination of The new revised treaty imposed on China legalized naval bombardment and amphibious assault. both Christianity and opium, and France joined in the war — its added Tianjin — the major city close excuse was the execution of a French to Beijing — to the list of treaty ports. missionary who had defied the ban on It allowed British ships to transport foreigners in Guangxi province. Even fostering better relations Chinese indentured laborers to the the United States became briefly requires that we understand United States, and fined the Chinese involved after a Chinese fort took how china’s current foreign policy government eight million silver dollars pot shots at long distance at an has its roots in past encounters in indemnities.

American ship. with the west.

The Western presence in China In the Battle of the Pearl River became so ubiquitous, and so widely Forts, a U.S. Navy a force of three detested, that an anti-Western ships and 287 sailors and marines popular revolt, the Boxer Rebellion, took four forts by storm, capturing broke out in 1899. The hapless Qing 176 cannons and fighting off a Dynasty, under the stewardship of counterattack of 3,000 Chinese Dowager Empress Cixi, first tried to clamp down on the infantry. The United States remained officially neutral. violence before throwing its support behind it — just in Russia did not join in the fighting, but used the time for a multi-national military force of U.S., Russian, war to pressure China into ceding a large chunk of its German, Austrian, Italian, French, Japanese and British northeastern territory, including the present-day city of troops to arrive and put down the rebellion.

Vladivostok.

It then spent an entire year looting Beijing, Tianjin When foreign envoys drew up the next treaty in and the surrounding countryside in reprisal.

1858 the terms, were even more crushing to the Qing Dynasty’s authority. Ten more cities were designated as treaty ports, foreigners would have free access to the ‘Century of Humiliation’: Yangtze river and the Chinese mainland, and Beijing It’s hard to over-emphasize the impact of the Opium would open embassies to England, France and Russia.

Wars on modern China. Domestically, it’s led to the The Xianfeng Emperor at first agreed to the treaty, ultimate collapse of the centuries-old Qing Dynasty, but then changed his mind, sending Mongolian general and with it more than two millennia of dynastic rule.

Sengge Rinchen to man the Taku Forts on the waterway It convinced China that it had to modernize and leading to Beijing. The Chinese repelled a British industrialize. attempt to take the forts by sea in June 1859, sinking Today, the First Opium War is taught in Chinese four British ships. A year later, an overland assault by schools as being the beginning of the “Century of 11,000 British and 6,700 French troops succeeded.

Humiliation” — the end of that “century” coming in When a British diplomatic mission came to insist 1949 with the reunification of China under Mao. While on adherence to the treaty, the Chinese took the envoy Americans are routinely assured they are exceptional

,

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and the greatest country on Earth by their politicians, Chinese schools teach students that their country was humiliated by greedy and technologically superior Western imperialists.

The Opium Wars made it clear China had fallen gravely behind the West — not just militarily, but economically and politically. Every Chinese government since — even the ill-fated Qing Dynasty, which began the “Self-Strengthening Movement” after the Second Opium War — has made modernization an explicit goal, citing the need to catch up with the West.

The Japanese, observing events in China, instituted the same discourse and modernized more rapidly than China did during the Meiji Restoration.

Mainland Chinese citizens still frequently measure China in comparison to Western countries. Economic and quality of life issues are by far their main concern.

But state media also holds military parity as a goal.

I once saw a news program on Chinese public television boasting about China’s new aircraft carrier Liaoning — before comparing it to an American carrier.

“They’re saying ours is still a lot smaller,” a high school student pointed out to me. “And we have only one.”

Through most of Chinese history, China’s main threat came from nomadic horse-riding tribes along its long northern border. Even in the Cold War, hostility with the Soviet Union made its Mongolian border a security hot spot. But the Opium Wars — and even worse, the Japanese invasion in 1937 — demonstrated how China was vulnerable to naval power along its Pacific coast.

China’s aggressive naval expansion in the South China Sea can be seen as the acts of a nation that has succumbed repeatedly to naval invasions — and wishes to claims dominance of its side of the Pacific in the 21st century.

