August 26, 2020 • 39 mins
For this edition of Female Firsts, Yves brings us the story of Afong Moy, the first known documented Chinese woman in the United States.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to staff.
Mom never told you Protection of I Heart Radio. And
today is another episode of Female First with Me, where
(00:24):
once again joined by our good friend and colleague Eaves.
Welcome Eaves. Hello everyone, We're always thrilled to have you.
And as we're recording this, it is a Friday. It
is a Friday. Yes, I like I say, I say
that with such like I know the day right? You
(00:46):
have to remind yourself. Yeah, so you haven't remind me
often of what day it is. I'm like, is it okay? Great?
I just I just had a callenger saying things That's true.
Every morning I email Samantha, like today on your docket
is man, can we arrange that? I need that? If
(01:06):
you do. I used to do that with my ex boyfriend,
no joke, and looking back, like, I'm so surprised you
put up with so much of my nonsense for so
long because I would send him like an email today
we're going to do this, this and this and here
are some other options and I want to know what
you think about this. So he didn't ask for this,
You just took it upon yourself to do it. Uh,
(01:27):
he didn't ask for it per se. But I was
just such a bigger email communicator, which is odd looking back.
I didn't text as much as I emailed, um, so
I think it was just sort of a natural he
realized we would I respond quicker if he emailed me
hious text I like to. I like to sit with
(01:48):
texts for a minute, as I feel like they're easier
to misinterpret because they're usually shorter, but an email you
can be longer. You gotta use emojis and emoticons that
preten like, look, I'm not being really serious. So I'm
even worse at that out in emails because I don't
put those in emails. So I feel like I'm even
more blunt in emails than I am in texting. Your
(02:11):
emails are hilarious because they're like no caps and no periods,
and I'm just like, well, I'm gonna put my own
emotion on this, exactly what I'm saying. Like there's nothing
I add to it. I'm just like, here's the sentence end. Yes, Yes,
I'm very professional. Mm hmm. That's efficiency is what that is.
(02:34):
I mean, honestly, I think you guys, I've worked in
a government field that I had to get out emails
so quickly, and I try to be as like official
as possible, but it would just be a literal like
ten ten different back and forth conversation in one chain
that I just like, get the stunt, Get the stunt.
So that's kind of in my mind frame. I get it.
I get it. I feel like if I had to
(02:57):
choose my most random skill set, one of mine would
be composing emails. I feel like I'm very good at it.
Um it's an art form, that's are you proud of
that skill? I just I'm so Sending emails is a
pain for me sometimes. So is that something that you
you take with pride? Ann? I do, because I do
(03:22):
think you have to consider how it could be misinterpreted
and just clear so you're not gonna have more emails
than you want. I don't. I won't say I necessarily
like it, but I am. I do feel some pride,
some pride. It is a skill. It's a skill, for sure. Yes, yes, well, uh,
(03:44):
we are talking about someone with a different set of
skills today, not email or texting. Who did you bring
for us today? You? Well, today we're going to be
talking about a fon moy so her history is very interesting.
Um she was another one of those people who I
think we talked about for a previous episode who there
(04:05):
isn't a ton about um And that's very purposeful motitional,
like who's history gets recorded. But yeah, we're gonna be
talking about a Fong moy. So she wasn't the first
Chinese person in the US, but she was likely the
first documented Chinese woman in the US. She was the
only Chinese woman to be exhibited as an exhibited that's
(04:28):
in quotes as a curiosity, because saying that a person
was exhibited sounds weird, but like technically that's what she
was doing. She was an exhibition and she was a performer.
But as as a curiosity. Before Chinese people began mass
immigrating to the United States, Um, so she got a
lot of national recognition in the US. And also it's
notable to think that there were Chinese men in the
(04:51):
US at the time, but she was the only known
Chinese woman who was in the US. So just to
be in that position else is a whole thing. But yeah,
like I said, there's not a lot known about her life,
and I think in the past, something that's a little
bit different about talking about a Fon Boy today, is
that in the past, we've kind of really focused on
(05:11):
women who we're talking about their accomplishments, like their first
were the things that were Oh they were the first
black woman architect in this place, and obviously those things
are very important, but that the circumstances around this first
is a little bit different than the previous first we've
talked about. So I just want to be clear that
her arrival and kind of tenure in the US aren't
(05:35):
necessarily like a celebratory thing completely. She was kind of
trotted out like a show horse, you know, like she
and of course she as one person can't stand for
all Chinese people, are all Chinese women. And so this
isn't kind of me saying wow, like, look a fon
boy made it out of China into the US, like
what a pioneer. Like That's not at all what I'm
(05:56):
trying to say, because I'm definitely not here to up
whole all of the isms and all of the problematic
things that surround her time in the US, like so
many like there are so many layers to the story.
There's the xenophobia, there's imperialism, there's racism, there's stativism, there
is the exoticizing and all that stuff was imparted on
(06:17):
Moy during her lifetime, and so so I just kind
of wanted to preface with that. Like this story, I'm
also not here to pain her story as a tragedy
because I feel like as a person who has limited knowledge,
like I'm not a historian of Moi, and also like
her story in general, there isn't that much documented about it,
like her time when she was in China before she
came to the US. So I'm not I don't want
(06:38):
to paint her story as this tragedy. Like the only
thing that she embodied, the only thing that her life
embodied was performance. That's what we know about her, but
that's not all of her life. And so I think
we have to keep in mind, just as we would
keep in mind as we're watching a movie, like we're
starting in media risk kind of to be like a
nerdy like metaphor, like there were things that bit before
(07:01):
the conversation that we know we're able to have about her,
and things that happened after that we don't know about
her that we can't necessarily bring up today because we
don't know it. And so her value wasn't only instilled
her value wasn't only about the performative work that she
did in the US. So I just want to preface
with that a lot of what we know about her
comes from other people as well, Like not from her
(07:22):
own voice, comes from letters, It comes from article as,
it comes from diaries, it comes from scrapbooks. Yeah, and
the story is fascinating. And I know in in past
episodes of Female First, Um, we are perhaps me. I
don't want to speak for both of you, but I've
had that moment of oh, well, I don't understand all
(07:45):
the historical cultural context of what was happening in China
at the time or in wherever, I mean, even in
the US. There's just things that I might not even
think to question, and less I really really dig into
and into things. Um. So I think that in her
story is good to keep in mind as well. And
(08:08):
it is so interesting looking back with our our modern
eyes where um now you can hop on a plane
and go to pretty much anywhere, that this was a
time when a lot of Americans had never seen someone
from China. And that's so I just keep that in mind. Yeah, um, yeah, right,
(08:33):
I mean I get the fun experiences of just being
an Asian woman when I lived in like the smaller towns,
and even though they know of Asian cultures, still there's
enough ignorance out there not everyone obviously that they would
be like, what are you, which is the first question
I would get, And that in itself is kind of
like can you imagine what happened when they have actually
never knew an Asian person in general, and then being like, Okay, seriously,
(08:57):
what I think? That's kind I cannot imagine being just
already having to deal with some of the confusion and
ignorance here today and then going to think about the
reality of, oh my god, what would have been like
back then, and that kind of that back and forth
and yeah, as you, I know, you're gonna unfold all
of this reading about just some of the things that
(09:18):
they assume about her life and again some of the
silence and what might not have happened. It's kind of like, wow,
I wonder how lonely at the same time, how much
she tried to play into that to be accepted. But yeah,
I know we're gonna do that. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
I and I guess it's like weird. There is a
(09:39):
weird line where you try to have or I'll speak
for myself, where I try to have a level of
empathy about like, well, this is a thing that is
truly completely foreign to a person, but the way in
which that was imparted on her, Like you can say
I've never seen a thing. Oh, I've never seen a thing,
and then you can say I've never seen a thing.
