CHINA IN SAN FRANCISCO

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 25, 29 July 1939, Page 21

CHINA IN SAN FRANCISCO

YI7HILE San Francisco's Chinese sec-j tion has largely gone Occidental,! a one-time obscure niche stemming out j of Washington Street to a dead end has | become more Oriental than ever. . It] used to be Cameron Alley; now, in j more sprightly garb, it is called Old Chinatown, writes Tom White from! San Francisco to the "New York: Times." j Some months ago to dark and dingy! Cameron Alley came a man with an idea. He was Chingwah Lee. He| brought masons, carpenters, painters, j decorators, Chinese artisans. They j wrought a miracle, and now a dozen j shops open off here and there and some, are subdivided into two, maybe three, j four, or five smaller shops. They all; front on the Street of a Thousand De- j lights, about twelve feet wide. They are Old Chinatown. Here breathes the spirit of the East, j the age-old Cantonese East where noth- j ing is obvious. Even the sections of the double doors are of different widths. Within the air is redolent of China One shopkeeper dispenses package tea, another silk, another porcelain: everything from jade to rattan, from lovely Chinese jewellery to exotic candy. Refreshment for body and soul is provided, each in its way, by the Blue1 Willow-Tearoom and the Red Gate Theatre. The tearoom is true to its| name, even to the arched bridge, while j the wall is graced with an eight-foot j blue willow design. The theatre spans the centuries, from the time when China produced the first "talking moving picture." Now as then this is done with animated shadows and off-stage dialogue. The art dates back to an ancient Emperor, grief-stricken over the passing of his favourite wife, who eased his sorrow by having the shadowed "presence" of her spirit brought before him to whisper sweet reassurances. More mundane demands of the Old Chinatown visitor are met in the Temple Garden cocktail lounge and restaurant, in a setting typical of Peking The Pavilion of Seven Maidens «• unique; while in the House of Chung, owned and operated by the eminent Chinese surgeon. Dr Margaret Chung, is shown a choice display of Chinese fine art A stairway leads down from the Street of a Thousand Delights to the studio of Chingwab Lee The walls are covered with the works of master craftsmen whose artistry delighted the eyes of Emperors twenty centuries ago Among the more than 500 pieces are many exquisite examples of the three Ming stages in the development of fine porcelains. Some are almost impossible to duplicate in colouring or mottling. Upstairs, immediately over the studio, the picture changes with Oriental inconsistency to one as modern as the morn. Pretty Chinese stenographers bang away at typewriters, pausing only to answer the telephone or chat in university English. '