by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Today marks the onset of the Chinese New Year, with this being the Year of the Dragon and this post takes us back to 1869, which was the Year of the Snake, and celebrations of the holiday in Los Angeles and as represented in the recently established magazine, The Overland Monthly, edited in its early days by the well-known poet Bret Harte and which had a major influence on the nascent literary scene in California and the western United States at that period.
In Los Angeles, the Chinese community was quite small, though growing, with the population comprising just 13 persons when the 1860 federal census was taken (one of only three persons outside the city was “John Chinaman,” a 30-year old cook in the household of William and Nicolasa Workman at the Homestead) but rising to 230 when the enumeration was taken in 1870.
Of these, 168 were in the Angel City and nearly all were crowded into the Calle de los Negros, a street that terminated near the southwest corner of the Plaza and which was razed for the extension of Los Angeles Street. The growing Chinese community was subjected to much racism and hatred, culminating in the horrific massacre of eighteen men and a teenage boy by a mob of some 500 Anglos and Latinos in late October 1871.
Not surprisingly, most of the coverage of the Chinese in local newspapers during this period was hostile, as well as mocking, with denigration of their appearance and clothing, social activities, religious beliefs and other aspects of their lives. When it came to the observation of the New Year in 1869, which happened to fall on the same day as this year, 10 February, the Los Angeles Star, whose proprietor was Henry Hamilton, usually disposed to be dismissive of any persons of color, had very little to say about the celebration of the holiday, merely observing in the weekly edition of the 13th,
The Chinese have been celebrating their new year during the week. Of course, there was a lively time with fire crackers, bushels of which were consumed.
As to Hamilton’s competitor, the daily Los Angeles News, which was run by the Offutt brothers and Andrew J. King, another native of the South whose family were involved in some of the more dramatic violent episodes of the region in prior year and an attorney and judge, there was more to be said, though it revealed some of the unalloyed hostility felt about the Chinese in Los Angeles.
In the issue of 11 February, the paper reported,
Yesterday, which was Chinese New Year’s day, was ushered in with a great spluttering of fire crackers, and celebrated with unintelligible ceremonies, accompanied with much feasting , by the moon-eyed flowery kingdomites in this city. Many of them kept open houses, receiving and entertaining callers in a manner that would have been creditable even among the shoddy of Fifth Avenue [New York?].
Aside from whether the last comment was a mocking one, the use of phrases like “moon-eyed” and the “flowery kingdom” were often used in the press to denigrate the Chinese, while the description of celebrations as “unintelligible” could presumably have been easily amended if any attempt had been made to ask the celebrants what the ceremonies involved—that, however, was not going to happen.
The News, however, had somewhat more to say, in a negative fashion, recording that a team of horses parked unhitched on Main Street “took fright at the firing of fire crackers by the Chinese” and kicked up a great deal of mud (not unlike our recent weather, there was a substantial series of rainstorms in Los Angeles and the west during that period, causing flooding and some damage in the region). No damage occurred and the paper concluded that the owner would like secure his team next time he was in the area.
When it came to the most popular (or, at least, most observed by the Anglo press) element of the celebration, however, the paper cited the “Fire Cracker Nuisance,” growling that,
While we have no desire to deprive John Chinaman of the privilege of celebrating his national holidays in accordance with the customs of his country, we think that the continuous firing of fire crackers in our most crowded thoroughfares for a period of eight days, which is the duration of their New Year, is more affliction than we should be called upon to bear, and that the police should compel him to confine his artillery practice to more remote localities.
The moniker of “John Chinaman” was another way to debase the Chinese and it seems likely that those “most crowded thoroughfares” were really limited to the Calle de los Negros, which the News and Star regularly decried as the center of a den of degradation involving drugs, gambling, prostitution and violence, sometimes involving other ethnic groups than just the Chinese. Moreover, it would have been intriguing to know just which “more remote localities” would have been suitable for the News, while it is interesting to think about how firecrackers have become ingrained in our Independence Day and other celebrations.
In its edition of the 13th, the Star stated that, with respect to The Overland Monthly, “the February number of our popular magazine, came to hand this week” and added that “it is an excellent number” and “should be found in every household” because “it fully supplies the requirements of a literary magazine.” Moreover, the paper felt that the publication should be read instead of foreign journals and even “the Eastern magazines” in those situations in which Angelenos take only one subscription.
The Homestead has the February 1869 issue of the magazine in its collection and the issue includes the second part of a series called “On Foot in Southern California” by an unidentified author (who was Stephen Powers, perhaps best known for his 1877 book, Tribes of California, on California’s indigenous people) among other articles. Similarly, there is no byline for “Holiday in the Chinese Quarter,” but it was written by the Rev. Augustus W. Loomis (1816-1891,) a Presbyterian minister from Connecticut who was a missionary in China from 1844-1850. After a brief period among the Creek Indians in what became Oklahoma and then having pastorates there, as well as in Missouri and Illinois, Loomis came to California in 1859.