How awful is that thing? Like how weird is that thing?
(10:01):
How strange is that thing? And like they did that
with her foot binding, which we'll talk about, and they
did that with her, you know, herself, and had a
lot of commentary on like you know, what they thought
was right and what they thought should be the case
based on you know, American white values and religion and
upbringing and morals and all of those things, and tried
(10:23):
to project what they thought was quote unquote right onto
onto her culture and her customs and her So yeah,
it's super complicated. I mean yeah, like thinking about what
you said, Samantha, just about how today like it's already
it's a huge thing. To be the only Chinese woman
that people have seen like period up until that time
(10:44):
is definitely I can't imagine. And I can't relate to
be the only because I think we're still put in
positions like that today, Like I'm still in rooms where
I'm the only black woman in the room. But this
is that on a way largest, different, different culture. So yeah, um,
(11:05):
I guess we can get into her story now. Yeah, well, yeah,
any you mentioned not knowing what China at the time
was like art, I'm not specifically China at the time.
Any you mentioned like not necessarily knowing the context around
things that were happening in specific cultures and nations at
the time. Um, and China at the time. I think
it's worth talking a little bit about the background of
(11:28):
the context in this case, just because it figure so
much into the story and the way that people viewed her.
And obviously I can't go through the whole history of
the place as the largest China in a short amount
of time, so this is going to be simplification. And
obviously the history is more complicated than this. But this
is during a Ching dynasty, which lasted from the mid
(11:49):
and obviously, to my pronunciations, I know are not nuanced
when it comes to Chinese. But yeah, so it last
it from around the mid sixteen hundreds to the early
nineteen hundreds, it was generally prosperous. Um population was growing
majorly in a big way during some part of the
Team dynasty, and there was restricted trade and relations with
(12:10):
the West, and in the seventeen fifties, Western trade was
restricted to the southern part of Canton guang Jo today.
But um, as the demand for t increased and the
Industrial Revolution came along, people in our Britain was looking
for more markets for manufactured goods, and so they tried
to trying to extend that out to China and establish
(12:35):
Western style relations with the Chinese. But by the early
as you can imagine, UM, when trade and commerce and
like relations starts, conflict starts to be a part of
the pot as well. Um, when people start to stick
their hands and things. So Western countries began to be
more engaged in conflicts with China as they were scrambling
(12:56):
to kind of get access to Chinese products and markets
for European and US trade. So yeah, there was this
insular kind of isolationist situation that was happening in China.
Um when it came to Chinese people leaving China and
Western people coming to China. That was a part of
it also, as I mentioned briefly earlier, Afong Moy her
(13:20):
feet were bound. That was a practice that grew a
lot during the Chain dynasty, and the Manchu's attempted to
ban that practice of footbinding, but they weren't able to
do so, and the Han Chinese were They were the
ones who mainly practiced foot binding, um, and they continued
to do so, and it did limit women's physical mobility.
(13:41):
And so anyway, people from the US did visit China,
so it wasn't like there weren't any Western people or
people from the U S specifically in China. There were,
and there were people who were lived in the US
who had never been to China who were interested in
in it and had other depictions of China and saw
(14:02):
it as this mystical, far away place. And yeah, so
there were like landscape scenes on Chinese ceramics that made
their way to the US and kind of paying it
China as this picturesque place. And people were also really
into the idea of Chinese women and foot binding when
they found out about it, and there was this air
(14:24):
of mystery around that as well. Um. And I mean,
there's obviously so much problematic stuff when it comes to
the way that people viewed and spoke about Chinese women
and footbinding and all that stuff back then. But I
kind of think of it as this way where they're
like portraying Chinese women as these cryptids. It's like, oh,
this a list of unicorn or like a big foot
(14:45):
that I've never liked seen. Maybe I'll get to see
it one day, Like I have no idea how this
creature works, type of situation. So that's kind of a
little bit of background when it comes to China and
views of China and how those were developing at the time,
and as we'll get to a little bit later, those
did change, those views did evolve over time. We have
(15:08):
a lot more for you listeners, but first we're gonna
pass for a quick frick for we're from our sponsors
every back, Thank you sponsored. So onto the story of
(15:30):
a Fong Boy and how she got to the U s.
So there's not much known about her personal family history
before that time. This is kind of where her story starts. Generally,
there were the traders Nathaniel and Frederick Carne, and they
were in the business of importing foreign goods to the US,
and they have their own backstory, but today is not
(15:52):
about them, so we won't talk about I love it.
So that included good from China, and those Chinese goods
were things like handkerchiefs, like shawls, fireworks, baskets, fans, watercolor paintings,
and a bunch of other items. So these guys decided
(16:14):
to develop a marketing scheme and what do you know,
along with Captain o'bar. So they did this with Captain o'beer,
and that would help with selling their goods. And they
wanted to their whole scheme was exhibiting a Chinese woman
in New York, and they wanted to surround her with
Chinese decor and furniture so that they could sell their goods.
(16:38):
But they would kind of use the woman as the
centerpiece to bring people in and then once they were there,
they would scour her whole appearance and her customs and
everything that she did. But in the meantime, all the
things that she was surrounded by and be like, oh,
like my precious, you know, all of these shiny furniture
and decor and items that they would love along the
(16:58):
way and hopefully be tempted into buying them. Because middle
class white women were had a little bit more time
and and resources to be able to to get such things,
and the morals and the values around being able to
acquire those things was also something that was developing at
the time. I know y'all can talk about it and
probably like have you know, done research on it as well,
(17:21):
But the storied history of white folks putting people of
different ethnicities and customs and cultures on display is not
something that's limited to a Fung Moy. So I know
y'all have probably heard of Start Department or the quote
unquote venous Hot and Ty who was put on display
human zoos that were really popular in Britain and so
(17:41):
called freak shows, and Chang and a Bunker who were
the who they call the Siamese Twins, who were joint
twins who were put on display as curiosities. So at
Moy was objectified and kind of dehumanized in a similar way. Um,
But I don't want to take all of her agency
at from her, because she did have agency as well
(18:02):
and made choices. That's worth being recognized that yes she
was trot it out, and yes she was put on display,
and yes she was brought over from China, but there
was agency in her story as well. So like Oh
Bear apparently reached an agreement with afon Woi's father, who
was likely a Cantonese merchant or comfordor and her father
(18:27):
got money out of the deal. But apparently Oh Beer
also promised to bring Moy back to China in two years.
Spoiler alert, that did not happen. She stayed in the
US for a lot longer than two years. Oh yeah,
do we know did she ever make it? She didn't
go back? Right, No, she We don't know if she
(18:48):
ever went back or not. I think the most we
can do is speculate on whether she went back to
China or not, like what happened after she left the
U S. As I read somewhere that she made gone
to Europe at one point in time. Yeah, sibly, possibly possibly, um,
but there's not really any record of her after a
certain point in the US, so she didn't. She came
(19:09):
to the U S in eighteen thirty four, and a
Boy was a name that was probably given to her.
