Over the past few years, the UGLY Chinese Canadian has had the honour of meeting a number of people who were from the entertainment and identity making era of this community known as “Chinatown”.

Historians often speak of a “Golden Age” for Chinatown, and often identify several Golden eras.  But the one golden heyday that is often agreed by all, is the time period from the late 50’s to mid 60’s, when families were reunited, and the rise of the baby boom generation.

A number of these people are getting up there in age, and there are many fascinating stories  about the gritty and colourful days of old Chinatown.

The neon lit streets, the cabarets, the business of show business… the night life. The new found pride and identity, and the dangers.

Vancouver’s Chinatown today is a shell of what it used to be.

Many of today’s storefronts have security bars, padlocks and security fences instead of the colourful signage and lights of a past era. And worst, some of the shops sit empty with boarded up windows and doors.

Comparisons have been made between the chinatowns throughout North America, in particular, the chinatowns of San Francisco, New York and Boston. Our American chinatown communities are in a much healthier state than the community we have in Vancouver.

What went wrong?

The UGLY Chinese Canadian blog will initiate a series of blog postings exploring this thought.

Our first in this series will explore the historic context of chinatown as an exotic and mysterious place.  What better place to reflect on this distinction than by reviewing the films made on and made by the children of North America’s Chinese communities – through time and through place.

From last year’s seminal documentary “Hollywood Chinese“, from the PBS program, “American Masters“:

From the sexed-up Suzie Wong to the kung fu fighting Bruce Lee, THIRTEEN’s American Masters tackles issues of race and representation in Hollywood Chinese. Watch a preview:

The 90-minute film illuminates a century of Chinese American cinematic history, from rare silent classics such as Marion Wong’s The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916) to the contemporary critical and commercial success of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005). Timed for broadcast during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, American Masters: Hollywood Chinese premieres nationally Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS. The film features a treasure trove of clips, punctuated with personal accounts from the movie industry’s most accomplished Chinese and Chinese American talent.

“American Masters is proud to share with our viewers the extraordinary stories of pioneering Chinese and Chinese American artists in Hollywood,” says Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of American Masters, a six-time winner of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series. “Their immeasurable contribution to American cinema continues today with a new wave of critically-acclaimed Asian films and Oscar-winning blockbusters. The film gives strong perspective to this little-known chapter of motion picture history.”

American feature films often portray the Chinese as exotic and devious characters – or simply the “other” – reflecting the entertainment industry’s inherent racial prejudices as well as its fascination with the Far East. Hollywood Chinese features candid interviews and back lot stories from artists in front of and behind the camera, including Joan Chen, James Hong, David Henry Hwang, Nancy Kwan, Ang Lee, Christopher Lee, Justin Lin, Luise Rainer, Amy Tan, Wayne Wang, and BD Wong.

The documentary chronicles the full gamut of Chinese representation in Hollywood. It brings to light the controversial yellowface casting of Luise Rainer in The Good Earth (1937) and the stereotyped caricatures played by Chinese American actors such as James Hong in Bloodsport 2 & 3 (1996 and 1996). It also addresses the eventual trend of Asian empowerment in films such as Flower Drum Song (1961) staring Nancy Kwan and the film-adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1993) directed by Wayne Wang.

Please visit the Hollywood Chinese website for more information on this interesting effort.