The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-03-13

New York, Mar. 1S.-Americanized daughters of Pe11 street Chinamen have tossed away the age old bind ings that benumbed their feet and now are gathering calluses in uptown restaurants, where as waitresses they smilingly and quietly serve hungry multitudes. Their modernized broth CTS dare the wrath of distinguished ancestors by playing fan tan to the tune of canned music. Modernity has broken down the. customs of New York's Chinatown.
 ttSeclusion for women has been the rule of China for centuries" says Lee To, Baptist missionary at the Morn ing Star Mission, IS Dover street Many Chinese woman of the old time has been known to hire a car riage to pay visit to friend across the street, and under no conditions would she leave her home to do her marketing or venture a ride in street car for holiday excursion" Not long ago the first little Chinese 1 girl from the quarter went uptown to serve as a waitress in the Chinese room of one of the biggest hotels. 1 Chinatown held its breath in horror at this defiance of the conventions l of centuries. But the little girl, An ! Hoo, was more than pretty in the i chrysanthemum embroidered costume 1 she wore, and when her earnings dur l Ang the first week, including tips, ran up to $25, there was a small sized | revolution in Pe11 street.
 Lee Chin, who kept the laundry on 1 the corner, heard of it and the next 1 day his little daughter went with An | Hoo Today many of the girls of | high school age are working uptown.
 Some of them are employed in hotels l others are ushering in theatres and 1 motion picture houses.
 One of the best proofs of the new l Chinatown is the formation of a boys
 brass band in connection with the
 Morning Star Mission which, with 1 American jazz and martial airs is rapidly crowding out the booming music of the bull fiddle and the mel ancholv notes of the Chinese flute i both favorites of old China. today 1 twenty-five instruments are represent
 ed in the band and the idea is ra- pid1y growing in popularity.
 1 The Chinese have shown them selves to have a fine sense of rhythm Lee To says, and the band is much in demand. In one of the Liberty Loan parades the boys in uniform ! marched up Fifth avenue amid the l pIaudits of a large part of the quarter, and more recently the band was one of the chief attractions of Chinatowns
 welcome home parade to the 150 ser
 vice men who returned from over
 seas.
 Because big city temptation threat
 ems the coming generation of Chinese
 young men and women a modern
 Chinese community center, with din-
 ing hall, club rooms, library, gym
 nasium and all that sort of thing will
 be erected in New York to interpret
 America to the Chinamen and serve
 as a common meeting ground for
 East and West. The building will be built by the New World Movement of
 Northern Baptists, which plans to
 raise $100,OOO,oo0 from April 25 to
 May 2.
 Lee To, who, together with repre-
 sentatives of the Methodist denomi-
 nation,- has been preaching and work ing for years to break down the bar- | riers of Oriental tradition says that l unless vigorous social and welfare \ work are carried on Chinatown s
 --A.zaer 1aoonla ant la find tha nn4