CHSA Museum Anniversary Celebration

CHSA is celebrating the 14th anniversary of the museum’s opening at our permanent home in the Julia Morgan-designed Chinese YWCA building! Join us Saturday, November 7 at 965 Clay Street in San Francisco with a full day of programs. Doors open at 11am; program begins at 12:30pm.

Free admission; donations encouraged.

At this year’s celebration, we will unveil our new “Voices From the Railroad” exhibit kiosk, featuring video interviews of Chinese railroad worker descendants on an interactive display. This new kiosk is part of “Work of Giants: Chinese Railroad Worker Project,” a CHSA initiative to recover stories about Chinese railroad workers who were instrumental in building the First Transcontinental Railroad.

We are also pleased to welcome Glenn Lym, who will present “The First 4 Decades of Lim Lip Hong,” a preview of his upcoming documentary film about his paternal great grandfather – Lim Lip Hong – who was a Chinese Railway Worker. With the Transcontinental Railroad completed, Lim Lip Hong remained in Nevada and the mid American West for a decade before returning to San Francisco by the late 1870’s. He married and settled on a ranch 5 miles south of Chinatown in The Potrero neighborhood. There were many reasons for Chinese not to settle outside Chinatown at that time. How and why Lim Lip Hong settled in the Potrero is the subject of Glenn Lym’s upcoming, 7th documentary.

For CHSA’s November 7th event, Glenn will preview the short, first part of his documentary that covers the first 40 years of Lim Lip Hong’s life, mirroring the experiences of many early immigrant Chinese in America. We will follow with a short question and answer period.

Other highlights include: live music performance by Francis Wong, Karl Evangelista, Yangqin Zhao & Deszon Claiborne; film screening of Canton Army in the High Sierras produced by Loni Ding; our current exhibitions Underground Chinatown: Racism at the Fair & Evolution of the Qipao Part III: Turning Heads. Plus a special tribute in memory of Him Mark and Laura Lai, on the occasion of Him Mark Lai’s birthday on November 1st. Anniversary cake and light refreshments will be served!

Presenter’s Bios:
Glenn Lym grew up in the Berkeley, a 4th generation Chinese American on his father’s side and second generation on his mother’s side. He received his B. Arch from the University of California Berkeley, winning the Eisner Prize for creative achievement and graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He moved to New England and enrolled at Harvard University where he received a Ph.D in Social Psychology. Returning to the Bay Area, he worked in a prominent architectural firm in the 1980’s working on the first Monterey Bay Aquarium, the first lodges of Deer Valley in Utah and facilities for the Rand Corporation. In 1986 he opened his own architectural practice, which remains focused on residential work around the Bay Area. He is a member of AIA San Francisco.

Francis Wong is considered one of “the great saxophonists of his generation” by the late jazz critic Phil Elwood. A prolific recording artist, Wong is featured on more than forty titles as a leader and sideman. For over two decades he has performed his innovative brand of creative music for audiences in North America, Asia, and Europe. But to simply call the Bay Area native a musician would be to ignore his pioneering leadership in communities throughout Northern California. As such Wong’s imaginative career straddles roles as varied as performing artist, youth mentor, composer, artistic director, community activist, non-profit organization manager, consultant, music producer, and academic lecturer.

Loni Ding (1931–2010) was a veteran independent filmmaker, Emmy-award winning television producer and university instructor for over 30 years, creating programming which appeals to a broad viewing audience. She produced more than 250 broadcast programs, including five series, for public television and international broadcast on a wide range of subjects. Along with her independent productions, Ding produced programs collaboratively for the California Historical Society, California State Department of Education, Chinese for Affirmative Action, San Francisco Opera Center, and KQED-TV. The San Francisco Examiner called her “a master of her craft.” Ding taught media analysis and hands-on production in the Asian American Studies Program in the Ethnic Studies Department of the University of California, Berkeley, and was a faculty member since 1980. http://www.cetel.org

This program made possible with support from:
San Francisco Arts Commission
Tom E. Dailey Foundation
Portsmouth Square Parking Garage Foundation