She was on Chinese, which is surmised because of her
foot binding um and her her family background wasn't recorded
when she arrived here, and this was before the times
of the gold Rush. Like I said earlier, this is
(19:30):
before mass Chinese immigration to the US. And she was
likely around sixteen, probably no older than nineteen, so she
was young. Um and when she came to the U
s was at that point where she became the first
document to Chinese woman to enter the US. So she
arrived on a ship called the Washington under Captain o'bear.
(19:51):
She had come from Canton. Articles and there are a
bunch of articles on her like that you can read,
which are bad, hilarious, like yeah, it's a lot going
on in these articles, but it said that she was
There was one that says she was four ft ten
inches tall and that her feet were just four inches
long since she wore quote unquote iron shoes since she
(20:14):
was twelve years old. And it said that she would
soon start accepting visitors at Number eight part place in
New York. And at first articles gave her different names
before she was given the name Afong Boy. There was one,
for instance, that gave her the name Miss Ching Chung Foo.
(20:34):
I don't know where they got that name from, but
that was the name that they gave her in one article.
That article was in the New York Commercial advertiser, and
so there were other names that she was given as
well that I don't know the the source of. I
don't know where those names came from. Obviously a lot
to be said about somebody naming somebody when they get
(20:54):
to the US, and also not necessarily knowing anything about
Chinese culture or having ever seen a Chinese woman before, yep.
I don't know where they came from. UM. But she
did have an attendant who would translate for her, So
she didn't know how to speak English at the time.
She had an attendant who would translate for her. And
at the place where she would be exhibited, which they
(21:16):
were setting up when she got over here. UM. And
there will also big various objects of Chinese curiosity around her. Um.
The price of that mission was fifty cents. There were
some earlier sources that said twenty five cents, but it
looked like they bumped it up after a while, and
children under twelve were half that According to articles, there
(21:37):
of course, were a bunch of physical descriptions of her appearance,
and in articles and in letters, and so by way
of somebody else's description of her, not her description of herself.
I will tell y'all what they said she looked like.
So there was a November article in the Vermont Courier
(21:58):
that described her this way. She is short, but rather
robust in stature. Her features are pleasing, her forehead high
and protuberant, and her face round and full, with two
languishing black eyes placed with the peculiarly it's a hard word,
that is really hard, obliquity of her outer angle, which
(22:21):
characterized the Mongolian. I guess that's how you pronounced that
variety of the human race from which these people are descended.
So the article later says that she was quote much
pleased with our country and not at all homesick. I'm
not sure. I'm really not quite sure how they reached that.
(22:41):
I'm assuming. I'm assuming it's an assumption, because the article
doesn't say that she said it. It says it is
said that. So I don't know if those are words
from her mouth or not. But as you would imagine,
all of the things that we were talking about earlier,
like the nativism and the patriots, is all those things
that are probably happening have to do with that. But
that's my assumption as well. Yeah, So, over the next decade,
(23:03):
there were a lot more articles written about a Fon
Moy Um. And as you can see about that kind
of description and what we've talked about earlier, a lot
of them were very orientalist mothering and really grossly doting
and patronizing um. And I'll pull out a quote from
(23:23):
an article that tal Zog wrote in teen that was
called the start of American Accommodation of the Chinese A
Fon Boys Experience from eighteen fifty um, just because I
feel like it's a good way too to put it um.
And this is what said. Her very presence as the
first recorded Chinese woman on American soil prompted a heated
(23:46):
national discussion regarding how to accommodate the Chinese living among Americans.
A two tier paradigm that emerged from this dialogue disparaged
Chinese culture while extending paternalistic care to Moy, pushing her
towards acculturation, which was to be realized in a symbolic
way after her disappearance from the exhibition stage. And that
(24:11):
is the paternalism that's just so apparent in her story.
Is it's so gross, and like to also think that
she was don't like she was actually very young at
the time as a as a layer to that, and
that that eventually did turn into hostility and specifically anti
(24:34):
Chinese sentiment and action, um of course. But it's kind
of important to layer that in what was happening in
the U S at the top two, which was obviously
many things like many things are happening at once in
the thirties, but some of the things were like Andrew
Jackson was president. The Indian Removal Act became law in
(24:55):
eighteen thirties, so just a few years before A Fat
Boy got to the US end. Of course, millions of
people were enslaved in the United States, So there was
an idealistic view of China at the time. The Opium
War still hadn't started taking place yet, that would start
happening soon, but there was this view of China that
(25:19):
was influenced by the goods and by the letters of
people who have been there, um. So it was very
very narrow view of what China and Chinese people were.
If you can't even you can't even really group that
into a whole thing, so but that that was it
was a very limited view. So it's it's really unclear
(25:42):
exactly how many people went to see F. F. On Boy,
but it was in the thousands. Some people didn't record
their experiences with her, and most of them were of
the middle and the upper middle classes. After she got
to the US, there were some really stories that popped
up about her in the newspapers. There was one that
(26:04):
she had never seen a left handed person before. Okay, yeah, yeah.
There was ones that were saying she disappeared, m r
SHEI left or something like that. But when her exhibition
finally opened, people came to ogle her and her bound feet,
(26:26):
and according to newspapers, kind of in those early times,
she didn't really like it when men tried to get
a closer look at her feet, but wasn't as opposed
to it when women would try to get it closer
look at her feet. Um At Tongue was the name
of her interpreter, and he would help her communicate with
visitors and also make sure that she would get out
(26:46):
of her seat to walk around across the room for
people from time to time, and there were plenty of
people in New York in the beginning who did go
to see her, but some did object to the way
she was displayed as exploitation. Some people objected to the
fact that her feet were bound, saying, oh my gosh,
(27:08):
it's a disgrace that she was being, you know, harmed
by her feet being bound. Um, and just generally, I guess,
being and clear about like the custom of foot binding itself. Um,
and working through their feelings and thoughts on that after
finally seeing it in person. Mm hmm. We have a
(27:30):
little bit more for you, but first we have one
more quick break for work fromer sponsor and we're back.
Let's get back into it. Yeah. So, after her time
(27:52):
in New York, she went on tour to other places
across the US. For instance, she went to New Haven,
she went to New Orleans, she went to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington,
and she even ended up in Cuba, and she would
sing songs in Chinese and she was learning English all
the while. And she she even met with Andrew Jackson
(28:15):
in the White House. And it's not quite clear exactly
what the reason for that was, but she did. And
Captain o'bear and the Carnes did profit from her ticket sales,
but they made more in the long run from the
sales of the Chinese goods, like the ones that were
in display in the rooms that she was in. So
(28:35):
things like vass mirrors, lamps, chairs, all of this sort
of decordi of objects and furniture were things that they
were able to sell because of her exhibitions. Yeah, so
of course the whole footbinding thing was the thing that
was an anomaly or like so fascinating to so many
people who visited her and got really um invasive at
(28:59):
times when people wanting to her to uncover her feet
and measure her feet, and there were physicians actually in
Philly who examined them. They begged to examine them, and
they got to. She consented and they took measurements and
they published those measurements in the newspaper. And later I
think it was in Charleston when she uncovered her feet
(29:22):
again and this time for the ticketed public to see.
