September 19, 2004, Mid-Autumn [Moon] Festival Celebration, Chinatown Square
The Festival takes place on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. This year it came on the 28th of September (Tuesday), when the moon was full. Chinese believe that the eighth moon is the most perfectly round and beautiful of the entire year. They eat moon cakes then in honor of the moon goddess Chang E.
The Chinatown Museum Foundation acted as co-sponsor for this year's Mid-Autumn celebration in Chinatown Square, at Archer and Wentworth. Many friends, old and new, visited the CMF's pavilion and dropped $280 into the contribition box.
The public viewed massed lion dances. At the CMF pavilion they could chat, get their names written in Chinese, and view new translations of two classic Chinese Moon Festival poems
TWO MOON FESTIVAL POEMS
A Water Tune (Shui diao ge tou)
Su Shi (1037-1101 AD)
Since when did the bright Moon appear?
I asked Heaven with wine in hand,
Not knowing in the Heavenly Palace
Which year it is this evening.
I wish to fly there with the wind
But fear that the chill of the jade buildings
Will be more than I can endure.
Dancing alone in the moon-lit shadows
How desirable is this mortal land!
It follows the corner of the lacquered pavilion,
Lowers onto the embroidered interior, and
Shines on one who cannot sleep.
Let us not be bitter that
The moon is always full at times of leaving.
Friends must depart; the full moon must wane,
Nothing is perfect forever.
I hope we live long
To enjoy the moon together though a thousand miles apart.
April 2, 2005 Association for Asian Studies Annual Meetings, Chicago: Roundtable on the Role and Future of Ethnic-Specific Museums
The event took place as scheduled on Saturday afternoon at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Unfortunately most of the people in the above photograph could not attend, due to the $125 admission fee charged by the AAS. There were four panelists, Sonia Mak, Assistant Curator at the Chinese American Museum of Los Angeles, Paul Yeung, Curator at the Chinese Cultural Center and Archive (Vancouver), Dori Skrukrud, Board Member of the Mai Wah Society (Butte, Montana), and Chuimei Ho of the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago. For the websites of these museums, click on Links.
The audience -- who included interested specialists from the Smithsonian, Harvard, and DePaul University -- participated in the discussions and gave very useful advice. The Harvard specialist, Raymond Lum, was brought up on Alexander Street a few doors away from Quong Yick, the present CAMOC building, and to our delight has agreed to become involved in our forthcoming Paper Sons exhibition. The DePaul specialist, Ning Anderson, noted that naming our museum "the Chinatown Museum" was going to cause suburban Chinese to lose interest. We agree. We decided for that reason to call it the Chinese American Museum of Chicago. Also present was a German writer, Dagmar Borchard, who has published several insightful articles on Chinatowns and Chinese-American museums in the magazine Das Neue China.
Joe Chiu did the organizing on behalf of CAMOC. All felt that his arrangements and the roundtable itself were very succesful.
Chinatown is old. Chinese immigrants began moving to Cermak and Wentworth in the late 1910s. Before that there were Italians and Germans. No one quite knows who lived there before 1870; there may have been Irish, English, and French Americans. And they too were newcomers, settling on land used by Native Americans.
Now there is a chance to find who was there then. A team of archaeologists assembled from the Field Museum and DePaul University dug in the vacant lot at 240 West 23rd Street on Saturday, November 6th, at the request of the Chinatown Museum Foundation. The Foundation bought the land last August and plans to turn it into a garden and parking area for its new museum next door. But before that happens, the Foundation wants to see what is underneath.
Although part of the lot held a house until 1999, “the western side of the lot was never occupied,” states Sheldon Wing, the Chair of the Foundation’s Building Subcommittee. A large dead tree, now being removed, shows that this is so. “The tree has been here a long time,” says Tommy Lee, Collection Manager for the Foundation, “I’m willing to bet that there hasn’t been a building here since 1900, if ever.” An added feature of the lot, according to Wing, is that it is five feet below street level – that is, still at the original level of the city before its streets were raised in the late 1850s. All this makes it an ideal place for archaeologists to dig.
The Foundation's members are curious how well the cultural levels will match our understanding of the history and prehistory of this part of Chicago. Once the finds are washed and studied, will we find objects that match the ethnicity of the residents? Sherds of beer steins and chianti bottles under soy sauce tins, and broken English teapots under those? Dr. Jane Baxter, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at DePaul, points out that we already can be sure Chinese lived here, because the site contains early pork and chicken bones that have been cut with choppers in Chinese style.
