Chinese-American Temple

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Chinatown Smoke: After completing the transcontinental railroad, many periodicals ran stories about the American west, including the popular illustrated miscellany, Harper’s Weekly. Images of Chinatown joss houses emerged as popular visual tropes for the semi-exotic frontier.

The illustration was made by Paul Frenzeny and the engraving was prepared by the talented Charles Maurand. Frenzeny went on a well publicized tour of the US in 1873, but this dramatic image was likely pieced together from older published images of Chinatown and hearsay.

The illustration was meant to be didactic and moralizing – the image was paired with another engraving showing similar “degraded” devotions in South American Catholic churches. The accompanying text compares the “superstitions” of Chinese American temples and Romish churches.

As Laurie Maffly-Kipp has explored, the focus on material culture – icons, incense smoke, enclosed spaces – tied together anti-Catholic and anti-Chinese sentiment of the period.

While unidentified, the main icon here is likely a poor rendition of Guandi, one of the most popular figures put on display in Chinese temples.

Maffly-Kipp’s article, “Engaging Habits and Besotted Idolatry,” can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/u3zc2nne.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

For Related Buddhas in the West Posts Featuring Chinatown (US):

Chinatown’s Tin How Temple / Grass Valley Temple Real Photo Postcard

Fresno’s “Joss House” Press Photograph

Harper’s 1871 “Joss House” Print

Wall Street Mystery (1920) Promotional Handbook

Fritz Müller’s Tin How Temple Postcard

For the Most Recent Buddhas in the West Posts:

Engraving the Grotesque Buddha, 1660–1850 Exhibit

1906 French Colonial Exposition Annam Pavilion Postcard

Tamamura Kōzaburō’s Kamakura Daibutsu Photograph For Brinkley’s Japan

Henri Laas’ “Dieu des Amours” Advertising Card

Fritz Kapp’s Lamas and Disciples Postcard

Keystone’s Kotte Temple Stereoview

Chinese Buddhist Shrine in The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929)

Philip Klier’s “Scene on the Shwe Dagon Pagoda” Postcard

Dreamland’s Japanese Tea Garden Pagoda, “Greeting From Coney Island” Postcard

Felice Beato’s Kichizo Jizō Photograph

Map of Temples in San Francisco’s Chinatown 1850s-1906

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A Rare Buddha of New York: It was uncommon for early Chinese American temples to display Buddhist icons. Here we have the sitting figure of Budai, popularly known as the Laughing Buddha, shown in New York’s Chinatown in the 1930s.

Born in San Francisco in 1888, Poy Yee became secretary for one of the most influential tongs in New York, the On Leong Tong. In 1926, he opened the Chinese Temple at 5 Mott Street with this Budai icon.

The image is on a “real photo post card,” meaning the image was produced on photosensitized paper directly. Based on the design of the obverse we can tell the card was produced between 1939 and 1950.

Yee called the space a Chinese Temple, but the interior was not typical of a religious space. He housed additional Chinese exhibits and charged Chinatown tourists 25c admission.