History&Perspectives

2012 CHINESE AMERICA History&Perspectives THE JOURNAL OF THE CHINESE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA CHINESE AMERICA HISTORY & PERSPECTIVES The Journal of the Chinese Historical Society of America 2012 CHINESE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Chinese America: History & Perspectives — The Journal of the Chinese Historical Society of America Chinese Historical Society of America Museum & Learning Center 965 Clay Street San Francisco, California 94108 chsa.org Copyright © 2012 Chinese Historical Society of America. All rights reserved. Copyright of individual articles remains with the author(s). ISBN-13: 978-1-885864-47-5 ISBN-10: 1-885864-47-7 Design by Side By Side Studios, San Francisco. Permission is granted for reproducing up to fifty copies of any one article for Educa- tional Use as defined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. To order additional copies or inquire about large-order discounts, see order form at back or email [email protected]. Articles appearing in this journal are indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. About the cover image: Lum Ngow with his parents in China, 1925. Photo courtesy of Lee Show Nam. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents THINGS MATTER Chinese American Culture Work and the Gods of Marysville 1 Jonathan H. X. Lee and Vivian-Lee Nyitray LIFE IN A CHINATOWN COLD WATER TENEMENT BUILDING 7 Lyle Jan HISTORY OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE IN CALIFORNIA A Perspective through the Stories of Four Acupuncturists 11 Emily S. Wu “We WERE REAL, SO THERE waS NO NEED TO BE AFRAID” Lum Ngow’s Long Detention on Angel Island 19 Judy Yung THE TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY CHINESE AMERICA Growth and Diversity 27 Wei Li and Wan Yu About the Contributors 33 About the Editorial Committee 35 Guidelines for Manuscript Submission 37 Chinese Historical Society of America Membership Form 39 iii Things Matter Chinese American Culture Work and the Gods of Marysville Jonathan H. X. Lee and Vivian-Lee Nyitray Jonathan H. X. Lee and Vivian-Lee Nyitray, “Things Matter: Chi- to ignore the materiality of society in favor of immaterial con- nese American Culture Work and the Gods of Marysville,” Chi- cepts (e.g., Durkheim’s “social solidarity”).2 nese America: History & Perspectives—The Journal of the Anthropologist Daniel Miller has argued that the theoreti- Chinese Historical Society of America (San Francisco: Chinese cal significance of the things around us tends to pass unno- Historical Society of America, 2012), 1–5. ticed and that such glossing over of the thousands of objects through which we interact risks missing a crucial dimension of everyday life that is of fundamental ethnographic interest.3 However, when scholars do interest themselves in material ABSTRACT culture, their inquiries often focus on the disappearance of traditional artifacts and loss of associated knowledge: the ver time and through the process of “culture work,” intention is to document and preserve in memory the ves- local communities construct meaningful identi- tiges of a vanishing heritage. Oties for themselves using information drawn from The present essay takes a different tack. Rather than history and received interpretation; the communities then focusing on loss, the authors posit that the study of Chinese continue to narrate these identities for themselves and out- American religious practice can illuminate a process of inno- siders. In the case of Chinese immigrant communities, cul- vation and gain—a process of continued cultural produc- tural and linguistic barriers can produce misinterpretations tion wherein traditional objects can be not only repurposed of historic terms, events, and practices, and these misinter- within the Chinese American community but also appropri- pretations can become naturalized. Drawing primarily on the ated by nonheritage populations. The immediate case study material evidence of a Northern California Chinese Ameri- is based on fieldwork conducted at the historic Bok Kai Tem- can temple and its enshrined images, the authors reveal the ple in Marysville, California. By examining local religion and ways in which culture work has created a god, Bok Kai, and its material representations, this investigation reveals that an edifice, the Bok Kai Temple, that are contrary to Chinese the Chinese God of the North was symbolically and socially tradition, may typify Chinese American culture work, and made into a Chinese American god of water and flood—and are uniquely significant to the local context of Marysville, shows how this refigured god and his temple have affected California. social relationships between the Chinese and non-Chinese communities in Marysville. INTRODUCTION THE BOK KAI TEMPLE Neglected by most twentieth-century scholarship beyond the fields of art and archaeology, the study of material culture was Early Chinese immigrants to Northern California, who came reinvented