For the rest of his life, Loomis ministered among the large Chinese population of San Francisco through Sunday schools, education and as an advocate against a perennially hostile majority, and, by any standard, had a much more enlightened view of them than the other Anglos of that place and time, though his writings, as we’ll see here, still betray a certain level of paternalism and superiority. Loomis contributed a few articles on the Chinese in The Overland Monthly” and this one began with the strange observation that “the Chinese have many holidays, and they seem to appreciate them.”
The minister touched on funerals, weddings, “birthdays of the gods,” the equinox commemorations, and the honoring of ancestors and household gods and he observed that “those engaged in efforts to educate and evangelize the people have occasion to notice that their congregations and schools are thinner when these holidays occur on the Sabbath, or near the beginning of the end of the week.” He added that in September, “the season of our harvest moon,” was important as “this luminary is an object of adoration by people from their open windows; and in the courts, and from the balconies of their houses.”
The small temples in San Francisco, he added, “replenish their revenue by the sale of candles, prayers, incense sticks, gilt paper, and the like” during such holidays, some of which involved three or four days of celebration. Also recorded was the fact “the arrival of friends from China, and the leave-taking when friends are about embarking for home” generated feasts and socializing, especially as steamers were on a more punctual schedule than in the days of the sailing vessels. Taking a half or full day was an opportunity for the Chinese to see friends and relations from their homeland and learn gossip or news, as well as to entrust letters and messages for delivery to China.
Loomis wrote that there was no observance of the Sabbath among the Chinese, though some forewent work on Sundays in conformance to custom in the United States, adding,
Laborers in the employment of those who keep the Sabbath, often take the day for visiting, gambling, opium-smoking, for washing and mending, of for a walk about the town; while a few go to their church, or assemble at the schools established for them. There is some reading done on this day, with much writing of letters, and a large amount of sleeping; while for the merchants it is a day for collections and for writing up their accounts. Amongst the employés [sic] along the line of the railroad, the Sunday, as we have had occasion to notice, is a day on which many pigs and fowls are brought to grief . . . [others] amuse themselves with games, or enjoy their pipes.
The minister also briefly discussed housewarming events with sacrifices to the gods, along with feasts and social visits and noted the celebration of birthdays of the living and of ancestors, these latter “distinguished by prescribed ceremonies.” The remembrance of the dead was discussed with the offering of foods and other items for the spirits of those who passed from the earth, though Loomis wrote that this commemoration was not to the extent as in China. he also touched upon other festival days during the year and these duly listed in almanacs “kept within the reach of every Chinaman, and constantly consulted.
The author then turned to the fact that “chief of their holidays, however, or rather than which eclipses all the rest, is the festival of the New Year” and he added that “the present number [of the magazine] will reach [readers] at the time when the Chinese amongst us are busily engaged preparing” for the celebrations, starting on 10 February that year. He continued that “the New Year is a period which is held in anticipation for weeks, or even weeks” and followed with the comment that “the whole business of the year is conducted with” the idea of settling accounts “so that every person may be able to commence the succeeding twelve months with a genuine, happy New Year.”
Loomis noted that this question of squaring one’s finances was an important consideration as the New Year arrived and that “our San Francisco merchants increase their collecting force, who traverse the State” and others to collect what is owed. He concluded this part of the discussion by commenting that “happy is that man who can close the year with no duns at the door,” while “woe, woe is for whim whose petitions to [the] deity [their god of wealth] have fallen upon a closed ear and a callous heart.” Moreover, those whose stores were low on inventory and high on accounts payable and those who incurred a high level of liabilities were liable “to secrete themselves until the old year has fully expired and the new year has come in” because “during the New Year’s congratulations and merry-makings no duns are tolerated.”
Also vital, he went on, was that the Chinese “wish also to come to a settlement with the gods; therefore the unusual activity about the temples” and supplicants were dressed in their best and carried incense sticks and other material to offer as the old year came to an end. The idea, he wrote, was that “the local deities all gather up their accounts and journals, and ascend to report to the Supreme Ruler, the Pearly Emperor.”
Loomis noted, as well, that “the approach of the New year is signalized by the quacking of ducks and the cackling of fowls” whose doom was nigh, while there were also “unmistakable symptoms” in the abundance of water and brushes because “everything is cleansed to prepare for welcoming the coming year.” This meant that “the house is almost turned inside out” in a careful cleaning and “of certain cheap articles in use about the kitchen a bonfire is made, with prescribed ceremonies, and new articles procured from the shops to supply the place of the old.” Not only were clothes washed, but many were thrown out or burned and “there are not tailors enough to furnish all the new coats and garments that have been ordered.”
For children, given that “there is already a vacation in the schools,” they, too, were as excited as Anglo children during Christmas, while the minister observed that there were a profusion of sentiments and prayers on red (“the color for joyous occasions”) papers affixed to doors with such statements as “May the five blessings descend upon this house,” “May wealthy customers enter here,” or “Happiness comes from heaven.” Also prominently displayed were lanterns in the rooms of visitors, at the entrance to structures, and on balconies and some of which were inscribed, while others had “revolving figures, kept in motion by rarefied air caused by the burning candle.”
