The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co.

The Chinaman Pacific and Frisco R.R. Co. runs the mainline of Chinese American history ad befuddled Chinese American experience through the “Chinatown-of-the-Mind” depot stop. A Chinatown where kids dream of growing up to be Charlie Chan’s Number One Son, Gunga Din and Suzie Wong; where old immigrants meet at a downtown movie theater every day and learn English watching cartoons; where “assimilation” is a storefront Chinatown Buddhist church going electronic and getting rich. Ride the flaming rails with the Chinaman artist, working on the railroad while struggling with white food, white music, white history and white stereotypes.

Publication date: October 1, 1988

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5

Page count: 224 pages

ISBN: 9780918273444

Frank Chin is the author of a collection of stories, The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co., and two novels, Donald Duk and Gunga Din Highway. The first Chinese-American to have a play produced on a New York stage, he is known for uncompromising portrayals of Chinese-Americans as well as for incorporation of Chinese mythology into his work. Frank Chin’s plays include The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the Dragon, which was produced for PBS. He currently lives on I-5 between Los Angeles and all points north to Seattle.

“Frank Chin sets his own pace in his writing, a pace so rapid and so certain of its direction that lesser authors are left far behind. The stories in Chinaman Pacific—eloquent, racy, at times humorous, at other times despairing—confirm beyond questions the authenticity of his world.”

—Kat Boyle

“A gifted writer and electric sensibility, Frank Chin is part Chinese Lenny Bruce, spritzing a comedy of bitter alienation, and part Number One Son, drawn to the traditional Chinese values—family, duty—which have been diluted by American culture.”

—Jack Kroll, Newsweek