So the story goes on and on like that of
her in all these cities, in these exhibitions, acting as
a performer, introducing real, live in the flesh Chinese culture
and Chinese personhood two people, and those exhibitions created us
(29:43):
interests and called Chinese culture and society, which there already
was before, but it kind of hyped that up in
addition to selling the goods, and she didn't really have
a home though, so she was just traveling all the
time to all these different shows, and she really depended
a lot on her manner jurors. And everything wasn't so
(30:04):
sweet with the Carns though, like everything wasn't always good
with their business. Um. They fell on hard times when
the Panic of eighteen thirty seven hit, which was a
kind of a financial crisis that kind of led to
a depression. UM. So they were bringing in so many
goods but didn't necessarily have the audience or the consumers
to be able to pick that stuff up. And then
(30:25):
all this other stuff and in the US economics was
happening at the same time. That didn't bode well for
the business. And Aphon Moy around that time eight was
supposedly abandoned UM and lived in poor conditions in New Jersey,
and she spent several years there according to documents. But
(30:45):
interests in goods Chinese goods did resurface later in the
late eighteen forties, and in eighteen forty eight she and
Tom Thumb shared an exhibition space under P. T. Barnum
whose history is like a whole lot of thing um
that is a lot of displaying of like it's super
controversial history. But she fell out of favor with Barnum
(31:08):
after a while as well. And Moi was in the
US until around eighteen fifty as far as we know,
like that's not the official date saying like, oh, she
left after that, but at that point records started of
her disappeared um and that's kind of where her story
in letters ends, like where her story in writing ends,
(31:31):
as far as we know. And that was also around
the time things were changing a lot in the U
s I mean, during her time here that we do
know about. We know things were changing. So the mass
immigration of Chinese people to the US begin in the
late eighteen forties early eighteen fifties, views of Chinese people
were changing, so Americans were increasingly to writing her clothing
(31:53):
and her customs and Chinese clothing and customs in general,
and her religious beliefs in Chinese religious beliefs are being
criticized by moral reformers and other Christians in the US.
And the Opium Wars, like I mentioned earlier, we're starting
up and trade with China, like Chinese US relations and
(32:13):
Chinese goods. All of that was changing at the time,
and it was a build up to kind of I mean,
so much stuff was happening at this at the time,
but there was also kind of things that happened later
around the eight eighties when the Chinese Exclusion Act was
introduced and very specific anti Chinese legislation UM and actions
(32:37):
were being taken on in federal and local scales. So
it kind of just feels like this bubble in time,
um afon Moise story does where she was there to
see that transition. It was also part of that transition
of while this mystical place that China was, and then
while this place that maybe isn't so great in our
(33:02):
eyes that we thought before, you know, we feel a
certain way about it now. Um and all this nativism
creeping in, all this you know, racism and in those
kind of sentiments creeping in. So yeah, it just feels
like I really wish I knew a lot more about
her story and like what happened to her after after Yeah,
(33:26):
and it is looking back at what we do have,
it is such a it's strange looking at ads with
her in them, and UM, I would recommend to anyone
who's interested in learning more because it is a very
interesting story. Um looking into that and uh huh. Yeah,
it is just such a specific time, and to read
(33:49):
some of it, it's so kind of pro American and saying, look,
compared to this, how much better, how more much more superior?
We are? Um, especially towards the end, as you say,
when attitude shifted. Yeah. I wish we knew more about
her too. And I know there's a lot of interest
because isn't there a movie, there's a book, but there
(34:13):
was a play about other play Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
And I didn't see the play itself, but what I
read about the play was that it was kind of
attempting to be from a f On Wars perspective, which
is a lot that we haven't gotten through documentation since
it was from other people's perspectives, And obviously that was
That's something that I would love to know more about. Two,
(34:33):
like what did aff On Boy herself think about? And
even in the phrasing that people would give from the
interpreter a tongue, I was like, is this really what
she said? Or is this what you wanted to tell
people that she said? Yeah, right, yeah, I know. I
I would love so much to know the motivations for her,
even though it was her father was involved in that decision,
(34:56):
but just how does she felt and thought and when
she was mad learning them when she arrived. There was
one report I read, because it was back and forth,
that it was possible that she left too send money
back to the family, the father or something like that.
But I don't know how any of this is true.
I think that was just one report out of you know,
(35:16):
the majority was saying that it was a father that
pretty much said she could go rather than the other
way around. But I just wondered if that was possibility
as well, because it's, yeah, it's thetory like those way
you don't have a lot of understanding. And because she
does disappear, which kind of sings like the theme for
this time frame for many of historical like figures um
(35:39):
that you kind of wonder what did happen? And and
for me like was it tragic? Was she able to
get out of it? What happened? Right? Yeah? And I
would I would love to know her thoughts on the performance, like, yeah,
what was she really interested in? Like did she continue
I know she went on to barn them, but after
that she still continued to form. Did she enjoy it
(36:01):
as a livelihood or was it just something that she
had to do out of necessities, like you said, to
send money back to her family, or yeah, what was
her agency in her own words as well? So so
many questions, right, yeah, same questions mysteries of history as
they say, Okay, I have heard that, but yeah that
(36:21):
makes sense. I say that all the time. Maybe it's
just me, maybe it's heism and anyism, but yeah, it's
it's almost tragic to say because she was put on
a display by the same time, like I saw one
report saying again this is just probably an assumption. Again
a bigger stereotype of her being a quote lotus blossom
(36:41):
on one hand in her like uh, you know, mannerism,
but then also the perpetuating but she was fierce tiger
as well, Like those two stereotypes came into play at
the same time. How are you both? How is she
both like that? But why was that the descriptor for her?
And that was like the perpetuating of the content in
new stereotype of Asian women in general. Yeah, and we've
(37:05):
talked about like um as Western countries were getting these
depictions of um Asian women Chinese women for the first
time and fetishizing and exoticizing that and things you get
like Madama butterflies happening, that kind of whole Asian dollar
stereotype which we talked about, and then I was fascinated
with this. I learned this is I mean, I haven't
(37:27):
dug too deep into this, but I learned that that's
why t is sort of viewed as feminine and coffee
is more masking because we associated tea with China with
Asia and yeah, yeah, and um, just things like that
where you it really shows how big these impact these
(37:49):
stereotypes have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he didn't figure a lot
into the story of the stuff that the Carns were
importing and was accessible, like a lot of cheaper teas
that were coming from China were accessible to a lot
of people in the US at the time. Um. Yeah,
it's so layered and so so many stories within the story. Yes,
(38:13):
and she's kind of a mystery on our own because
you don't really hear from her or any perspective from
her in general. Yeah. Yeah, but um, the story is
fascinating and I am glad you once again you brought
something to my attention that I had never heard about before.
(38:35):
I never heard of alread either I love it. Yes,
thank you as always, Eves, I can't wait to do
it again. Where can the listeners find you? You can
find me on the line at Eves jeff Co and
Eve steff Co on Twitter, I am at not apologizing.
On Instagram. You can also listen to the podcast This
(38:55):
Day in History Class, which is a daily podcast about
things that happen in history and birthdays in history. And
you can also hear me on I'm Popular. Yeah, and
you should do go check all of that out listeners
um And in the meantime, if you'd like to email us,
you can. Our email is stuff Media mom Stuff at
(39:18):
iHeart media dot com. You can fight us on Twitter
at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at stuff I
Never Told You. Thanks. It's always to your superproducer Andrew Howard.