The history with opium also has led China to adopt a particularly harsh anti-narcotics policy with the death penalty applicable even to mid-level traffickers. Drugtrafficking and organized crime remain a problem, however. The explosion of celebrity culture in China has also led to punitive crackdowns on those caught partaking in “decadent lifestyles,” leading to prominent campaigns of public shaming.

For example, in 2014 police arrested Jaycee Chan, son of Jackie Chan, for possessing 100 grams of marijuana. His father stated he wouldn’t plead for his

Prince Gong, 1860 (Felice Beato, photographer) son to avoid imprisonment.

Past history does not always determine future actions. Chinese sentiments toward the United Kingdom today are generally positive despite the Opium Wars. The escalating military confrontation over the South China Sea is a reality of our times, but that doesn’t mean China’s leaders will forever be committed to a strategy of expansion and confrontation.

Nonetheless, fostering better relations requires that we understand how China’s current foreign policy has it roots in past encounters with the West.

Following the First Opium War in the 1840s, the Western powers concluded a series of treaties with China in an effort to open its lucrative markets to Western trade. In the 1850s, the United States and the European powers grew increasingly dissatisfied with both the terms of their treaties with China and the Qing Government’s failure to adhere to them. The British forced the issue by attacking the Chinese port cities of Guangzhou and Tianjin in the Second Opium War. Under the most-favored-nation clause contained in the existing treaties, all of the foreign powers operating in China were permitted to seek the same concessions of China that Great Britain achieved by force. As a result, France, Russia, and the United States all signed treaties with China at Tianjin in quick succession in 1858.

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Opium Wars & 19th Century China

continued

These treaties granted the Western powers a number of rights and privileges. The number of treaty ports increased, with new ports opened to Western trade along the Chinese coast, on the islands of Taiwan and Hainan, and along the Yangtze River in the interior.

With the opening of the Yangtze River, foreigners also gained full access to the interior, and were free to travel and conduct business or missions anywhere in China.

The British demanded the right of Chinese citizens to emigrate on British ships. British (and therefore, French, American and Russian) diplomats were permitted to establish legations and live in Beijing. The agreements reached at Tianjin also set a new, low tariff for imported goods, giving foreign traders an important advantage.

Frustrated by irregularities in Chinese customs services, British and U.S. merchants finally established the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, which regulated trade for the benefit of foreign merchants and provided a steady source of revenue to the Chinese Government.

Although the Chinese signed the treaties in 1858, it took two more years of fighting before the Chinese Government was disposed to ratify them and accept the terms. Noticing Chinese resistance to some of the principle clauses, in particular to the residence of foreign ambassadors in Beijing, the British continued their attacks on Chinese forts. Although the Chinese repulsed an attack on the Dagu forts in 1859, that one victory was not enough to stop the British forces from making their way north to Beijing. Joined by French forces, the British entered the city and burned the Summer Palace in the northwestern periphery, but spared the Forbidden City, home of the Chinese emperor.

While the British and French used military power to convince China to accept the new treaty agreements, U.S. diplomat John Ward sought, and finally achieved through diplomatic negotiations, an exchange of treaty ratifications in 1859. Under the most-favored-nation clause, the U.S. ratification allowed the other powers to take advantage of the treaty provisions of the Treaty of Tianjin secured by American diplomacy.

The agreements reached between the Western powers and China following the Opium Wars came to be known as the “unequal treaties� because in practice they gave foreigners privileged status and extracted concessions from the Chinese. Ironically, the Qing Government had fully supported the clauses on extraterritoriality and most-favored nation status in the first treaties in order to keep the foreigners in line. This treaty system also marked a new direction for Chinese contact with the outside world. For years, the Chinese had conducted their foreign policy through the tribute system, in which foreign powers wishing to trade with China were required first to bring a tribute to the emperor, acknowledging the superiority of Chinese culture and the ultimate authority of the Chinese ruler. Unlike China’s neighbors, the European powers ultimately refused to make these acknowledgements in order to trade, and they demanded instead that China adhere to Western diplomatic practices, such as the creation of treaties. Although the unequal treaties and the use of the most-favored-nation clause were effective in creating and maintaining open trade with China, both were also important factors in building animosity and resentment toward Western imperialism.