Dr. Scott Demel of the Field Museum led the excavation, joined by Dr. Baxter with several of her students. No fewer than 24 grade-school students from Healy, Haines, and St. Therese Schools, plus the Chinese Community Center, joined in as excavators too. Dr. Demel, who also teaches at DePaul, says he loves showing kids that playing in the dirt can be educational as well as fun. He feels strongly that Chicago needs more archaeological projects of this kind.
The first day of excavations lasted only 5 hours. We will do more digging next week. As much depends on what is recovered and how it is interpreted, we will need a month or so to finish a scientific report on the project. Some of the finds will be exhibited next May when the Foundation's new museum, the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, first opens its doors.
November 13, 2004. Annual Banquet of the Chinatown Museum Foundation.
380 people, Chinese-Americans and many others as well, attended the Chinatown Museum Foundation's 3rd annual fundraising dinner on November 13, 2004 (Saturday), 6 pm.
The event took place at the Furama Seafood Restaurant, the only venue in Chinatown large enough for an event of this size. The banquet featured a Cantonese style dinner, a glimpse of the Foundation's collection, and performances: including an er-hu concert by Kerry Leung and a brilliant lion dance led by P.C. Leung. The purpose of the banquet was to raise funds for renovating the CMF's new museum building on 23rd Street. When it opens in May 2005, we hope that the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago will have meaning for all Chinese-Americans in the Midwest and that it will be an attraction to non-Chinese-American tourists, from the city, the suburbs, and out-of-state.
One feature of the eveing was a display of the special glass (or "crystal") bricks that will permanently record donors' generosity: a smaller red-lit brick for $1000 or a larger gold-lit brick for $5000, each with the donor's name etched on the surface in both Chinese and English
The banquet succeeded in raising about $30,000, which means that with previous contributions we have now have in hand a substantial part of the funds needed for the first stage of reconstruction, and that we have pledges for even more. We are excited to find that the community is so enthusiastic and supportive. It will be a wonderful museum.
It is still not too late to make a contribution. If you are interested and want to know more, please click on Support or Contact Us.
Exhibited at the banquet: one of China’s two traditional “Harmony Boys,” made of papier-mache In Foshan near Guangzhou in about 1930, for the old Ling Long Museum. It formed part of an exhibit prepared to coincide with the Chicago World Fair of 1933.
APRIL 2, 2005. Media Preview of CAMOC's New Exhibit Space.
Held in conjunction with the AAS Roundtable (see below), the preview was attended by almost 50 people, including reporters and representatives from other Chinese ethnic museums. The new exhibit space, minus the final coat of varnish on the floor, was examined by all and admired by most. One observer thought it should be red, not white, but everyone else thought it was wonderful. The group photograph on the right includes all of the Roundtable participants, plus board members, advisors, and others associated with the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago.
As may be seen, it was a fine spring day. Everyone agreed that it was perfect for eating traditional Chinese snacks like custard tarts and pepperoni pizza.
Chinese American Museum of Los Angeles before reconstruction
Chinese Cultural Center and Archive, Vancouver, with the Sun Yat-sen Garden on the left
Mai Wah Society museum building in Butte, Montana, while undergoing renovation
This is CAMOC's first exhibition. It is the first exhibition anywhere to focus on the Chinese of the Midwest. It tells the stories of early Chinese immigrants to Chicago and neighboring areas. Many of the stories will seem familiar to members of other ethnic groups. A few are unique to the Chinese-American experience.
The 150 photographs and 70 objects in the show have been assembled from a dozen private and public collections in the Midwest as well as the West Coast. Most are shown to the public for the very first time.
The exhibition features a reconstructed hand laundry, historic furnishings, and magnificent traditional textiles. The laundry display recalls the several hundred Chinese laundries that once flourished in Chicago, of which not a single one has survived. Many of the furnishings are from the founding Chinese organizations that helped build Chinatown. The textiles were embroidered and used by Chinese-Americans for festival celebrations. Their fine design and flawless craftsmanship reflect the owners' pride in their heritage.
