Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-11-30
CHINATOWN ON SHOW
BY Frederic j. HaSkin
: AN FRANCISCO, Cal, Nov 26-San
= Francisco has the largest and most
= essentially Chinese Chinatown in

| fire declare that it's charm disappeared with
that catastrophe. By this of course, they
mean that most of its colossal filth and
Wlckedness is gone. But the visitor wan
dering about it's queer, irregular streets,
finds it still exotic and picturesque.
One moment you are in Portsmouth
| Square, before the monument of Robert
Louis Stevenson, and a moment later you
are in narrow Canton byway, containing
numerous Chinese markets, drug stores,
restaurants and clothing shops. Cinnamon
in dull native garb or secondhand Ameri-
can clothes throng the sidewalk, and occa-
sionally a Chinese housewife, brilliant
Chinese basket o: her arm, trips silently
into a market.
The markets are worth investigating in
themselves. Always they are crowded with
tiers and tiers of wooden coops reaching all
the way to the low ceiling and containing
nervous rabbits, frantic hens, and despond-
ent ducks and geese. Nearby the same
species are exhibited in their popular dried
form, looking very much as if they had re-
ceived coat of yellow varnish. Some of
them have been chopped into small wither-
ed pieces and strung on bits of cord like
necklaces which is also the state to which
beef, pork and mutton are reduced.
But the principal trade of the markets.
as you can easily detect by the smell, is in
fish. There are big fish and little fish;
Iresh hsh and dried fish; and fish of every
hue and shape. Cinnamon, it seems are de-
voted to fish, and fish are sent from all
parts OF the Pacific to crafty their f1shy ap-
| pet1tes. Here you find huge, black-belied
sturgeon, spotted sharks, piles of founders,
! carp and curiously yellow cod.
Chinese Chow
Even the Chinese restaurants of San
Francisco are more Chinese than those en-
countered elsewhere. Many of them have
wide and permanent. patronage among
San Franciscans of Anglo-Saxon stock, who
are disappointed if they miss their weekly
| treat OF hinese table dhote. Pathetic
is the plight of the visitor who happens to
| have several such acquainlances, for each
and all OF them are eager and insistent 20
share this treat with him. The fact that an
appetite for Chinese food must be created
| by strong and persistent effort of the will
seems never to have occurred to them.
Usually, the meal begins with Chop Suey
which is sort of complicated and compre-
hensiVe hash, apparently containing among
many other things, old shoe leather and
wooden shavings favored with rusty pipe
juice. The second course, if you are lucky,
may be nothing more alarming than fried
rice, chicken and shrimps rendered as dry
and Withered as possible Then comes the
prize Of the collection-Cho Go Gong-a
sort of soup supposed to contain meat, eggs
mushrooms and beancakes If the diner is
not carried away unconscious at this junct-
ure eggs are brought in. And such eggs
only the Chinese know how to procure
They are the eggs of yesteryear, and yet the
| y
down like old wine from the early Ming
! dynasty.
No butter is served with a Chinese din
ner. the Chinese holding butter in fierce
contempt. You smellee all same butter"
| is one of the deadliest insults a Cinnamon
can level at an Occidental, but we may all
be thankful that they do not say we smell
like eggs.
There are only two articles on the menu
| of Chinese table d'hote which are &C.
| CeDtabl0 TO
are the dessert-usually a delicious, rich
fruit served in honey-and the tea. More
than any other race the Chinese know how
| to make tea. You can buy Chinese tea and
make it yourself, but unless you are re-
markedly expert, you never quite achieve
the same flavor secured by Chinese chef
Not until you have dined in China
town restaurant, do you realize the signif-
canoe of the nearby drug stores, always a
few feet from a food mart or cafe We feel
sure that the Chinese drug stores must do
an overwhelming business, although the
remedies they offer do not inspire great con-
| fidence in the Occidental. Chief among
these are roots and herbs, as we'll as such
! popular medical staples dried lizard and
| toad displayed occasionally in weird
| juxtaposition to American soaps and chew
ing gum.
A Rubberneck Tour
trip through Chinatown would not be
complete, of course, without interior
view of a Chinese Joss house, or temple. To
obtain this, unless you are we'll acquainted
in Chinatown, you must join a sightseeing
party. Every night several huge rubber
neck wagons park along the curbs of China
town and hundreds of tourists are enter
| tanned through a megaphone while being
| shown as little bona fde scenery as posi-
BILE. In fact, one gets the impression that
the Chinatown one sees on such an occasion
| is entirely a creation of the local associa-
ton of sightseeing companies, with the
help of a few Chinese stockholders. Never
| theless, 1t is amusing.
The Joss house to which the sightseeing
party, of which the reporter was member,
was led the other night was located in a
narrow alley. In darkness and fog it was
just possible to glimpse dimly lighted bal
cony beneath a pagoda roof, and to see that
the temple caceG, as is the custom with all
well-behaved joss houses, toward the east.
Then suddenly a dark figure appeared on
the balcony, and a voice logan shouting in
angry Chinese. There was a moment of
breath1ess suspense in the crowd, which had
been waiting patiently for a thrill. Then, |
ooh, bring the gang on up said the same
voice, in smooth and contemptUous English. |
The temple, which was filled to overflow
ing with Chinese embroidered tapestries, |
wood carvings, gods and incense, was
housed in a small room on the top floor. |
counter in the hallway, led the party in, |
after which he ran and beat brass
gong in order to drive away the evil spirits
brought in with the visitors.
Upon central altar at the back of the
temple doz-n or more Chinese gods were
seated in a row. in company with one or
two black haired goddesses. Most of the
gods had long, flowing black mustachios, !
one suspended from either side of the chin, |
| IN h.