Thank you. Thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never
Told You. The protection of iHeart Radio for more podcasts
from I heeart Radio is the iHeart Radio app, Apple
podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to staff.
Mom never told you Protection of I Heart Radio. And
today is another episode of Female First with Me, where
(00:24):
once again joined by our good friend and colleague Eaves.
Welcome Eaves. Hello everyone, We're always thrilled to have you.
And as we're recording this, it is a Friday. It
is a Friday. Yes, I like I say, I say
that with such like I know the day right? You
(00:46):
have to remind yourself. Yeah, so you haven't remind me
often of what day it is. I'm like, is it okay? Great?
I just I just had a callenger saying things That's true.
Every morning I email Samantha, like today on your docket
is man, can we arrange that? I need that? If
(01:06):
you do. I used to do that with my ex boyfriend,
no joke, and looking back, like, I'm so surprised you
put up with so much of my nonsense for so
long because I would send him like an email today
we're going to do this, this and this and here
are some other options and I want to know what
you think about this. So he didn't ask for this,
You just took it upon yourself to do it. Uh,
(01:27):
he didn't ask for it per se. But I was
just such a bigger email communicator, which is odd looking back.
I didn't text as much as I emailed, um, so
I think it was just sort of a natural he
realized we would I respond quicker if he emailed me
hious text I like to. I like to sit with
(01:48):
texts for a minute, as I feel like they're easier
to misinterpret because they're usually shorter, but an email you
can be longer. You gotta use emojis and emoticons that
preten like, look, I'm not being really serious. So I'm
even worse at that out in emails because I don't
put those in emails. So I feel like I'm even
more blunt in emails than I am in texting. Your
(02:11):
emails are hilarious because they're like no caps and no periods,
and I'm just like, well, I'm gonna put my own
emotion on this, exactly what I'm saying. Like there's nothing
I add to it. I'm just like, here's the sentence end. Yes, Yes,
I'm very professional. Mm hmm. That's efficiency is what that is.
(02:34):
I mean, honestly, I think you guys, I've worked in
a government field that I had to get out emails
so quickly, and I try to be as like official
as possible, but it would just be a literal like
ten ten different back and forth conversation in one chain
that I just like, get the stunt, Get the stunt.
So that's kind of in my mind frame. I get it.
I get it. I feel like if I had to
(02:57):
choose my most random skill set, one of mine would
be composing emails. I feel like I'm very good at it.
Um it's an art form, that's are you proud of
that skill? I just I'm so Sending emails is a
pain for me sometimes. So is that something that you
you take with pride? Ann? I do, because I do
(03:22):
think you have to consider how it could be misinterpreted
and just clear so you're not gonna have more emails
than you want. I don't. I won't say I necessarily
like it, but I am. I do feel some pride,
some pride. It is a skill. It's a skill, for sure. Yes, yes, well, uh,
(03:44):
we are talking about someone with a different set of
skills today, not email or texting. Who did you bring
for us today? You? Well, today we're going to be
talking about a fon moy so her history is very interesting.
Um she was another one of those people who I
think we talked about for a previous episode who there
(04:05):
isn't a ton about um And that's very purposeful motitional,
like who's history gets recorded. But yeah, we're gonna be
talking about a Fong moy. So she wasn't the first
Chinese person in the US, but she was likely the
first documented Chinese woman in the US. She was the
only Chinese woman to be exhibited as an exhibited that's
(04:28):
in quotes as a curiosity, because saying that a person
was exhibited sounds weird, but like technically that's what she
was doing. She was an exhibition and she was a performer.
But as as a curiosity. Before Chinese people began mass
immigrating to the United States, Um, so she got a
lot of national recognition in the US. And also it's
notable to think that there were Chinese men in the
(04:51):
US at the time, but she was the only known
Chinese woman who was in the US. So just to
be in that position else is a whole thing. But yeah,
like I said, there's not a lot known about her life,
and I think in the past, something that's a little
bit different about talking about a Fon Boy today, is
that in the past, we've kind of really focused on
(05:11):
women who we're talking about their accomplishments, like their first
were the things that were Oh they were the first
black woman architect in this place, and obviously those things
are very important, but that the circumstances around this first
is a little bit different than the previous first we've
talked about. So I just want to be clear that
her arrival and kind of tenure in the US aren't
(05:35):
necessarily like a celebratory thing completely. She was kind of
trotted out like a show horse, you know, like she
and of course she as one person can't stand for
all Chinese people, are all Chinese women. And so this
isn't kind of me saying wow, like, look a fon
boy made it out of China into the US, like
what a pioneer. Like That's not at all what I'm
(05:56):
trying to say, because I'm definitely not here to up
whole all of the isms and all of the problematic
things that surround her time in the US, like so
many like there are so many layers to the story.
There's the xenophobia, there's imperialism, there's racism, there's stativism, there
is the exoticizing and all that stuff was imparted on
(06:17):
Moy during her lifetime, and so so I just kind
of wanted to preface with that. Like this story, I'm
also not here to pain her story as a tragedy
because I feel like as a person who has limited knowledge,
like I'm not a historian of Moi, and also like
her story in general, there isn't that much documented about it,
like her time when she was in China before she
came to the US. So I'm not I don't want
(06:38):
to paint her story as this tragedy. Like the only
thing that she embodied, the only thing that her life
embodied was performance. That's what we know about her, but
that's not all of her life. And so I think
we have to keep in mind, just as we would
keep in mind as we're watching a movie, like we're
starting in media risk kind of to be like a
nerdy like metaphor, like there were things that bit before
(07:01):
the conversation that we know we're able to have about her,
and things that happened after that we don't know about
her that we can't necessarily bring up today because we
don't know it. And so her value wasn't only instilled
her value wasn't only about the performative work that she
did in the US. So I just want to preface
with that a lot of what we know about her
comes from other people as well, Like not from her
(07:22):
own voice, comes from letters, It comes from article as,
it comes from diaries, it comes from scrapbooks. Yeah, and
the story is fascinating. And I know in in past
episodes of Female First, Um, we are perhaps me. I
don't want to speak for both of you, but I've
had that moment of oh, well, I don't understand all
(07:45):
the historical cultural context of what was happening in China
at the time or in wherever, I mean, even in
the US. There's just things that I might not even
think to question, and less I really really dig into
and into things. Um. So I think that in her
story is good to keep in mind as well. And
(08:08):
it is so interesting looking back with our our modern
eyes where um now you can hop on a plane
and go to pretty much anywhere, that this was a
time when a lot of Americans had never seen someone
from China. And that's so I just keep that in mind. Yeah, um, yeah, right,
(08:33):
I mean I get the fun experiences of just being
an Asian woman when I lived in like the smaller towns,
and even though they know of Asian cultures, still there's
enough ignorance out there not everyone obviously that they would
be like, what are you, which is the first question
I would get, And that in itself is kind of
like can you imagine what happened when they have actually
never knew an Asian person in general, and then being like, Okay, seriously,
(08:57):
what I think? That's kind I cannot imagine being just
already having to deal with some of the confusion and
ignorance here today and then going to think about the
reality of, oh my god, what would have been like
back then, and that kind of that back and forth
and yeah, as you, I know, you're gonna unfold all
of this reading about just some of the things that
(09:18):
they assume about her life and again some of the
silence and what might not have happened. It's kind of like, wow,
I wonder how lonely at the same time, how much
she tried to play into that to be accepted. But yeah,
I know we're gonna do that. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
I and I guess it's like weird. There is a
(09:39):
weird line where you try to have or I'll speak
for myself, where I try to have a level of
empathy about like, well, this is a thing that is
truly completely foreign to a person, but the way in
which that was imparted on her, Like you can say
I've never seen a thing. Oh, I've never seen a thing,
and then you can say I've never seen a thing.