in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centu- largely from Cantonese-speaking regions, built the North ries as international anthropology and has spread to a vari- Creek Temple (Beichi Miao 北溪廟) in 1879, seeking divine ety of fields, including folklore. Recent scholarship indicates protection from floods as well as bountiful water for farm- increasingly that evidence from material culture complicates ing. Today, the descendants of first-generation Chinese immi- oral or textual statements about religious belief and practice. grants to Marysville and the larger non-Chinese local popula- It also indicates that human relations with material objects tions commonly call it the Bok Kai Temple. Understanding provide the infrastructure upon which social life is based and the meaning(s) of “Bok Kai,” however, is not a straightfor- through which it is experienced.1 In this analysis, our rela- ward endeavor. tions with other people are largely mediated through material In standardized Cantonese romanization, bok 北 should objects, even though classical sociological theory long tended be pronounced and spelled bak, meaning “north”; ka 溪 1 2 Jonathan H. X. Lee and Vivian-Lee Nyitray refers to a creek or mountain stream.4 Hence, one very prob- heavily upon his conscience as he aged, and he wished to able meaning of “Bok Kai” reflects the actual location of the quit his grisly trade. But he was afraid that if he merely cast temple—at the northern end of a creek (now the northern his cleaver aside, someone else might use it to slaughter liv- bank of the Yuba River)—as implied by its official writ- ing creatures, or be injured accidentally by stepping on it. He ten Chinese name, Beichi Miao (fig. 1). Naming their com- therefore cut open his own stomach, pulled out his bowels, munal temple in generic and location-specific terms would and used them to wrap up his cleaver, which he then threw have given the Chinese immigrant population in Marysville into the river, where it could not again be used to harm any an uncontroversial space for devotion, serving also to bind living thing. The bodhisattva Guanyin 觀音, observing this them as a new community despite differences of geographi- behavior and moved by the butcher’s compassion, led his cal origin, clan affiliation, or dialect. In this analysis, the Bok soul to the Western Paradise. There he became a Buddha. Kai Temple itself, although largely conforming to traditional However, in the river his stomach became a great black turtle, Chinese architectural requirements for construction and and his bowels turned into a huge black snake. These mon- decoration—and thus resisting assimilation and accommo- sters overturned and sank many boats and drowned many dation—is nonetheless a new hybrid, an innovative material people. When the butcher, now the Emperor of the Dark expression of localized religious concerns. (North) Heavens, heard what was going on, he descended There is, however, another possible explanation for the to earth and conquered the turtle and the snake—which is name Bok Kai: it may have come from Bei Di 北帝 (Emperor why he is always depicted with his feet trampling these ani- of the North), which in Cantonese is pronounced Bak Dai. mals. Traditionally, the Emperor of the North was venerated The Emperor of the North is a deity widely known and wor- as a powerful exorcist, superior general, and protector of the shipped in China as both Bei Di and Zhenwu 賑務 (True state.5 Warrior). If, in Marysville, the Beichi Miao was explicitly dedicated According to legend, Zhenwu was, in a previous exis- to the Emperor of the North, it might have informally been tence, a butcher and a very filial son. The burden of having called the Bakdai Miu—a sound combination in Cantonese killed and butchered so many living things began to weigh that is easily misheard by non-Cantonese speakers due to the glottal stop k followed immediately by the initial conso- nant d. The result: Bakdai eventually becomes Bokkai. The temple, sited on the riverbank, is understood to house the Emperor of the North, also known as Bok Kai, renowned for his ability to control river monsters and thus, by extension, to control dangerous waters, including floods. Bok Kai therefore would have offered the Chinese community protection of various particular sorts, as well as symbolically reaffirmed their shared values of compassion and filiality. Taken together, these observations suggest that the name Bok Kai derives from both place and deity. Further strength- ening this possibility is the fact that, although Bok Kai is popularly understood to be the main deity of the temple, Zhenwu/Bei Di’s image is not centrally located among the five gods enshrined on the altar. Standing along with the bodhisattva Guanyin, the god Guan Di 關帝 (patron of war and literature), and Tianhou (the Empress of Heaven and a marine/riverine goddess), Zhenwu/Bei Di flanks an unusual central deity, Tudi Gong 土地公, the Earth God or God of the Local Land.

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