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: The Opium Wars have influenced hundreds of years of world history. What are some other events you can think of that have had such a lasting impact? How many of these instances were avoidable? In what ways? Is there any way to stop the domino effect after the first tile has fallen?

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The Chinese Exclusion Act – Flash Cards “Although the Chinese composed only .002 percent of the nation’s population, Congress passed the exclusion act to placate worker demands and assuage prevalent concerns about maintaining white “racial purity.””

Front: What was the Chinese Exclusion Act? Back: The first major law restricting immigration to the US enacted in 1882. This law suspended Chinese immigration into America for 10 years. It also stopped and Chinese already in the US from becoming citizens.

Front: Who is Chester A. Arthur?

Back: 21st President of the US from 1881-1885.

Signed the Chinese Exclusion Act into law in 1882.

Front: What was the Geary Act? Back: This law, enacted in 1892, prevented Chinese Citizens from coming to America, but let the ones that were already here stay.

Front: What act repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act? Back: Magnuson Act of 1943 allowed 105 Chinese into the US per year.

Front: Why was The Chinese Exclusion Act put into place?

Front: What was the Chinese Exclusion Act? Back: The first major law restricting immigration to the US enacted in 1882. This law suspended Chinese immigration into America for 10 years. It also stopped and Chinese already in the US from becoming citizens.

Front: Xenophobia Back: A fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers.

Front: Page Act of 1875 Back: This law prevented the immigration of women from “China, Japan or any other Oriental country” who were suspected of prostitution.

History.com Staff in their article titled “The Chinese Exclusion Act” https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/chinese-exclusion-act-1882

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Women and the Chinese Exclusion Act Author: The African American Policy Forum Link: http://aapf.org/chinese-exclusion-act

T

he Chinese Exclusion Act has distinctly harsh consequences for Chinese women because of the way marriage was regulated by Congress through immigration law. In her article Divesting Citizenship: On Asian American History and the Loss of Citizenship through Marriage Professor Leti Volpp describes the process through which women who were American citizens by birth lost citizenship due to the interaction of the Chinese Exclusion Act and a law passed in 1907 by Congress which states that “any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband.” While this This 1886 illustration of Uncle Sam kicking out the Chinese was made law caused women of all races to lose four years after the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. their citizenship through marriage, it had a particularly devastating effect on Chinese women who were, unlike similarly situated white women, prevented from naturalizing because they were rendered ineligible for citizenship as a function of their race. By way of example, Professor Volpp includes the story of Ng Fung Sing, an American woman born in Washington State, who lost her citizenship as a result of her marriage to a Chinese man. After her marriage, Ng Fung Sing moved to China to live with her husband. Following his death two years later, Ng Fung Sing attempted to return to the United States and was prevented from doing so on the basis that she was no longer a citizen and was furthermore inadmissible as a result of her race. Volpp goes on to note that stories like those of Ng Fung Sing are generally left out of academic discussion of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which generally focuses on the effect of the Act on Chinese men.

“Chinese? No! No! No!” A handbill for an anti-Chinese rally held on July 23, 1892 in Takoma, Wash. Courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma.

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‘A Cloak for Discrimination’

Trump order reminds Asian-Americans of laws against them

P

resident Trump’s controversial immigration order has played out on the national stage with protests, court rulings and now a promise by the president to replace the travel ban. But for Nick Lee, it’s personal -- a painful reminder of his family’s history.

Lee’s grandfather was separated for 16 years from his wife and never got to see his first childbefore she died -- all because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first major U.S. law restricting who could come into the country.

The 1882 law -- followed by other exclusion acts that stayed in force for six decades -- was born amid a wave of fear that Chinese workers who had come during the Gold Rush and helped build the United States’ railroads were competing with other Americans for jobs and lowering wages.