How awful is that thing? Like how weird is that thing?
(10:01):
How strange is that thing? And like they did that
with her foot binding, which we'll talk about, and they
did that with her, you know, herself, and had a
lot of commentary on like you know, what they thought
was right and what they thought should be the case
based on you know, American white values and religion and
upbringing and morals and all of those things, and tried
(10:23):
to project what they thought was quote unquote right onto
onto her culture and her customs and her So yeah,
it's super complicated. I mean yeah, like thinking about what
you said, Samantha, just about how today like it's already
it's a huge thing. To be the only Chinese woman
that people have seen like period up until that time
(10:44):
is definitely I can't imagine. And I can't relate to
be the only because I think we're still put in
positions like that today, Like I'm still in rooms where
I'm the only black woman in the room. But this
is that on a way largest, different, different culture. So yeah, um,
(11:05):
I guess we can get into her story now. Yeah, well, yeah,
any you mentioned not knowing what China at the time
was like art, I'm not specifically China at the time.
Any you mentioned like not necessarily knowing the context around
things that were happening in specific cultures and nations at
the time. Um, and China at the time. I think
it's worth talking a little bit about the background of
(11:28):
the context in this case, just because it figure so
much into the story and the way that people viewed her.
And obviously I can't go through the whole history of
the place as the largest China in a short amount
of time, so this is going to be simplification. And
obviously the history is more complicated than this. But this
is during a Ching dynasty, which lasted from the mid
(11:49):
and obviously, to my pronunciations, I know are not nuanced
when it comes to Chinese. But yeah, so it last
it from around the mid sixteen hundreds to the early
nineteen hundreds, it was generally prosperous. Um population was growing
majorly in a big way during some part of the
Team dynasty, and there was restricted trade and relations with
(12:10):
the West, and in the seventeen fifties, Western trade was
restricted to the southern part of Canton guang Jo today.
But um, as the demand for t increased and the
Industrial Revolution came along, people in our Britain was looking
for more markets for manufactured goods, and so they tried
to trying to extend that out to China and establish
(12:35):
Western style relations with the Chinese. But by the early
as you can imagine, UM, when trade and commerce and
like relations starts, conflict starts to be a part of
the pot as well. Um, when people start to stick
their hands and things. So Western countries began to be
more engaged in conflicts with China as they were scrambling
(12:56):
to kind of get access to Chinese products and markets
for European and US trade. So yeah, there was this
insular kind of isolationist situation that was happening in China.
Um when it came to Chinese people leaving China and
Western people coming to China. That was a part of
it also, as I mentioned briefly earlier, Afong Moy her
(13:20):
feet were bound. That was a practice that grew a
lot during the Chain dynasty, and the Manchu's attempted to
ban that practice of footbinding, but they weren't able to
do so, and the Han Chinese were They were the
ones who mainly practiced foot binding, um, and they continued
to do so, and it did limit women's physical mobility.
(13:41):
And so anyway, people from the US did visit China,
so it wasn't like there weren't any Western people or
people from the U S specifically in China. There were,
and there were people who were lived in the US
who had never been to China who were interested in
in it and had other depictions of China and saw
(14:02):
it as this mystical, far away place. And yeah, so
there were like landscape scenes on Chinese ceramics that made
their way to the US and kind of paying it
China as this picturesque place. And people were also really
into the idea of Chinese women and foot binding when
they found out about it, and there was this air
(14:24):
of mystery around that as well. Um. And I mean,
there's obviously so much problematic stuff when it comes to
the way that people viewed and spoke about Chinese women
and footbinding and all that stuff back then. But I
kind of think of it as this way where they're
like portraying Chinese women as these cryptids. It's like, oh,
this a list of unicorn or like a big foot
(14:45):
that I've never liked seen. Maybe I'll get to see
it one day, Like I have no idea how this
creature works, type of situation. So that's kind of a
little bit of background when it comes to China and
views of China and how those were developing at the time,
and as we'll get to a little bit later, those
did change, those views did evolve over time. We have
(15:08):
a lot more for you listeners, but first we're gonna
pass for a quick frick for we're from our sponsors
every back, Thank you sponsored. So onto the story of
(15:30):
a Fong Boy and how she got to the U s.
So there's not much known about her personal family history
before that time. This is kind of where her story starts. Generally,
there were the traders Nathaniel and Frederick Carne, and they
were in the business of importing foreign goods to the US,
and they have their own backstory, but today is not
(15:52):
about them, so we won't talk about I love it.
So that included good from China, and those Chinese goods
were things like handkerchiefs, like shawls, fireworks, baskets, fans, watercolor paintings,
and a bunch of other items. So these guys decided
(16:14):
to develop a marketing scheme and what do you know,
along with Captain o'bar. So they did this with Captain o'beer,
and that would help with selling their goods. And they
wanted to their whole scheme was exhibiting a Chinese woman
in New York, and they wanted to surround her with
Chinese decor and furniture so that they could sell their goods.
(16:38):
But they would kind of use the woman as the
centerpiece to bring people in and then once they were there,
they would scour her whole appearance and her customs and
everything that she did. But in the meantime, all the
things that she was surrounded by and be like, oh,
like my precious, you know, all of these shiny furniture
and decor and items that they would love along the
(16:58):
way and hopefully be tempted into buying them. Because middle
class white women were had a little bit more time
and and resources to be able to to get such things,
and the morals and the values around being able to
acquire those things was also something that was developing at
the time. I know y'all can talk about it and
probably like have you know, done research on it as well,
(17:21):
But the storied history of white folks putting people of
different ethnicities and customs and cultures on display is not
something that's limited to a Fung Moy. So I know
y'all have probably heard of Start Department or the quote
unquote venous Hot and Ty who was put on display
human zoos that were really popular in Britain and so
(17:41):
called freak shows, and Chang and a Bunker who were
the who they call the Siamese Twins, who were joint
twins who were put on display as curiosities. So at
Moy was objectified and kind of dehumanized in a similar way. Um,
But I don't want to take all of her agency
at from her, because she did have agency as well
(18:02):
and made choices. That's worth being recognized that yes she
was trot it out, and yes she was put on display,
and yes she was brought over from China, but there
was agency in her story as well. So like Oh
Bear apparently reached an agreement with afon Woi's father, who
was likely a Cantonese merchant or comfordor and her father
(18:27):
got money out of the deal. But apparently Oh Beer
also promised to bring Moy back to China in two years.
Spoiler alert, that did not happen. She stayed in the
US for a lot longer than two years. Oh yeah,
do we know did she ever make it? She didn't
go back? Right, No, she We don't know if she
(18:48):
ever went back or not. I think the most we
can do is speculate on whether she went back to
China or not, like what happened after she left the
U S. As I read somewhere that she made gone
to Europe at one point in time. Yeah, sibly, possibly possibly, um,
but there's not really any record of her after a
certain point in the US, so she didn't. She came
(19:09):
to the U S in eighteen thirty four, and a
Boy was a name that was probably given to her.
