There was an Exclusion Act- part of the reasoning is that men who must eat beef and bread at meals can not work with men who can live only on rice. Racial stereotypes prevailed. The fact that the railroads were near completion and the Chinese were still around looking for work was a contributing factor in the discrimination
The poster celebrates the Democratic president signing the Democratic Chinese Exclusion Bill and was an advertisement to come out and celebrate the democracy of excluding Chinese from the country. With so much discrimination and exclusion in our country, it must be hard to keep track of it all. The food itself transformed as the Chinese worked to improve/transform their image. Chop Suey (not a traditional Chinese dish) became all the rage.
After walking through the history of Chinese restaurants in America (that included a myriad of menus from across the ages), we reached the chicken exhibit. Note- all exhibit chickens died of natural causes as indicated by a sign nearby.
After a walk through the chicken exhibit we stood in line for some Chinese food prepared on site. A crab rangoon made with fake crab, some egg foo young and some coconut rice milk pudding.
We finished here and did some walking around Williamsburg- found an artists collective with some unusual exhibits and items for sale including a crab coat and an astronaut costume. While here I purchased a batik bandana to help with the crazy heat of the day.
Our next scheduled stop was at a place called WonderWorldNYC at 7:30. It was 2:30. We were in Williamsburg with tired feet and five hours to kill. We had heard tell of flea markets along the river and walked in that direction. What looked to be flea markets was actually a food truck sort of event called smorgasbord. Having just eaten at MOFAD, we were not interested and walked toward the water's edge where there was a great view of Manhattan.
By now we were beyond exhausted. And still four hours until WonderWorldNYC. In desperation, I was struck by insight. WWNYC had multiple times available when we purchased the tickets. Why not call and see if it was o.k. to come early. Success!
The cab dropped us off at a bright pink warehouse looking building. This exhibit was advertised as an immersive exhibition that invites you to the realm of the fantastical. This was accurate if by fantastical realm you meant carpet attached to the walls and fake clouds hung by fishing line and a glue gun. It also advertised many instagrammable options. Watching others take advantage of these options proved to be more interesting than actually trying to stage any.
One of the highlights was the machine meant to create the illusion of a windblown look. Fortunately drknitnightjustine had the foresight to video rather than snapshot.
I can't even imagine what our state of mind would have been if we had killed 5 hours in Williamsburg to see that. The hilarity gave us a boost and we took the L train back to the city headed towards Chinatown.
We dined at the same vegetarian dim sum place as the last time. And took a walk into Little Italy for a cannoli for dessert.
And though we were ready to call it a night and had no room for any more food, we had to stop at the local Rice Pudding store where we shared some lemon poppyseed rice pudding. (no toppings.) It's of particular note because drknitnightjustine, on an earlier NYC adventure, spent 3 hours on a quest to find said location. It is the Baskin Robbins of rice pudding. And they deliver.
And though it must be hard to believe, we haven't even come to the high point of the trip!
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