Huang reveals nuances in character of Charlie Chan

by Emily Gerston '11
NEWS EDITOR

Most college students probably aren’t familiar with black-and-white film and detective novel character Charlie Chan, but Yunte Huang provided a new perspective on the character in his lecture at Hamilton last Tuesday. Huang, an English professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, gave a lecture titled “Will the Real Charlie Chan Please Stand Up?” to discuss his research on the character and its history, based on his recent book Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History.

To many people today, Charlie Chan is a racist character based on the uninformed stereotypes of the early 21st Century, even going so far as to cast a Swedish man as Charlie Chan in order to make a successful film franchise. Huang argued that the situation is more complicated. Chan represents both “the racism of American culture” and the “creative genius of American culture” of the early 20th century.

“As Charlie Chan would say, ‘Truth, like football, receive many kicks before reaching goal.’ I have to give the football a number of kicks [before understanding the role],” said Huang. “If you look around, the stereotypes today about Asian men [such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li have] … you know, kind of a penchant for ass kicking. But there’s another image, which is Charlie Chan.”

The character of Charlie Chan was invented by Earl Derr Biggers, who Huang said was inspired to create a Honolulu-based mystery novel while on vacation in Honolulu, Hawaii. However, the Charlie Chan character was based on a real person, Chang Apana, a Chinese-Hawaiian detective known for receiving permission to carry a 5’ bullwhip instead of a gun. Despite being illiterate, Apana was multilingual and was the first undercover policeman in his police force. The character of Charlie Chan was instead portrayed as a laid-back detective known for his fortune-cookie style, grammatically incorrect sayings.

According to Huang, although many view Charlie Chan as a derogatory figure stereotyping Asians, Charlie Chan was a more complex character with deeper implications for both American and Chinese culture. “[Charlie Chan] represents the other stereotype and image, which is the funny aspect,” explained Huang. Rather than viewing Charlie Chan solely as a product of what Huang described as “the most xenophobic age in US history – except maybe today,” modern viewers should understand that Charlie Chan’s “inscrutability” and rambling phrases show more about American perceptions than the Asian detective on the screen.

“Inscrutability is really Asian humor in disguise. So what I’m trying to say is that Charlie Chan and the Chinaman image was to show mainstream America that we, Asians, like a good joke as much as anyone else, really,” Huang said. “Essentially, he is a trickster figure. They get you, they creep up on you, but you can’t pin them down. Charlie Chan is really a made-in-America trickster,” he explained, referring to the trickster literary character, such as Coyote in Native American myths.

Although Charlie Chan’s heyday was over decades ago, Huang remains fascinated with the character and how it shaped, and was shaped by, American perceptions as well as Chinese reactions to the character. Huang explained, “I think it is a good moment to revisit Charlie Chan because [with]the Sino/China cultural relationship and global politics… we have a new situation.”