In 1868, the U.S. signed a treaty encouraging Chinese migration; 24 years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act turned away immigrants from what was even then the world’s most populous nation. Chinese immigrants in California were instrumental in building the

By: STACY CHEN Feb 18, 2017, 1:50 AM ET

Transcontinental Railroad and shouldered much of the work building the West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“They used to say that the Chinese are outsiders, and they couldn’t mix with our society, just like what they’re saying about Muslims now,” said Lee, who works for OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization.

Lee said he fears that Trump’s executive actions will separate families in the same way as his.

“It’s horrifying,” he said. “There’s no other word for it.”

In 1868, the U.S. signed a treaty encouraging Chinese migration; 24 years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act turned away immigrants from what was even then the world’s most populous nation. Chinese immigrants in California were instrumental in building the Transcontinental Railroad and shouldered much of the work building the West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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‘A Cloak for Discrimination’ continued

Trump’s travel ban The president said Thursday that he will issue a new executive action soon following a federal court’s putting a hold on the order signed Jan. 25. That order bans entry into the U.S. of people from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days, suspends refugee admissions from any country for 120 days and indefinitely bans the entry of Syrian refugees.

The president said executive action is necessary to bolster national security and that the seven countries -- Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen -- were identified by the Obama administration as a concern because of their history of links to terrorism.

Critics said the order is a de facto Muslim ban.

Within hours after it was signed, scores of people coming to the U.S. were detained at airports around the country. Families were separated as members trying to join loved ones in the U.S. were stopped. And 60,000 visas were cancelled in one week before a federal judge stayed the order on Feb. 3, 2017.

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‘I wanted to live, so I had to come to America’ The president’s immigration order also brought up painful reminders for Erika Lee. Her grandfather came to the U.S. in 1918 as an orphan under a fake identity, what was called “a paper son,” with documents falsely stating he was related to American citizens.

“He had to give up his name and become someone else.” said Erika Lee, a history professor at the University of Minnesota and the author of books on immigration including, “At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943,” and who is not related to Nick Lee. She said her grandfather felt he had no choice.

“I remember my grandfather saying ‘I wanted to live, so I had to come to America,’” she said. In China, “if you wanted to live during that time you went abroad.”

Political and economic instability in China from around the 1850s on led thousands to immigrate to

the U.S. in search of opportunity and a better life, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Erika Lee said the president’s travel ban reminds her of old U.S. laws restricted Chinese immigration -- presented as for the “public good” and “national security” when really such laws are “a cloak for discrimination,” she said.

“It pains me and frustrates me to no end to realize we are repeating the mistakes of the past,” Erika Lee said of the president’s executive order, “repeating laws that our presidents and government have regretted and regarded as a historic mistake.”

Full article can be found at: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cloakdiscrimination-trump-order-reminds-asianamericans-laws/story?id=45243415

In the Classroom DISCUSSION: There are chilling similarities emerging between the politics of the late 19th century and today. Identify and explore these events. What should we have learned from the past? How can we apply it to our future?

GOING FURTHER: Ask students to write letters to their representatives explaining what they should keep in mind in terms of human rights and immigration politics as we head into this election year.

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GLOSSARY OF RELEVANT TERMS • Andrew Jackson - Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States. He is known for founding the Democratic Party and for his support of individual liberty.

• Cantonese - variety of Chinese spoken by more than 55 million people in Guangdong and southern Guangxi provinces of China, including the important cities of Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau.

• Chinese acrobatics - Acrobatics is an ancient art in China with its beginnings going back 4,000 years to the Xia Dynasty. The performances used such items and tridents, wicker rings, tables, chairs, jars, plates, and bowls.

• Chinese Exclusion Act - the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States.

• Chinese Massacre at Deep Creek - Snake River Massacre, as many as thirty-four Chinese gold miners were ambushed and murdered by a gang of horse thieves and schoolboys from Wallowa County.

• Chinese Massacre of 1871 - Los Angeles Chinatown Mob, a race riot that occurred on October 24, 1871, in Los Angeles, California, when a mob of around 500 white and mestizo persons entered Chinatown and attacked, robbed, and murdered Chinese residents.

