"A person’s identity may be in another country,
But her heart belongs to the motherland."
Global person News: Recently, the first Asian head portrait appeared on the new version of American currency. A Chinese Hollywood actress has once again appeared in the public eye, and she is Huang Liushuang.
·The newly issued quarter coin in the United States is engraved with Huang Liushuang’s iconic bangs and big eyes.
Huang Liushuang was the first Chinese to stay in walk of fame, and also the most concerned Hollywood actress of that era. The classic images of Qi Liuhai, doll head and big eyes made her create a classic oriental beauty image in front of the world, and also trapped her in the stereotype of Chinese in the western world.
During her decades of screen career, she kept fighting against racial discrimination and stereotypes, but failed again and again. After coming to China, she deepened the identity of Chinese children and began to spare no effort to help China’s anti-Japanese cause.
discriminate
The world in the spotlight is always disturbed, and there is controversy where there is praise.
Huang Liushuang accompanied these two voices through his life. Some people say that born in that era, she seems to have no choice.
·Anna May Wong
In 1882, the United States promulgated the Chinese Exclusion Act. This is the first immigration law for a specific ethnic group passed by the United States, aiming at preventing workers in the United States from becoming naturalized.
The passage of this bill has completely stimulated Americans’ curiosity about Chinese.
After entering the 20th century, the most popular Chinese character in American society is Fu Manchu. He has long, slender eyes, two moustaches, suggesting scheming, wearing Qing dynasty clothes and even braids, and studying how to harm westerners all day.
At that time, the Chinese characters in western movies were generally like this. Huang Liushuang’s screen career began in that era.
In 1905, Huang Liushuang was born in Huajie Street, Chinatown, and her grandfather was one of the first Chinese workers to go to the United States for gold. She studied in public schools and Presbyterian schools. No matter where she is, there is always racial discrimination around her. Students sitting in the back seat often prick her with needles, trying to see if "Chinese" feels "painful".
At that time, Chinatown was the location of many movies. Huang Liushuang often watched the excitement on the set after school, and some staff members noticed this exquisite oriental face. In 1919, the movie "Red Lantern" needed a walk-on, and 14-year-old Huang Liushuang first appeared on the movie screen. Since then, she has appeared as "chinese baby" in many Hollywood movies.
Two years later, she got her first serious role in Hollywood-playing the wife of the popular actor Lang Cheney in the movie Life.
·Stills of the movie "Life".
Soon, the appearance of Huang Liushuang chinese baby on the screen helped her become the darling of various media, but it also attracted the abuse of racists. An American film critic wrote an article about Huang Liushuang, entitled "The Yellow Disaster! China’s Invasion of the Screen, the article made a mean "group attack" on Huang Liushuang and the Chinese community, and the language was vulgar and unsightly.
Since then, although Huang Liushuang has been seeing many films, her roles are basically the same-she is attached to white people or an Asian woman with miserable fate.
In 1922, she played the role of lotus in the movie "Gone at Sea". At the end of the movie, Lotus faced the white husband who abandoned his wife and children and chose to throw himself into the river. In 1924, she played a Mongolian slave girl in the film The Thief of Baghdad: naked back, legs wrapped with poisonous snakes, flaming red lips and various eyes … Americans made this picture into a movie poster and spread it all over the United States.
·Stills of the movie "Baghdad Thief".
The Burglar in Baghdad was a great success, and Huang Liushuang became a household name. However, since then, almost all the roles she can receive in Hollywood are sexy, weak, abused prostitutes and vases.
Even the film pay has become the carrier of racial discrimination-in the movie "Shanghai Express", the film pay of the white actress marlene dietrich is 18 times higher than that of the long-established Huang Liushuang.
Huang Liushuang in western movies has just changed from a charming and lovely oriental doll to a charming and dripping oriental doll.
fight against
After becoming famous, Huang Liushuang is a special celebrity. She must carry her identification with her at all times when she goes out, in order to cope with the interrogation by the American police anytime and anywhere.
In 1933, Huang Liushuang was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times and denounced the stereotype of Chinese in Hollywood movies: "Why does Chinese always look like a clown on the screen? But also a cruel clown, murder, betrayal, sinister! We are not like that! Our history of civilization is many times longer than that of the west. How can we be like that? "
In order to escape the racist restrictions in Hollywood, Huang Liushuang traveled to Europe in the late 1920s.
In Europe, she showed amazing language talent. In just a few months, her accent changed from American English to British English. After another four months, she mastered German, which is famous for being difficult to learn.
