Poetry and Storytelling Make Magic Onboard Ship
Rapt audience filled the Shelterdeck of sailing ship Balclutha on Feb. 23 to honor the lunar year of the Water Snake at “Transformations and Renewals,” our joint celebration with the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.
They reveled in poet Genny Lim’s mesmerizing performance of her powerful poetry, and chortled through an interactive “Chinese whispers” telephone game that modeled how history gets changed through successive retelling. This led up to a riveting delivery by proxy tellers Kevin Lee, Gregory Manalo, and Bessie Hahn, of compelling stories of transformation and resilience among early Chinese pioneers in the Sierra and the Bay. Park Exhibits Curator Richard Everett then gave a lively rendition of journalist Max Stern's fascinating accounts of maritime cannery workers, which were made chillingly real by a visit to the “Chinatown” quarters in the hold of the historic Balclutha.
Audience members said of the multimedia event: “magical”, "moving", “spectacular!” A Park ranger stationed on Hyde St. Pier observed that “everyone who came out from the event had a big smile on their face.” Now that’s something to smile about.
Kudos and thanks to Genny, Richard, and our storytellers, as well as to our volunteers and audience members, for making the event such a success. And very special thanks to our partner the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.
CW @ Shaping SF: The Legacy of Exclusion
We are delighted to present our next “Seeing Stories” community collaboration at Shaping San Francisco, to bring overlooked history to light through visual storytelling. Join us on April 10 at Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics, San Francisco, for an evening of presentations, stories, and discussions about the impact of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act on generations of Chinese American families.
We will reunite with presenters Chinese Historical Society of America and Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, and we are pleased to welcome filmmaker Felicia Lowe. Along with Chinese Whispers story excerpts, you'll also hear community story-contributor Ford Lee's memories of growing up in a San Francisco Chinatown shaped by the legacy of Exclusion. See sidebar for event details.
City Beneath the City Exhibition at Stanford Archaeology Center
City Beneath the City, the art installation by Project & Artistic Director Rene Yung that features over 60 artifacts from San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown, will be on view at the Stanford Archaeology Center through April 30. This special adaptation of CBC for the University space weaves together cultural history and archaeology, and brings home the poignant context of the arson fire that destroyed Market Street Chinatown. If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to catch the installation before April 30. Details in sidebar.
Contact us at
stories{at}chinese-whispers.org if you would like to have a copy of Rene's paper on CBC that she presented at the recent Society for California Archaeology annual conference.
Wishing you a happy spring!
—The Chinese Whispers Team
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Meet our growing community here! The CW Community is made up of all kinds of people spanning generations -- professionals, scholars, retirees, students, "regular folks" who joined us to bring forgotten stories to light.
