Hopalong Singh

Hopalong Singh is the cook at Mom's Cafe. He is hired to act like a Chinese. He is the cousin of Lo Fat who lives in New York.
== Behind the scenes ==
His name is a reference to Hop Sing from the classic 1950-70s western Bonanza, as well as "Hopalong Cassidy" another early 20th century western character. The name Singh might indicate he's actually Sikh (making him very similar to the background to Srini), and not necessarily Chinese. As his cousin he is implied to be second or third generation Chinese-American in Laurra Bow II (the ashes of Fat's dead parents are in Chinese urns in Laundry), its possible that he's 'married' into Lo Fat's family, or that he has ancestral heritage back to near-China nation such as Nepal where variations of the name exist. In China proper the variant should actually be Shīzi (狮子). Then again Pippen Carter indicates that even Lo Fat isn't 'Chinese", but possibly even an racist imposter "He runs one of the local Chinese laundries. Pretends to be Chinese so he can get more business, but he has a terrible accent." However, its not clear if this means he's not of Chinese heritage (perhaps representing 'yellowface' acting which was popular between 1850's and 1920s in American history, from another Asian culture (perhaps Japanese see below), and acting Chinese because its more 'popular'), or that as a 2nd-3rd generation Chinese-American, and that he's not really traditionally/indigenous "Chinese". 
Furthermore, during a conversation when Hop leaves Coarsegold, he breaks up his 'act' and starts saying goodbye in a number of different languages including Japanese (Sayonara), Italian (arrivederci), Spanish (adios, hasta la vista), etc. Freddy is clueless and just think these terms are 'Chinese", and says Goodbye instead, to which Hop also responds Goodbye as well. There are other times when he 'breaks character' too and starts using words from other cultures and languages for example speaking yiddish term and calling Freddy, "Big Mensch Of Coarsegold!". Perhaps suggesting that he too is 'yellowface' actor representing the time period when such types of racism existed. 
Additionally its possible that Hopalong Singh isn't even his real name, but his 'character' name he portrays as Mom's cook. Hopalong itself seems more of a 'nickname', and Singh might be a mispelling if he doesn't even know actual spelling of the Chinese surname (assuming he is white 'yellowface' actor.)
Yellowface was a popular acting style between the 1850s to 1920s (existed to a lesser extent into the 1960s-1970s, see Murder by Death, Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers)), so is culturally period appropriate, if offensive in modern context (not something comonly done today, but some argue it still happens for example when Japanese Anime storyline is adapted live-action for American audience with 'white-American' actors.).
Category:Characters (FP1)