• Chopsticks - one of a pair of slender sticks held between thumb and fingers and used chiefly in Asian countries to lift food to the mouth.

• Civil War - also called War Between the States, four-year war (1861–65) between the United States and 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America.

• Erhu - bowed, two-stringed Chinese vertical fiddle, the most popular of this class of instruments.

• Foot binding - a practice first carried out on young girls in Tang Dynasty China to restrict their normal growth and make their feet as small as possible. Considered an attractive quality, the effects of the process were painful and permanent.

• Gettysburg Address - a speech that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. It is one of the best-known speeches in American history.

• GuangZhou Providence - also known as the Canton Providence, is the capital and most populous city of the province of Guangdong in southern China. On the Pearl River about 120 km (75 mi) northnorthwest of Hong Kong and 145 km (90 mi) north of Macau, Guangzhou has a history of over 2,200 years and was a major terminus of the maritime Silk Road, and continues to serve as a major port and transportation hub, as well as one of China’s three largest cities.

• Liberty Bell - large bell, a traditional symbol of U.S. freedom, commissioned in 1751 by the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly to hang in the new State House.

• Manifest Destiny - a phrase coined in 1845, is the idea that the United States is destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent.

• New York Harbor - a body of water that surrounds Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island and some parts of New Jersey. For centuries, this harbor has played a crucial role in the regional economy and transportation network.

• Nitroglycerine - a dense, colorless, oily, explosive liquid most commonly produced by nitrating

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glycerol with white fuming nitric acid under conditions appropriate to the formation of the nitric acid ester. Chemically, the substance is an organic nitrate compound rather than a nitro compound, yet the traditional name is often retained. Invented in 1847, nitroglycerin has been used as an active ingredient in the manufacture of explosives, mostly dynamite, and as such it is employed in the construction, demolition, and mining industries.

• Opium Wars - two armed conflicts in China in the mid-19th century between the forces of Western countries and of the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1911/12. The first Opium War (1839–42) was fought between China and Britain, and the second Opium War (1856–60), also known as the Arrow War or the Anglo-French War in China, was fought by Britain and France against China.

• Oriental - of, from, or characteristic of Asia, especially East Asia.

OF NOTE: The term Oriental, denoting a person from East Asia, is regarded as offensive by many Asians, especially Asian Americans. It has many associations with European imperialism in Asia. Therefore, it has an out-of-date feel and tends to be associated with a rather offensive stereotype of the people and their customs as inscrutable and exotic. Asian and more specific terms such as East Asian, Chinese, and Japanese are preferred.

• PT Barnum - American showman who employed sensational forms of presentation and publicity to popularize such amusements as the public museum, the musical concert, and the three-ring circus.

• Qing Dynasty -The Qing Dynasty was the final imperial dynasty in China, lasting from 1644 to 1912.

It was an era noted for its initial prosperity and tumultuous final years, and for being only the second time that China was not ruled by the Han people.

• River Thames - the chief river of southern England.

• Rock Springs Massacre – Sweetwater County Massacre of 1885, one of the most significant acts of violence against Chinese immigrants in United States history.

• St Louis Station - a passenger intercity train terminal in St. Louis, Missouri. At the height of early 1900s train travel it was one of the busiest train stations in the United States.

• Susquehanna River - a major river located in the northeastern (New York) and mid-Atlantic (Pennsylvania) United States.

• Trade routes - an area or proscribed passage by land or sea used by merchants and caravans for economic purposes.

• Trail of Tears - in U.S. history, the forced relocation during the 1830s of Eastern Woodlands Indians of the Southeast region of the United States (including Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, among other nations) to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.

• Transcontinental Railroad – a railroad which passes or extends across a continent. Also, specifically the first transcontinental railroad, the Pacific Railway.

• Translator - a person who translates from one language into another, especially as a profession.

• Treaty of Nanking - Treaty of Nanjing signed after the Opium War between Britain and China.

• Washington, D.C. - city and capital of the United States of America.