For overall views of the exhibition, click here. For detailed images of panels from the exhibition, click here
Lee Family Association shrine and furnishings, Chicago, 2005. The Association has agreed to lend objects to Paper Sons, including two antique inlaid rosewood chairs, a matching table, and a set of its splendid red chair covers and cushions with couched gold embroidery
The curator of the exhibition is SooLon Moy. The designer is Gwen Moy. The chief preparators are Mark Birbeck and Billy Moy. A catalog for the showhas been published by Arcadia Books. The authors are Chuimei Ho, SooLon Moy, Grace Chun, and Ben Bronson.
MAY 21-DEC 1, 2005. Opening Exhibition -- Paper Sons: Chinese in the Midwest, 1870-
1945
Exhibition poster/ opening invitation, designed by Gwen Moy. These will be sent out soon. If you didn't get one, please contact us.
Exhibition catalog/ accompanying volume. Arcadia Publishing Co. Publication date: August 2005. To order,
This year's excavations were in the same place as last year's -- a sunken vacant lot that is slated to become the parking garden for the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC).
Where:
240 West 23rd Street (off South Wentworth), next to CAMOC.
When: November 3 (Thursday) and 4 (Friday), 10 am-1 pm.
Chinatown is old. Chinese immigrant began moving to the South Side in 1912. Before that the area now called Chinatown was inhabited mostly by Italians and Croatians. Germans lived there before the Italians, and before them in the mid-19th century, Swedes. No one knows who lived there before the 1850s. There may have been English, Irish, Scottish, and French. And these too were newcomers, settling on land long used by Native Americans.
The Chinese-American Museum wanted to find out who lived there and when. So it invited archaeologists to work on the vacant lot of the museum at 240 West 23rd Street. The lot is five feet below street level – that is, still at the original level of the city before its streets were raised in the late1850s.
Excavated objects this year and last have included broken dishes, pieces of glass, rusted nails, railway spikes, coins, and other objects once used by residents, as well as animal bones from food they ate and pieces of coal and cinder from their stoves.
Have we found things that match the ethnicity of the residents? "Yes," said Dr. Jane Baxter of DePaul University, "animal bones cut with choppers point to Chinese cookinhg styles. Complete animal bones with knife marks indicate that the cooks were of European ancestry."
Dr. Chuimei Ho of CAMOC said "We have found a good many sawed-off bone rings, like those in ham steaks. As far as we can find, no ethnic group eats ham steaks except English, Irish, and Scots."
NOV 3-4, 2005. ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS IN CHINATOWN
The excavators on November 4 included elementary school students from Haines and Healey Schools, together with a team of experienced volunteers led by Field Museum archaeologist Scott Demel. CAMOC directors Soo Lon Moy, Kim K Tee, and Billy Moy all joined in the search for historic artifacts.
1868 Nickel, front and back
19th century porcelain figure, 1 1/2 inches long. Made in Germany?
Did we find anything older than the 1870s?
In 2004, Dr. Scott Demel of the Field Museum, the leader of the excavation project, said "Some drug bottles could be older than that age. But we need to dig further at the site to find more evidence." Now he has more definite proof -- a 1868 nickel, excavated at a depth of 1.5 feet on November 3, 2005.
Last year 28 students from three Chinatown schools -- Healey, Haines, and St. Therese -- helped with the dig. This year there were 18 kids from two schools, Healey and Haines. St. Therese could not participate this time but will, we hope, be able join us on another day. Scott Demel says "Doing real archaeology is it is a fun way to combine learning history and playing in the dirt."
CAMOC honored participation by the schools at its annual fund-raising dinner on November 5. Awards -- genuine Marshalltown trowels -- were presented to principals of the three schools by no less a figure than U.S. Senator Richard Durbin.
NOV 5, 2005. 4th ANNUAL BANQUET OF THE CHINATOWN MUSEUM FOUNDATION
The banquet, at the Furama Restaurant, was attended by 420 persons and was judged a success by almost all of them. The highlight of the evening was an award ceremony in which Senator Richard Durbin presented special archaeologist's trowels to representatives of the elementary schools .that have been taking part in the CMF's ongoing archaeology project (see below). The schools involved were Haines, St Therese, and Healy, in the Chinatown and Bridgeport areas.
Senator Durbin addresses the CMF's guests
Left to right: CMF Treasurer Dr. K.K. Tee, Senator Durbin, Mary Ellen Ratkovich (Principal, Healy), Phyllis Cavallone-Jurek (Principal, St. Therese), and CMF Board Member SooLon Moy.
