Chinese American Eyes: July 2022

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Photography: Lillian “Gish” Jen in School Yearbooks

1971 Bandersnatch

Scarsdale High School, Scarsdale, New York

Bottom, second from left

1972 Bandersnatch

Scarsdale High School, Scarsdale, New York

Front row, third from right

Front row, second from right

Further Reading

Gish Jen

Wikipedia

(Next post on Wednesday: Philadelphia Chinatown, 1899)

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Graphics: The Young China Pictorial

August 11, 1940

(Next post on Wednesday: Lillian “Gish” Jen in School Yearbooks)

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Dining with Cartoonist Paul Fung

Believe It or Not!: Wonder Book of Strange Facts, Universal Guild, 1957

... Recently I dined in New York’s Chinatown with Paul Fung, the Chinese artist. Much food and much talk. A real Chinese dinner has from twenty to thirty courses and lasts five hours. ...

Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), September 6, 1932: My New York

And the Chinese food at Lotus Village, in West 47th street, being the only veritable Chinese fare in the midtown section, according to Paul Fung, the artist; and he ought to know. ... The Igloo, a sort of egg roll, is particularly unnerving until you savor it.

Graphic Story Magazine #11, Summer 1970

Will Gould interview

Page 37:

I palled around with Paul Fung more than any of the other cartoonists. Paul was on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer when Billy DeBeck came through and brought him in to New York. He inked Barney Google. Then he took over Dumb Dora after Chic Young had to drop it. Later, he did some stuff for Jack Lait. We had a lot in common. He liked to play golf, and he used to play the organ well, and we had a lot of fun. We’d go out and eat at three o’clock in the morning—first time I had chili on a hot dog. I can still taste it.

The Normal Alumni Columns, March 1939, Louisiana State Normal College

The article, “From a Columnist’s Cook-Book”, begins here.

Page 21:

... Paul Fung, the cartoonist, took me up three flights off Pell Street one morning to the most astonishing—and inedible—repast I have ever tackled. He promised a “Manchu Emperor’s meal”; it’s no wonder the line is rapidly dying out. We had bird’s-nest soup, shrimp floating in money, fish with a kind of chocolate sauce, an omelet studded with bamboo shoots and what tasted exactly like the Chinaberries I sampled as a boy on Normal Hill. The eggs, incidentally, were surely young when the Chinese Wall was laid out. The meal was accompanied by a thimble-full of “Tiger-Bone Wine”, a brew alleged to be rice wine with the jaw-bone of a tiger inserted into the keg for ageing purposes. But that meal was unfortunate and I couldn’t take it; many other settos with Chinese dishes have been memorable and delightful. ...

Paul Fung and His Daughter, Pauline

Paul Fung’s “The Guy from Grand Rapids”

Paul Fung’s “Gus and Gussie”

Paul Fung’s “Bughouse Fables”

Paul Fung’s “Dumb Dora”

Paul Fung’s “Polly and Her Pals”

Paul Fung’s “Dumb Dora” Advertisements

Silas Fung

Timothy Fung, Commercial Artist

Mrs. Silas Fung

Chinese Restaurant, 1966

Chinese Tuxedo, New York City

Combination Platter

Dan Wayne Lee, Designer and Restauranteur

Dining at 14 Mott Street in New York Chinatown, Part 1: 1885–1898

Dining at 14 Mott Street in New York Chinatown, Part 2: 1899–1904

Dining at 14 Mott Street in New York Chinatown, Part 3: 1905–1915

Eight Immortal Flavors

Henry Low’s “Cook at Home in Chinese”

Howard Lee and the New Chinatown Souvenir Photograph Folders

The Illustrated New York Chinese Restaurant

Jake Lee’s Paintings at Kan’s Restaurant

Jim Lee, Artist, Teacher and Chef

Lee Ti, Waiter and Artist

Loui Ghuey, Restauranteur, Photographer, Merchant and Sign Painter

Lum Fong’s New York Restaurants

Ngoot Lee, Artist, Cook and Charter Member of the Group of the Oblong Table

Oriental Restaurant, New York City

Soy Kee & Company and Port Arthur Restaurant, New York City

Tyrus Wong’s Cookbook Illustrations

Who Created the “How to Use Chopsticks” Illustrations?

Woey Sin Low, New York City

(Updated April 12, 2023; next post on Wednesday: The Young China Pictorial)

Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Cartoonist: Paul Fung and His Daughter, Pauline

National Magazine, October 1919

Most of the newspaper readers of the United States are familiar with the work of Paul Fung, who is said to be the only Chinese cartoonist working on an American newspaper. But few—very few—people know that he is married and has a little daughter who was born in June of this year.

Fung is twenty-two years old. He is the son of the Reverend Fung Chack, Baptist minister and a graduate of Leland Stanford University. Paul was born in the United States. When he was five years old, his father took him to China, where he attended school for six years. His father hoped to make a minister of him, a sort of Chinese Billy Sunday. But Paul had already become interested in another line of endeavor. As he strolled about the streets of Canton, the boy sketched with pad and pencil the quaint characters and scenes of the Orient, and showed so much skill in his drawings that his father, finally despairing of making a minister of him, brought him back to America.

Fung went thru the grade schools of Seattle and the Lincoln high school. While he was still in high school his clever sketches came to the notice of the managers of a string of vaudeville houses on the Pacific Coast. He was signed up for a chalk talk behind the footlights, and made one tour of the vaudeville circuit, then turned down a longer contract to go back to school.

When Fung finished high school, he tucked a folio of his sketches under his arm and tackled a newspaper office. He sat for two hours on a hard bench in front of the managing editor’s sanctum before he was noticed and invited in for an interview. Given an opening, Fung, who had his recitation all framed up in advance and rehearsed many times, delivered it. He was given a chance to show his talent and made good. He still works for that newspaper.

Fung has developed into a clever caricaturist. One of his best drawings he believes to be the war poster, “The Sweetheart of the Allies,” which showed a Salvation Army lassie serving doughnuts to the men in the trenches. This picture was copied all over the world

Fung has many friends and thousands of admirers. He has a real sense of humor and possesses the American point of view.

“What do you like to draw best of all?” he was asked.

Fung's gaze unconsciously went to a picture of his wife and baby which rests in a frame on the back of his desk.

“Nowdays,” he replied with a smile, “I like best to draw a paycheck.”