• William Shakespeare - English poet, dramatist, and actor often called the English national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time.

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SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS “It is a beautiful thing to look at something long enough to really Understand it. But it is so much more beautiful to be looked at long enough to be understood… I’m looking at you. Are you looking at me?”

— Afong Moy

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READ A REVIEW – THEN WRITE YOUR OWN! In the Classroom The following is a review of Ma-Yi Theatre’s production of The Chinese Lady from the New York Times. Read this review and, after seeing Long Wharf’s production, write your own!

Review: A ‘Chinese Lady’ on Heart-Rending Display By: Laura Collins-Hughes

T

Nov. 15, 2018

he teenage Afong Moy made headlines when she arrived in New York by ship in 1834.

It’s impossible to prove that she was the first Chinese woman in the United States, but it’s certain that she was a rarity, brought here to be displayed before paying crowds of gawkers.

“It is human nature to be curious,” she tells us in Lloyd Suh’s piercing and intimate new play, “The Chinese Lady,” a time-skipping, gently comical drama inspired by the story of the real Afong Moy. Chattel in a two-year deal struck between her family and some American importers, Afong (Shannon Tyo) is just 14 when the play begins. Aided, and sometimes foiled, by her put-upon translator, Atung (Daniel K. Isaac), she spends her days performing a distorted version of Chinese identity.

Inside a little room decorated in chinoiserie, she is a living, breathing museum exhibit: price of admission 25 cents, 10 cents for children. Dressed in a silken costume (ooh!), she eats with chopsticks (ahh!) and — here comes the highlight — even walks around the room on her tiny bound feet.

“I have noticed that my feet are a source of constant fascination,” she muses as she takes her little stroll. But Afong likes her feet, and she can’t help noticing, too, that some practices in the West are at least as barbaric as foot-binding is purported to be.

“Such as corsets,” she says lightly. “Or the transAtlantic slave trade.”

Dexterously directed by Ralph B. Peña for Ma-Yi Theater Company, this quiet play steadily deepens in

Shannon Tyo as the play’s title character, a young woman brought to the West and forced to perform a distorted version of her identity. Carol Rosegg 43

READ A REVIEW continued

Daniel K. Isaac, as a translator, with Ms. Tyo. Carol Rosegg complexity as we trail the idealistic Afong and the more knowing Atung through the decades, bickering with each other all the way. Ms. Tyo and Mr. Isaac have gorgeous chemistry, and with their rapport they cast a spell that Fabian Obispo’s music and Oliver Wason’s lighting unobtrusively fortify.

The clever set (by Junghyun Georgia Lee, who also designed the costumes) begins as a shipping container, which opens to become the room in the museum. These are the walls that box in Afong and Atung’s cultural identity, as seen through white American eyes.

It’s that gaze that infuses this beautifully acted play with pain and shame and sorrow — so it is both practical and kind that Mr. Suh has softened his script with humor. Because of course it is also human nature to look on difference with suspicion or hostility.

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That has been a wounding part of the experience of Chinese people in this country, which barred them from citizenship — and severely restricted legal immigration — for many years.

Though Afong didn’t come to the United States voluntarily, and didn’t mean to stay, “The Chinese Lady” is an immigrant’s tale. We watch her slowly acclimate to her new country, and grow more distant from the nation of her childhood.

Throughout, she retains the palpable loneliness of an only — someone who, by virtue of being so outnumbered, is judged as a stand-in for an entire population. But by the end of Mr. Suh’s extraordinary play, we look at Afong and see whole centuries of American history. She’s no longer the Chinese lady. She is us.