Several CMF directors gave short speeches. They included President Chuimei Ho, Treasurer K. K. Tee, and Board Members David Lee, and Catherine Chin,
Chuimei Ho
Kim K. Tee
David Lee
Catherine Chin
Note: images of guests and entertainers will be added here soon
Left to right: Chuimei Ho, Dr. K.K. Tee, Wai-Chee Yuen, Senator Durbin, Raymond Lee, and Chinese consular official
The Chinese-American Musuem of Chicago in the person of its president, Chuimei Ho, received the Coalition's 2006 Community Service Award for Chinese Americans. Chuimei stood on the stage with awardees from the Bangladeshi, Filipino, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Pakistani, Thai, and Vietnamese communities in the Chicago area. The event featured speeches by many (mostly non--Asian) candidates for public office, Indonesian dancers and gamelan music, and emceeing by eight local TV personalities, six of whom came from the ranks of Chicago's remarkable Chinese-American female news anchor persons. Several of those anchors are old friends of CAMOC.
l-r: Tommy Lee, Grace Chun. Shiela Chin, Ian Chin, Soo Lon Moy, Andrea Stamm, Chuimei Ho
Chuimei Ho
l-r: Tommy Lee, Kim K Tee, Judy Wang (CLTV). Chuimei Ho, Andrea Stamm, David Lee, Ben Bronson
APRIL 28, 2006. PRESENTATION: FEMALE FOOTBINDING IN CHINA
The Chinese-American Museum of Chicago and Oak Brook Medical & Surgical Center (2425 West 22nd Street, Oak Brook, IL 60651), held their fundraising presentation
Pain for Beauty: Female Footbinding in China
on schedule at 6:00-8:50 pm. The speakers were Dr. Kim
K. Tee (Podiatrist, Chinatown Foot Clinic) and Dr. Ben
Bronson (Curator, Asian Anthropology, The Field Museum).
31 people attended. While this was not a great success
from a fund-raising standpoint, it turned out to be a delight-
ful evening. The atmosphere was that of a college seminar
with strongly interested attendees, good graphics to look
at, and a compelling subject.
We were fortunate to have Paul Prentice in the audience. As one of America's top collectors of bound-foot shoes and a long-time student of footbinding, he contributed vital ideas to the discussion, as did two other audience members with memories of grandmothers who had bound feet. Click here for Acrobat-format invitation in Chinese "中國婦女纏足" 籌款講座
From a 19th century erotic album. Click here for more detail
Finds from the site were displayed at the Field Museum's Member's Night on March 30-31, 2006. A more complete view will be available this fall, when the Chinese-American Museum holds its special exhibition on the 2004-2005 excavations. The following images will give an idea of what has been found and how much work has been done by the analysis team led by Dr. Scott Demel. Most of the objects are earlier than 1912 and hence, pre-Chinatown
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The Chinatown Museum Foundation hosted a fundraiser, Sail to Chicago’s Past: Chinese Connection to the Century of Progress, to benefit the elevator fund on the Fourth of July, 2007. The 3-hour dinner cruise on Chicago’s First Lady included special presentations by Sheila Chin on famous Chicago architectural structures and Andrea Stamm, curator of the current exhibition of Chicago’s Two World Fairs: The Untold Asian Story, on the Chinese and Japanese participation in the Century of Progress in 1933. The evening ended with the spectacular fireworks from Navy Pier. Everyone had a great time!
MAY 10, 2008. TWO DISTINGUISHED AWARDS RECEIVED BY BOARD MEMBERS
CAMOC is proud to announce two distinguished awards received by board members Grace Chun and President, Dr. Kim K. Tee all on the same day, May 10, 2008.
Grace Chun was awarded the prestigious Luminary Award for the 2008 Senior Citizen Hall of Fame, sponsored by the City of Chicago. She was honored for her outstanding voluntary work with Rochelle Lee Fund to Make Reading a Part of Children’s Lives, Chicago Park District Advisory Councils-Lincoln Park and Margate Park, and the Chinese American Museum of Chicago.
Dr. Kim K. Tee received the distinctive Hall of Fame Award in Medicine from the Asian American Hall of Fame. With his busy medical practice, Kim still found time to start the Malaysian Club of Chicago, serves as president in the Chicago Fukienese Association and was one of the founders and current president of the Chinese American Museum of Chicago. He has been selected to participate in the Beijing Olympics Sports Medicine Team for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
