Post by NZBC on Apr 23, 2008 21:27:08 GMT 12
www.suntimes.com/business/905693,CST-NWS-laundry21.article
The spin on Chinese laundries
'BETTER FUTURE' | It's personal for prof whose immigrant family owned one
April 21, 2008
BY MARY HOULIHAN Staff Reporter mhoulihan@suntimes.com
Retirement has been a time of discovery for John Jung, and the discoveries begin with his unusual childhood.
The son of Chinese immigrants, Jung grew up in Macon, Ga., where his father owned the local laundry. As part of the only Chinese family in town, Jung admits he missed out on any real connection to what it meant to be Chinese.
Retired Professor John Jung is at the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, where he spoke Sunday in conjunction with an exhibit on occupations open to Chinese immigrants in the first half of the 20th century.
(John H. White/Sun-Times)
"We were seen as a curiosity," Jung, 71, recalled. "I grew up thinking that all Chinese ran laundries. I had very little experience with other Chinese."
Jung, a professor emeritus at California State University Long Beach, has recounted this childhood and the bigger picture of Chinese laundries in America in two books, Southern Fried Rice: Life in a Chinese Laundry in the Deep South and Chinese Laundries: Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain. (Both are available at http://www.lulu.com.)
Jung, who has a doctorate in experimental psychology from Northwestern University, spoke Sunday at the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago in conjunction with the exhibit "From the Great Wall to the Great Lakes," which looks at occupations open to Chinese immigrants in the first half of the 20th century.
Jung's parents immigrated in 1928 and landed in Macon, where they ran the laundry for 30 years before moving to San Francisco. In his books, Jung reflects on what it means to be Chinese when everyone else around you is black or white.
Betty Moy Osterhout easily related to what Jung was talking about. Her father ran a Chinese laundry on Chicago's South Side from the early 1950s to 1974.
"My family had a similar experience," Osterhout, 56, said. "We lived in the back of the building, and my sisters and I were expected to help out, to press shirts, wrap packages and help with the customers. We were the only Chinese family in an all-white neighborhood and school."
In China, women traditionally did the laundry. But as Chinese men immigrated, they were only allowed to own laundries and, later, restaurants.
"Chinese parents saw this as a way to provide for a better future," Jung said. "As the children became better educated and moved on, the laundries began to close."
There was also the encroachment of modern technology. Jung recalls the day his father, who had always used an abacus, mastered his new calculator.
"He finally learned how to use it," Jung said, laughing. "But he would run and get his abacus just to double check it."
The spin on Chinese laundries
'BETTER FUTURE' | It's personal for prof whose immigrant family owned one
April 21, 2008
BY MARY HOULIHAN Staff Reporter mhoulihan@suntimes.com
Retirement has been a time of discovery for John Jung, and the discoveries begin with his unusual childhood.
The son of Chinese immigrants, Jung grew up in Macon, Ga., where his father owned the local laundry. As part of the only Chinese family in town, Jung admits he missed out on any real connection to what it meant to be Chinese.
Retired Professor John Jung is at the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, where he spoke Sunday in conjunction with an exhibit on occupations open to Chinese immigrants in the first half of the 20th century.
(John H. White/Sun-Times)
"We were seen as a curiosity," Jung, 71, recalled. "I grew up thinking that all Chinese ran laundries. I had very little experience with other Chinese."
Jung, a professor emeritus at California State University Long Beach, has recounted this childhood and the bigger picture of Chinese laundries in America in two books, Southern Fried Rice: Life in a Chinese Laundry in the Deep South and Chinese Laundries: Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain. (Both are available at http://www.lulu.com.)
Jung, who has a doctorate in experimental psychology from Northwestern University, spoke Sunday at the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago in conjunction with the exhibit "From the Great Wall to the Great Lakes," which looks at occupations open to Chinese immigrants in the first half of the 20th century.
Jung's parents immigrated in 1928 and landed in Macon, where they ran the laundry for 30 years before moving to San Francisco. In his books, Jung reflects on what it means to be Chinese when everyone else around you is black or white.
Betty Moy Osterhout easily related to what Jung was talking about. Her father ran a Chinese laundry on Chicago's South Side from the early 1950s to 1974.
"My family had a similar experience," Osterhout, 56, said. "We lived in the back of the building, and my sisters and I were expected to help out, to press shirts, wrap packages and help with the customers. We were the only Chinese family in an all-white neighborhood and school."
In China, women traditionally did the laundry. But as Chinese men immigrated, they were only allowed to own laundries and, later, restaurants.
"Chinese parents saw this as a way to provide for a better future," Jung said. "As the children became better educated and moved on, the laundries began to close."
There was also the encroachment of modern technology. Jung recalls the day his father, who had always used an abacus, mastered his new calculator.
"He finally learned how to use it," Jung said, laughing. "But he would run and get his abacus just to double check it."