WRITE YOUR REVIEW

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HELPFUL RESOURCES The Chinese Exclusion Act PBS Documentary Trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v3_y3EbRIU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_ continue=7&v=lQ8FJY-Ylxs Directed By: Ric Burns and Li-Shin Yu Footbinding: Letter to my Daughter Blog by: Sihle’s Apple Crunch April 11, 2016 Link: https://sihlesapplecrunch.com/2016/04/11/footbinding-letter-to-my-daughter/ The Dynamics of Cultural Counterpoint in Asian Studies Book edited by: David Jones and Michele Marion The Second Sex Book by: Simone DeBeauvoir Link: http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/Reader.102/Beauvoir.I.pdf Human Zoos: America’s Forgotten History of Scientific Racism – Film Directed By: John G. West

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works cited AFONG MOY • https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-chinese-lady-9780190645236?cc=us&lang=en& • https://theberkshireedge.com/theatre-review-the-chinese-lady-at-barrington-stage-a-wonderful-selfcontained-world-of-life-and-movement/ • https://lithub.com/the-life-of-afong-moy-the-first-chinese-woman-in-america/ • https://sucoolfor.school.blog/tag/afong-moy/ • https://myamericanmeltingpot.com/2018/08/03/american-history-first-chinese-woman/ • http://ma-yitheatre.org/news/meet-the-chinese-lady-and-her-interpreter/

FOOT BINDING • https://www.ancient.eu/Foot-Binding/ • https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/the-peculiar-history-of-foot-binding-inchina/279718/ • https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-apr-16-la-fg-china-bound-feet-20120416-story.html • http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/Reader.102/Beauvoir.I.pdf • https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/jun/15/unbound-chinas-last-lotus-feet-inpictures

CHINESE TEA • http://www.coffeeteawarehouse.com/tea-history.html • https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-tea/tea-classification.htm • https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-tea/ • https://www.hichinatrip.com/Theme/tea/

OPIUM WARS AND 19TH CENTURY CHINA • https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-opium-wars-the-bloody-conflicts-destroyed-imperialchina-17212 • https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/china-2

CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT • https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/chinese-exclusion-act/#cast_and_crew • https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chinese-exclusion-act-immigration-politics_n_5b06a90fe4b05f0fc8 4552cf • https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cloak-discrimination-trump-order-reminds-asian-americans-laws/ story?id=45243415 • https://quizlet.com/349391704/chinese-exclusion-act-flash-cards/ • https://quizlet.com/370269405/the-chinese-exclusion-act-1882-flash-cards/ • https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/chinese-exclusion-act-1882

HUMAN ZOOS • https://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2019/03/john-west-and-michael-medved-talk-humanzoos-and-racism/#more-34535 • https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/10/human-zoos-age-trump# • https://timeline.com/human-zoo-worlds-fair-7ef0d0951035 • https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/human-zoos-a-shocking-history-of-shame-and-exploitation • https://www.insidehook.com/article/history/p-t-barnums-famous-freaks 47

WORKS CITED continued

GLOSSARY • https://www.en.wikipeida.org/wiki/Guangzhou • https://lexico.com/en/definition/translator • https://lexico.com/en/definition/oriental • https://ancient.edu/foot-binding • https://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chopstick • https://britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare • https://britannica.com/place/river-thames • https://biography.com/us-president/andrew-jackson • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/susquehannah_river • https://britannica.com/topic/opium-wars • https://geography.name/trade-routes • https://china.usc.edu?treaty-nanjing-nanking-1842 • https://britannica.com/topic/cantonese-language • https://britannica.com/biography/P-T-Barnum • https://history.com/topics/qing-dynasty • https://railroad.lindahall.org/resources/what-was-what.html • https://britannica.com/event/trail-of-tears • https://fordcenter.blogspot.com/2010/07/history-of-chinese-acrobatics.html • https://britannica.com/art/erhu • https://newyorkjourney.com/district-new-york-harbor.html • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/nitroglycerine • https://history.com/topics/westward-expansion/manifestdestiny • https://britannica.com/event/American-Civil-War • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg-Address • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union-Station_(St.Louis) • https://history.com/topics/immigration/chinese-exclusion-act-1882 • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/chinese-massacre-of-1817 • https://loc.gov/rr/topics/rocksprings.html • https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/chinese_massacre_at_deep_creek/#.XfgRPdVKjcs • https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Stratton • https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chang-and-Eng • http://sideshowslideshow.com/jones.html

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