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Charlie Chan: The Untold Story Of The Honorable Detective And His Rendezvous With American History (2010)

by Yunte Huang(Favorite Author)

3.6 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0393069621 (ISBN13: 9780393069624)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

review 1: A very interesting analysis of the Charlie Chan novels and films by a Chinese-American cultural critic and professor. The Hawaiian history and the portrait of the guy Charlie Chan was modeled on--a Chinese police officer in Honolulu who was legendary for his tough sweeps of the gambling dens, his debonair style and his devotion to his family--is really engaging. The analysis by the author, a Chinese academic, of what has been called a racist and stereotypical Chinese character, is also thought-provoking and well-considered. Enjoyed it.
review 2: CHARLIE CHAN: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History. (2010). Yunte Huang. ***. What this book is really about is American xenophobia. Although the author does manag... moree to get in chapters on Earl Derr Biggers and Sax Rohmer and other contemporary writers from the Golden Age of detective fiction, there’s a lot of filler in here too. A short history of Hawaii is provided in the early chapters. Then follows a history of the Chinese in Hawaii and in late 19th century America and their role in gold mining in California and in the sugar industry in Hawaii. We finally get to meet Chang Apana. Chang (1864?-1933) was a chinaman born in China but who ended up in Hawaii. He started out as a ranch hand on the Wilder ranch, one of the largest spreads in Hawaii. From there, he was employed by the newly-founded Humane Society, then on to the Hawaiian Police Department. As hard as I tried, I could only find a tenuous connection between Apana and the fictional Charlie Chan. It was rumored that the name of Charlie Chan was taken from a sign over a laundry in Ohio that was frequently passed by the author. Although the author and Apana finally met, there were no stories by Biggers that were based on any of the exploits by Apana. Apana was simply one of the best policemen in Hawaii, and maintained a good reputation for doing his job well. I didn’t realize it, but Biggers only wrote six novels featuring Charlie Chan. Where we have come to know him so well is from the films produced by Hollywood. According to the author – who provides a filmography – there were forty-seven Charlie Chan movies made between 1926 and 1949. Since then, there were also take-offs on Chan and his character made that were not referenced. Aside from the author’s research into Charlie Chan, you (or at least I) got to know a bunch of things that I didn’t know before. Hawaii’s first industry was their trade in sandalwood. I thought that sandalwood was from the sandalwood tree – but I learned that sandalwood starts out as a parasite on the roots of other trees and grows from there. I also learned that sugar cane was not native to Hawaii, but was brought by the Polynesians from India a millenium earlier. Also, Sun Yat-sen, though born in China, was raised in Hawaii before his return to take a historic role in China’s politics. There are lots of interesting facts here, but the major premise is one of Americans treating of Asiatics as, at best, second-class citizens. less

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