Providences Black Chinese: A Love Story :: China Short Stories Papers

Providences Black Chinese A Love Story On the aurora of February 23rd, 1901, Chung Yick stood chatting with Mr. Joseph Hoffman, the proprietor of the hand over frame shop on the ground floor of the Charles Street erect the two men shared with several other tenants. The house wasnt such(prenominal) better than a tenement building, with its dirty wooden face and delimit crooked stairs. A crude sign on cardinal posture said PICTURES in b oldish letters, marking the entrance to Hoffmans store. The Yicks lived on the other side, along with the Rileys and the widow Driscoll, who were cramped up on the second floor. Still, it was a decent street to live on, with a mixture of small shops and residential homes and the Mosshassuck River creeping alongside it like an emaciated and sleepy serpent. Chung was a hard up man in his forties with hollow cheeks and intense brown eyes-he project a certain gravity that was close tohow incongruous with popular notions of the jolly, easy Ch inaman. Instead of the traditional Chinese collarless jacket, he sported a conservativist brown suit, complete with vest, tie, and polished black shoes. Chung was a cook by trade and a good one, too-well enough respected for the Providence ledger to dub him one of the citys best-known Chinese restauranteurs. Most likely, he was an employee of the Wah, Yee, Hong & Co. ingest house, the Chinese restaurant located closest to his home, just a unused fifteen-minute walk away at the bottom of College Hill. It was a windy Saturday morning with temperatures well below freezing, and Chung relished these last moments of warmth inside the store onwards hed have to venture out into the cold. Several thousand miles away from his old home in southern China, where temperatures fluctuated between hot and hotter, Chung still hadnt kinda adjusted to Providences bitter winters. That walk would be especially brisk like a shot John, Mr. Hoffman said suddenly, addressing Chung by his chosen Americ an name, Whats all that racket? Indeed, some great noise-frantic footsteps and shouting-could be heard coming from the general direction of Chungs kitchen where, proceeding earlier, he had left his wife and stepdaughter bustling about their morning chores. Its a fire someone shouted from outside. The attics on fire The first functionary Chinese resident in Rhode Island appeared on the state census in 1865, but there may have been at least one Chinaman in Providence even earlier.