A thoroughly researched book, “The Chinese Experience in U.S. World’s Fairs” revealed many things. First, in its 109-year history in American international expositions (1876-1984), three different Chinese governments represented the country in the gathering, namely, the Qing Dynasty, from 1876 to 1909; the Republic of China, from 1915 to 1979; and the People’s Republic of China, in 1982 and 1984, the last two American world’s fairs.
Second, the Chinese governments seldom participated in American expositions, especially during the early staging of the event. Of the twenty-one world’s fairs held in various American cities from 1876 to 1984, China officially joined only eight of them. This was glaringly true during the Qing Dynasty era, when the ruling Manchus officially participated in just one of the nine American world’s fairs held during their regime, and its exhibits were not even directly managed by them, but by foreigners, that is, by British officials employed in the Imperial Maritime Customs Service. The government that replaced it, the Republic of China, was in five of the ten American international expositions held from the republic’s founding in 1911 up to 1979. The People’s Republic of China participated in the last two American world’s fairs. China had many reasons not to participate: internal unrests, foreign incursions, rebellions, but the predominant excuse it cited was the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, an American law barring the Chinese from immigrating to America for ten years, denying U.S. citizenship to those who were already in the United States, admitting only government officials, teachers, students, merchants, and travelers to enter the country. The Act, renewed many times, was a big thorn in the early Sino-American relationship, causing not only immigration, political and social problems, but also difficulty for the Chinese exposition exhibitors to bring in workers, performers, and delegates from China because they were subjected to fingerprinting, tight surveillance, and reporting requirements. The immigration restrictions caused condemnation and protests from the local and overseas Chinese communities, and rampant smuggling of Chinese into the United States.
Third, the void left by the government absence at the fairs was filled by Chinese traders and merchants coming from China and/or the United States. They introduced Chinese culture, architecture, religion, handicrafts, products and many facets of China to the American people. They displayed their exhibits, held their shows, and conducted their commerce mostly at the expositions’ amusement sections. Most of them belonged to powerful benevolent associations, such as the Six Companies, authorized to speak on behalf of Chinese everywhere in the United States, helping them financially, attending to their welfare, protecting them from racial abuses. Most of their leaders came from wealthy and better educated merchants who translated their economic good fortune into political power. They dealt with the city, state, and federal governments regarding immigration and judicial issues. But, unfortunately, they also used the world’s fairs, not just for commercial activities, but also as fronts to smuggle—for money—their countrymen into the United States, where they usually “disappeared” near or at the end of the expositions. Most smuggled women ended up in brothels, forced into prostitution, “sexual slavery,” falling prey to the “bachelor societies” in U.S. Chinatowns, bereft of women as a result of the immigration restrictions. The Chinese traders and merchants were the pioneers, the trail blazers, providing the Chinese face and continuity in American expositions that is why, instead of using China in the book title, which alludes to the country’s government, I used Chinese because of they were really the main representatives of China in U.S. world’s fairs.
Fourth, like the other ethnic groups displayed at the fair—the Blacks, Native Americans, non-Whites—the Chinese suffered racial discrimination, humiliation, and physical abuse. Called “Chinese heathens,” “chinks,” “laundrymen,” and other derogatory names, their culture, exhibits, products were denigrated, and, almost from one fair to the next, unfavorably compared with the Japanese’s. The cultural and political conflicts between the two Asian nations, both friends of the United States ever since the 1800s, reared their ugly heads at the fairgrounds, disturbing the otherwise peaceful nature of the gatherings.
Fifth, although it was not the only country to do so, China and its merchants, from time to time, donated its pavilion and exhibits to American institutions and individuals. The entire Chinese exhibit in the 1884-5 exposition, in New Orleans, Louisiana, for instance, was given to the University of Michigan in gratitude for the institution and its staff’s service to China. And after the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair in Missouri, Prince Pu Lun donated the replica of his summer palace and all its contents to the Exposition President.
A total of twenty-one international expositions, authorized or not by the Paris-based Bureau of International Expositions, the world’s fairs’ governing body since 1928, were held in the United States from 1876 to 1984. To avoid the repetitive nature of the subject matter—description of the buildings, exhibits, and other exposition details that could prove to be boring—the author tried to limit and focus the detailed narrative on only three world’s fairs—the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held in Saint Louis, Missouri, the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, held in San Francisco, California, and the 1982 Knoxville, Tennessee, World’s Fair—illustrating the experiences in American expositions of the Qing Dynasty, Republic of China, and People’s Republic of China, discussing only anything new and unusual in the other exhibitions.
Overall, the American expositions were beneficial to the Chinese. They introduced China—its people, its culture, its products—to the Americans; they helped to modernize the country, its machinery and its products; they provided the venue to interact and compare itself with the best of the world. They became the local Chinese’s venues for “coming out’ parties, ending their years of isolation, energizing them to put up parades, to wear lion and dragon costumes, inspiring them to join mainstream America. The international expositions helped to stimulate interest on China, leading to a sharp increase in Chinese cultural influence in American architecture, food, tourism, and politics.
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