She was on Chinese, which is surmised because of her
foot binding um and her her family background wasn't recorded
when she arrived here, and this was before the times
of the gold Rush. Like I said earlier, this is
(19:30):
before mass Chinese immigration to the US. And she was
likely around sixteen, probably no older than nineteen, so she
was young. Um and when she came to the U
s was at that point where she became the first
document to Chinese woman to enter the US. So she
arrived on a ship called the Washington under Captain o'bear.
(19:51):
She had come from Canton. Articles and there are a
bunch of articles on her like that you can read,
which are bad, hilarious, like yeah, it's a lot going
on in these articles, but it said that she was
There was one that says she was four ft ten
inches tall and that her feet were just four inches
long since she wore quote unquote iron shoes since she
(20:14):
was twelve years old. And it said that she would
soon start accepting visitors at Number eight part place in
New York. And at first articles gave her different names
before she was given the name Afong Boy. There was one,
for instance, that gave her the name Miss Ching Chung Foo.
(20:34):
I don't know where they got that name from, but
that was the name that they gave her in one article.
That article was in the New York Commercial advertiser, and
so there were other names that she was given as
well that I don't know the the source of. I
don't know where those names came from. Obviously a lot
to be said about somebody naming somebody when they get
(20:54):
to the US, and also not necessarily knowing anything about
Chinese culture or having ever seen a Chinese woman before, yep.
I don't know where they came from. UM. But she
did have an attendant who would translate for her, So
she didn't know how to speak English at the time.
She had an attendant who would translate for her. And
at the place where she would be exhibited, which they
(21:16):
were setting up when she got over here. UM. And
there will also big various objects of Chinese curiosity around her. Um.
The price of that mission was fifty cents. There were
some earlier sources that said twenty five cents, but it
looked like they bumped it up after a while, and
children under twelve were half that According to articles, there
(21:37):
of course, were a bunch of physical descriptions of her appearance,
and in articles and in letters, and so by way
of somebody else's description of her, not her description of herself.
I will tell y'all what they said she looked like.
So there was a November article in the Vermont Courier
(21:58):
that described her this way. She is short, but rather
robust in stature. Her features are pleasing, her forehead high
and protuberant, and her face round and full, with two
languishing black eyes placed with the peculiarly it's a hard word,
that is really hard, obliquity of her outer angle, which
(22:21):
characterized the Mongolian. I guess that's how you pronounced that
variety of the human race from which these people are descended.
So the article later says that she was quote much
pleased with our country and not at all homesick. I'm
not sure. I'm really not quite sure how they reached that.
(22:41):
I'm assuming. I'm assuming it's an assumption, because the article
doesn't say that she said it. It says it is
said that. So I don't know if those are words
from her mouth or not. But as you would imagine,
all of the things that we were talking about earlier,
like the nativism and the patriots, is all those things
that are probably happening have to do with that. But
that's my assumption as well. Yeah, So, over the next decade,
(23:03):
there were a lot more articles written about a Fon
Moy Um. And as you can see about that kind
of description and what we've talked about earlier, a lot
of them were very orientalist mothering and really grossly doting
and patronizing um. And I'll pull out a quote from
(23:23):
an article that tal Zog wrote in teen that was
called the start of American Accommodation of the Chinese A
Fon Boys Experience from eighteen fifty um, just because I
feel like it's a good way too to put it um.
And this is what said. Her very presence as the
first recorded Chinese woman on American soil prompted a heated
(23:46):
national discussion regarding how to accommodate the Chinese living among Americans.
A two tier paradigm that emerged from this dialogue disparaged
Chinese culture while extending paternalistic care to Moy, pushing her
towards acculturation, which was to be realized in a symbolic
way after her disappearance from the exhibition stage. And that
(24:11):
is the paternalism that's just so apparent in her story.
Is it's so gross, and like to also think that
she was don't like she was actually very young at
the time as a as a layer to that, and
that that eventually did turn into hostility and specifically anti
(24:34):
Chinese sentiment and action, um of course. But it's kind
of important to layer that in what was happening in
the U S at the top two, which was obviously
many things like many things are happening at once in
the thirties, but some of the things were like Andrew
Jackson was president. The Indian Removal Act became law in
(24:55):
eighteen thirties, so just a few years before A Fat
Boy got to the US end. Of course, millions of
people were enslaved in the United States, So there was
an idealistic view of China at the time. The Opium
War still hadn't started taking place yet, that would start
happening soon, but there was this view of China that
(25:19):
was influenced by the goods and by the letters of
people who have been there, um. So it was very
very narrow view of what China and Chinese people were.
If you can't even you can't even really group that
into a whole thing, so but that that was it
was a very limited view. So it's it's really unclear
(25:42):
exactly how many people went to see F. F. On Boy,
but it was in the thousands. Some people didn't record
their experiences with her, and most of them were of
the middle and the upper middle classes. After she got
to the US, there were some really stories that popped
up about her in the newspapers. There was one that
(26:04):
she had never seen a left handed person before. Okay, yeah, yeah.
There was ones that were saying she disappeared, m r
SHEI left or something like that. But when her exhibition
finally opened, people came to ogle her and her bound feet,
(26:26):
and according to newspapers, kind of in those early times,
she didn't really like it when men tried to get
a closer look at her feet, but wasn't as opposed
to it when women would try to get it closer
look at her feet. Um At Tongue was the name
of her interpreter, and he would help her communicate with
visitors and also make sure that she would get out
(26:46):
of her seat to walk around across the room for
people from time to time, and there were plenty of
people in New York in the beginning who did go
to see her, but some did object to the way
she was displayed as exploitation. Some people objected to the
fact that her feet were bound, saying, oh my gosh,
(27:08):
it's a disgrace that she was being, you know, harmed
by her feet being bound. Um, and just generally, I guess,
being and clear about like the custom of foot binding itself. Um,
and working through their feelings and thoughts on that after
finally seeing it in person. Mm hmm. We have a
(27:30):
little bit more for you, but first we have one
more quick break for work fromer sponsor and we're back.
Let's get back into it. Yeah. So, after her time
(27:52):
in New York, she went on tour to other places
across the US. For instance, she went to New Haven,
she went to New Orleans, she went to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington,
and she even ended up in Cuba, and she would
sing songs in Chinese and she was learning English all
the while. And she she even met with Andrew Jackson
(28:15):
in the White House. And it's not quite clear exactly
what the reason for that was, but she did. And
Captain o'bear and the Carnes did profit from her ticket sales,
but they made more in the long run from the
sales of the Chinese goods, like the ones that were
in display in the rooms that she was in. So
(28:35):
things like vass mirrors, lamps, chairs, all of this sort
of decordi of objects and furniture were things that they
were able to sell because of her exhibitions. Yeah, so
of course the whole footbinding thing was the thing that
was an anomaly or like so fascinating to so many
people who visited her and got really um invasive at
(28:59):
times when people wanting to her to uncover her feet
and measure her feet, and there were physicians actually in
Philly who examined them. They begged to examine them, and
they got to. She consented and they took measurements and
they published those measurements in the newspaper. And later I
think it was in Charleston when she uncovered her feet
(29:22):
again and this time for the ticketed public to see.
