Peralta Hacienda Celebrates Oakland's Chinese Heritageby Nina Egert | |
Singer/musician Helen Chou. Photo courtesy Nina Egert.
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In 1852, a troupe of Cantonese opera performers arrived in San Francisco hoping to benefit from the gold-mining profits of their fellow countrymen. Their subsequent performance of The Eight Genii at San Francisco's Tivoli Opera House was in fact the first opera to be performed in California.
After the gold rush, Chinese miners remained in California to build railroads and dams, then to develop businesses in the service industry and agriculture. In the face of racist attitudes, they kept their artistic heritage alive by gathering in small opera societies within San Francisco and Oakland's Chinatowns. Over time the Chinese immigrant community's artistic interests expanded to other American art forms.
In 1916, one gold-rush era descendant, Marion Wong, directed The Curse of Quon Gwon, the first film made by a Chinese American. On hand in southern China to witness Sun Yat Tsen's 1911 revolution against the Manchu empire, Wong returned to her Oakland home in time to participate in the Bay Area's fledgling, if short-lived, silent film industry. In the spring of 1915, film stars Charlie Chaplin (A Night Out), Fatty Arbuckle, and Mabel Normand (Mabel's Willful Way) directed films in Oakland before returning to Hollywood. Shortly thereafter, Mabel formed the Mandarin Photo Play Film Company.'
The Curse of Quon Gwon draws on Marion's experiences in China. Starring her sister-in-law, Violet, as a Pickford-esque heroine, Wong's film is a smart and funny feminist look at conflicting Old World/New World family values. Thematically way ahead of its time, the film never benefited from proper distribution. The Wong family returned to the restaurant business, while Marion kept her artistic interest alive by performing as a singer. Copies of The Curse… were distributed to family members, and remained all but forgotten until Violet's grandson, Gregory Yee Mark, with the help of filmmaker Arthur Dong (Hollywood Chinese), and the Motion Picture Academy, recently restored the film to DVD.'
Singer/musician Helen Chou is on a different artistic restoration mission. After a career in real estate, she began studying Cantonese opera in Oakland's Chinatown. Interested in bringing Cantonese Opera to the non-Chinese speaking public, she began translating sections of opera and using Power Point to project English and Chinese super-titles during performances by her ensemble, Music Orient.
Each month the Peralta Hacienda, Oakland's first Spanish rancho, hosts Second Saturdays at Peralta Hacienda, a free program celebrating the art, music, and food of one of Oakland's ethnic communities. On September 13 at 3 p.m., in appreciation of our early Chinese heritage, Chou and Music Orient will perform and discuss "General Dee-Ching," a scene from a Cantonese opera, in between two showings (2:15 and 4:15 p.m.) of Wong's The Curse of Quon Gwon. The film will be accompanied by pianist Judy Rosenberg, while Gregory Mark and his aunt will discuss their family's involvement in the film company.'
The Hacienda, located at 2465 34th Ave., off Coolidge at Hyde, has limited seating, so reservations for film showings are highly recommended. Go to www.peraltahacienda.org. or call 532-9142.