Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1883-12-06
A CHINESE THEATER.

visit tO one tn sam FERnoiacO.-Ater tho
PcrrormNnoe.-An Oriental BANQUET.
Describing visit TO the Chinese
quarters of San Francisco, a corre-
spondent says:
In the rounds of regular sight-see-
ing all strangers go to the Grand
Theater, or playhouse of the "Donu
Quai Yuen," where melodrama and
tragedy alternately excite the audience
to shouts of laughter and rounds Of ap-
plause. The performance begins at 5
o'clock in the evening and lasts until
midnight, and the historical plays
often run for week before the one
drama Is completed. The actors are
all brought over from the old country,
at salaries ranging from $4,000 to $4,000
a year At times troops of jugglers
and acrobats have come over for short
er engagements, and occasionally a
famous singer or musician. The drama
goes on with fine disregard to unities,
and the scenic accessories are so meager
that much is left to the Imagination.
Women never appear on the Chinese
stage, and their parts are taken by
gifted men, who lnince around the
stage in the little foot hop and talk a
piping falsetto. The costumes are
often of great richness and splendor,
and some of the robes of superb bro
cades and of satins stiff with needle
work and gold thread, are worthy of
places in an art museum. The eastern
visitors go daft over the Chinese
theater and want to attend steadily,
but to the San Franciscan it is the
height of marytrdom to endure the
constant accompaniment of the gong,
the wooden drum and the one-stringed
fiddle, on which the orchestra play a
wailing sort Of tune that halfway re-
sembles "Old Tom Tucker" and There
is a Happy Land"
After the theater comes the Hang
Fer Low Restaurant, where the
plebeians sit below stairs and the
gentry ascend two or three tiers of
kitchens to the upper floor, where
they are seated in gilded alcoves and
served with cups of wonderful tea, ac-
companied by preserved ginger and
citrOn, and lychee nuts. Great ban
quets are given at the Hang Fer Low
by the swells and the rich merchants
of Chinatown ut costs ranging from
$50 to 5000. Invitations on vermilion
paper are sent out days beforehand,
and when the circle of guests assemble
at the round table on the appointed
evening incense sticks are burning, the
board is decked and a native orchestra
is squeaking and hammering away in
an alcove The Chinese are an alb
Stemious race, and the table, when set
for one of these great banquets, re-
sembles adOlls' tea party, all the viands
visible at the first course being just
about enough for a schoolboy's lunch.
y saucer of ginger, saucer of cocoa
nat slices, pear cut into many sec
tions and ready to fall apart at a tap, a
dish of lychee nuts and some queer bis
cults filled with chopped meat and
decorated exteriorly with parsley leaves,
generally occupy the center of the
table. A tea-cup and china spoon, and
a little thimble of a glass for holding
the fiery rice brandy, are set
before each guest, and after the courses
Of abalone soup, birds nests and un-
speakable fishes and fowl, the enter
tainment winds up with whiff of
opium all round in any of the little
alcoves that open from the dining hall /.
Chinatown abounds in dozens of odd
characters and celebrities; and pictu-
resqueness and dreadful smells mark
every foot of this older part of the
city that they have converted into a
genuine bit of Hong Kong. While
opium joints and gambling dens are
strictly against the law, the special
policemen will pilot people around to
them and treat them to sights that
Surpass the evils and degradation of
any great city.