Variations is ushering in the New Year included those who delayed on preparations until a late hour and were frantically trying to catch up as opposed to those who began work early and enjoyed a more leisurely onset of the year. Some Chinese went to bed early and then awoke at midnight to usher in the year, while others remained awake until that late hour and began their celebrations. As to the nuisance complained about by the News, Loomis wrote,
During the first half of the night there will be heard frequent explosions of fire-crackers; but as soon as the clock has tolled off the last minute of the departing year, there arises such a roar, such a crackling, such explosions, and such a din, as none can appreciate who have not heard it.
While in China, this might only take place during that first morning, “here, the cannonading is kept up at intervals during three of four days” and involved sounds like muskets or other weapons so that it might appear that armies were at battle “while the entire street is filled with columns of smoke and sheets of flame, and the ground is red, not with blood, but with the remnants of exploded fire-crackers.” One residence would begin and then be followed by others after up to 20 minutes, with crackers exploded from poles suspended from balconies, as well as from barrels, jars and tin cans. In competition, residents might spend up to $400 in the detonation of firecrackers.
As to why this custom was so universal, the minister answered,
The object is, first, to frighten away bad spirits, to dispel evil influences, and to bid a good-by to all the bad luck of the year that is past; secondly, to propitiate the gods, and to secure good luck for the future—nobody will undertake to explain exactly how; and, thirdly, this firing of crackers and paper bombs is continues with the quite common though rather undefinable impression, that the greater the noise one makes, the papier he ought to be, and the better, also, will he please the gods and the spirits of the dead.
For household religious observances, there was the expression of appreciation for heaven and earth, household idols such as the gold of wealth or mercy or of the kitchen, and prostrating before elders and family ancestral objects. Also critical were offerings of food, tea, candles, incense “and paper representations of money.” At temples, “we observe the lips of the worshippers in motion, and we are told that they rendering thanks for past mercies, and imploring aid for the tome to come.” The primacy of ancestors was also noted as obeisance was made so that they would aid the living, including for prosperity and the evasion of trouble. Also noted was the profusion of flowers, like the hyacinth because of its representation of purity, in Chinese dwellings.
Also observed was the movement of servants through the streets, carrying cards with their employers’ names on them, to take to friends who could not be visited on that day, as it was custom for the elderly and the more prominent members of the community to remain at home and have the younger and “those lower in rank” pay their respects in person. The rites of bowing and dropping one one knee were described as was the custom of having guests receive a present for good luck and for them to bless the house they visited after a bit of food and drink and the exchange of cards before going to their next destination. The cards were also considered very important as “partly as prayers to the gods.”
Loomis also described that white people were frequently callers on the Chinese and that, as the latter welcomed their Anglo guests, “liquors and cigars are not usually offered to the callers of their own race, but only to the white people.” Yet, he also recorded that for the hospitality of the Chinese,
They are likewise exposed to a raid from that class who are always thirsty, who go from house to house washing their throats with champagne and brandy, taking at each place a cigar or two; while troops of boys and half-grown men, who, at other times, pelt and hoot at “John” when they meet him alone and where they will not be in danger of arrest, are clamorous for cigars, fire-crackers and sweetmeats.
While religious observances were certainly common, Loomis wrote that business figures, only having one day off for celebration, tended to indulge heavily in feasting as “there is an incredible amount of heavy eating performed” and restaurants filled a need not met by kitchens at home. Drinking, he reported, often led to “slight misunderstandings.” Those that could afford it might continue celebrating for the several days of the New Year, while many were limited to one day by their economic circumstances and need to return to their various labors.
The minister continued that “this is the season in which the entire nation abandons itself to enjoyment” with individuals celebrating “in the manner suggested by his tastes” and he mentioned opium and tobacco; cards and dominoes; sports and practical jokes; attendance at theaters; and music, though here Loomis opined that “the performers seem to enjoy it, for they think it is music; there is also much of what they call singing.”
Invariably, Loomis wrote, “several days and nights of such games, frolic and dissipation” would end in the fact that “consequently we will meet with many whose dull eyes, aching heads and troubled stomachs emphatically tell us that they wish they had only let alone that one feast too many.” He also noted a influx into San Francisco of Chinese residents of the interior for the holiday as well as some who came from China to reunite with relatives and friends for the joys of the season. The minister also noted the salutations that were offered during the holiday to students, merchants, those in positions of power and respect, as well as general wishes for prosperity, additions to a family, and continued health.
He concluded by telling the reader that the article was not intended for “describing minutely all the usages and ceremonies to be observed on a Chinse New Year’s day” and this because “neither writer nor reader could afford to expend so great an amount time and patience as the task would demand.” Loomis, however, extended congratulations to anyone who perused the article for “being relieved from further reading on the subject,” while inviting those wanting to know more “to pursue these investigations by means of personal observation on and after the tenth day of February, eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, the same being the Tung Chi, Eighth year, First month, and First day.”