So the story goes on and on like that of
her in all these cities, in these exhibitions, acting as
a performer, introducing real, live in the flesh Chinese culture
and Chinese personhood two people, and those exhibitions created us
(29:43):
interests and called Chinese culture and society, which there already
was before, but it kind of hyped that up in
addition to selling the goods, and she didn't really have
a home though, so she was just traveling all the
time to all these different shows, and she really depended
a lot on her manner jurors. And everything wasn't so
(30:04):
sweet with the Carns though, like everything wasn't always good
with their business. Um. They fell on hard times when
the Panic of eighteen thirty seven hit, which was a
kind of a financial crisis that kind of led to
a depression. UM. So they were bringing in so many
goods but didn't necessarily have the audience or the consumers
to be able to pick that stuff up. And then
(30:25):
all this other stuff and in the US economics was
happening at the same time. That didn't bode well for
the business. And Aphon Moy around that time eight was
supposedly abandoned UM and lived in poor conditions in New Jersey,
and she spent several years there according to documents. But
(30:45):
interests in goods Chinese goods did resurface later in the
late eighteen forties, and in eighteen forty eight she and
Tom Thumb shared an exhibition space under P. T. Barnum
whose history is like a whole lot of thing um
that is a lot of displaying of like it's super
controversial history. But she fell out of favor with Barnum
(31:08):
after a while as well. And Moi was in the
US until around eighteen fifty as far as we know,
like that's not the official date saying like, oh, she
left after that, but at that point records started of
her disappeared um and that's kind of where her story
in letters ends, like where her story in writing ends,
(31:31):
as far as we know. And that was also around
the time things were changing a lot in the U
s I mean, during her time here that we do
know about. We know things were changing. So the mass
immigration of Chinese people to the US begin in the
late eighteen forties early eighteen fifties, views of Chinese people
were changing, so Americans were increasingly to writing her clothing
(31:53):
and her customs and Chinese clothing and customs in general,
and her religious beliefs in Chinese religious beliefs are being
criticized by moral reformers and other Christians in the US.
And the Opium Wars, like I mentioned earlier, we're starting
up and trade with China, like Chinese US relations and
(32:13):
Chinese goods. All of that was changing at the time,
and it was a build up to kind of I mean,
so much stuff was happening at this at the time,
but there was also kind of things that happened later
around the eight eighties when the Chinese Exclusion Act was
introduced and very specific anti Chinese legislation UM and actions
(32:37):
were being taken on in federal and local scales. So
it kind of just feels like this bubble in time,
um afon Moise story does where she was there to
see that transition. It was also part of that transition
of while this mystical place that China was, and then
while this place that maybe isn't so great in our
(33:02):
eyes that we thought before, you know, we feel a
certain way about it now. Um and all this nativism
creeping in, all this you know, racism and in those
kind of sentiments creeping in. So yeah, it just feels
like I really wish I knew a lot more about
her story and like what happened to her after after Yeah,
(33:26):
and it is looking back at what we do have,
it is such a it's strange looking at ads with
her in them, and UM, I would recommend to anyone
who's interested in learning more because it is a very
interesting story. Um looking into that and uh huh. Yeah,
it is just such a specific time, and to read
(33:49):
some of it, it's so kind of pro American and saying, look,
compared to this, how much better, how more much more superior?
We are? Um, especially towards the end, as you say,
when attitude shifted. Yeah. I wish we knew more about
her too. And I know there's a lot of interest
because isn't there a movie, there's a book, but there
(34:13):
was a play about other play Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
And I didn't see the play itself, but what I
read about the play was that it was kind of
attempting to be from a f On Wars perspective, which
is a lot that we haven't gotten through documentation since
it was from other people's perspectives, And obviously that was
That's something that I would love to know more about. Two,
(34:33):
like what did aff On Boy herself think about? And
even in the phrasing that people would give from the
interpreter a tongue, I was like, is this really what
she said? Or is this what you wanted to tell
people that she said? Yeah, right, yeah, I know. I
I would love so much to know the motivations for her,
even though it was her father was involved in that decision,
(34:56):
but just how does she felt and thought and when
she was mad learning them when she arrived. There was
one report I read, because it was back and forth,
that it was possible that she left too send money
back to the family, the father or something like that.
But I don't know how any of this is true.
I think that was just one report out of you know,
(35:16):
the majority was saying that it was a father that
pretty much said she could go rather than the other
way around. But I just wondered if that was possibility
as well, because it's, yeah, it's thetory like those way
you don't have a lot of understanding. And because she
does disappear, which kind of sings like the theme for
this time frame for many of historical like figures um
(35:39):
that you kind of wonder what did happen? And and
for me like was it tragic? Was she able to
get out of it? What happened? Right? Yeah? And I
would I would love to know her thoughts on the performance, like, yeah,
what was she really interested in? Like did she continue
I know she went on to barn them, but after
that she still continued to form. Did she enjoy it
(36:01):
as a livelihood or was it just something that she
had to do out of necessities, like you said, to
send money back to her family, or yeah, what was
her agency in her own words as well? So so
many questions, right, yeah, same questions mysteries of history as
they say, Okay, I have heard that, but yeah that
(36:21):
makes sense. I say that all the time. Maybe it's
just me, maybe it's heism and anyism, but yeah, it's
it's almost tragic to say because she was put on
a display by the same time, like I saw one
report saying again this is just probably an assumption. Again
a bigger stereotype of her being a quote lotus blossom
(36:41):
on one hand in her like uh, you know, mannerism,
but then also the perpetuating but she was fierce tiger
as well, Like those two stereotypes came into play at
the same time. How are you both? How is she
both like that? But why was that the descriptor for her?
And that was like the perpetuating of the content in
new stereotype of Asian women in general. Yeah, and we've
(37:05):
talked about like um as Western countries were getting these
depictions of um Asian women Chinese women for the first
time and fetishizing and exoticizing that and things you get
like Madama butterflies happening, that kind of whole Asian dollar
stereotype which we talked about, and then I was fascinated
with this. I learned this is I mean, I haven't
(37:27):
dug too deep into this, but I learned that that's
why t is sort of viewed as feminine and coffee
is more masking because we associated tea with China with
Asia and yeah, yeah, and um, just things like that
where you it really shows how big these impact these
(37:49):
stereotypes have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he didn't figure a lot
into the story of the stuff that the Carns were
importing and was accessible, like a lot of cheaper teas
that were coming from China were accessible to a lot
of people in the US at the time. Um. Yeah,
it's so layered and so so many stories within the story. Yes,
(38:13):
and she's kind of a mystery on our own because
you don't really hear from her or any perspective from
her in general. Yeah. Yeah, but um, the story is
fascinating and I am glad you once again you brought
something to my attention that I had never heard about before.
(38:35):
I never heard of alread either I love it. Yes,
thank you as always, Eves, I can't wait to do
it again. Where can the listeners find you? You can
find me on the line at Eves jeff Co and
Eve steff Co on Twitter, I am at not apologizing.
On Instagram. You can also listen to the podcast This
(38:55):
Day in History Class, which is a daily podcast about
things that happen in history and birthdays in history. And
you can also hear me on I'm Popular. Yeah, and
you should do go check all of that out listeners
um And in the meantime, if you'd like to email us,
you can. Our email is stuff Media mom Stuff at
(39:18):
iHeart media dot com. You can fight us on Twitter
at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at stuff I
Never Told You. Thanks. It's always to your superproducer Andrew Howard.
Thank you. Thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never
Told You. The protection of iHeart Radio for more podcasts
from I heeart Radio is the iHeart Radio app, Apple
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