Breaking through the language barrier opened the door to European films for Huang Liushuang. In Germany, she played the heroine in films such as Love is Better than Knife, and critical European film critics praised her with pen and ink. In England, she collaborated with the movie star Lawrence Oliver in The Chalk Circle. Constandt Lambert, a British composer, was fascinated by the actress’s work and then wrote a piece specially for her.
In 1929, she starred in the last silent film of her career, Chinatown Dream. In the film, the popular Gilda Gray is the highest paid actress, but the British Variety magazine commented that "the yellow light overshadowed the big star": "When Huang danced behind the kitchen, she stole Miss Gray’s Chinatown Dream."
·Poster of the movie "Chinatown Fanhua Dream".
Soon, movies and magazines all over Europe rushed to publish Huang Liushuang’s story. Interestingly, European film critics often call her Chinese, and she increasingly agrees with the name Chinese.
During his stay in Europe, Huang Liushuang wrote an article about "Chinese is misunderstood". In her article, she explained: In fact, Chinese people are kind-hearted and love life, and our textiles, ceramics, costumes and banquets all reflect these characteristics. Chinese value friendship and family above everything else.
At that time, Huang Liushuang had never been to China, but she believed that China was what she dreamed of. She once told reporters, "I wish I had been born in China." She called China people her "compatriots, the oldest civilized people". In Europe, she is proud to be Chinese.
A few years later, Huang Liushuang returned to Hollywood with an honor. She thought that with her years of hard work, she could get rid of the deep-rooted racial discrimination in the United States, but she was greatly disappointed in the result.
In 1936, Huang Liushuang lost to Rena, a white man, in the casting of a Hollywood film that showed China farmers getting rich through hard work. What is even more ridiculous is the reason why she was rejected: American law at that time prohibited actors of different races from getting in touch with each other on the screen.
This casting failure made Huang Liushuang fall into intense pain, and also made her decide to visit China, which she had never been to before.
dispute
At that time, Huang Liushuang was a controversial figure in China.
When Huang Liushuang first became famous, Chinese was proud of it. At that time, China media dubbed her as a "Chinese star in the United States", and domestic media such as Companion Pictorial and Life Weekly followed her up, and she gradually became known in China.
·Huang Liushuang’s report in The Companion Pictorial.
As the country is weak, Chinese people hope that Huang Liushuang can re-create the image of Chinese in the world. However, with the deepening of reports, Chinese people are increasingly disappointed. They found that Huang Liushuang’s image on the screen always embarrassed Chinese people, and her evaluation quickly turned into "the situation of insulting China was outrageous" and "the traitor who borrowed foreigners’ nose to get oxygen".
When Huang Liushuang arrived in Shanghai, China in 1936, the scene was grand and crowded.
However, there are also many of her opponents among these people. A Shanghai reporter asked her bluntly, "Why do you want to play so many humiliating oriental women?" Huang Liushuang’s face went red at once. She replied, "That’s not my choice. Even if I don’t play, there will be other actors to play, and I will lose the only chance for Chinese to play Chinese. "
In the same year, Huang Liushuang wrote a long article "My Self-report" in the pictorial of "Good Friends", stating his unwillingness to be pushed around in Hollywood: "Chinese people are a little critical of my role, which makes me very uneasy, because I planted this mistake unintentionally. When I first entered the film industry, I was completely under the direction of the director, not to mention that I didn’t even know what the role I was playing, and even the plot in the film might not be clear to them. This is a fact. The director doesn’t pay attention to the idle actors. Except for several important characters who have the right to review whether the content of the script conflicts with their own opinions, the rest are indifferent. "
She stayed in China for nine months that year, during which she was welcomed by many people.
Mei Lanfang, a famous actress, and Hu Die, the winner, were both surprised by Huang Liushuang’s visit to China. Mei Lanfang gave her her Peking Opera records, and Hu Die accompanied her to visit the star film company. There, Huang Liushuang exchanged creative experience with his domestic counterparts, bringing valuable frontier information to the domestic film industry.
It was this visit to China that Huang Liushuang got rid of his long-standing identity confusion. When expressing her feelings about returning to China, she said: "A person’s identity may be in another country, but her heart belongs to the motherland. If I don’t come to China this time, my feelings about my motherland will always be vague. Now that I’m here, I’ve got to know the motherland and the lovely people, and I’ve discovered the’ loving mother’s love’. From now on, I’ve confirmed that I am a China woman, and before that, I was just an oriental daughter who grew up in Los Angeles. "
When she returned to Hollywood, she refused to play the role of demonizing Chinese, and publicly said, "I am Chinese. The roles I created in the past have given the audience an incorrect view of China, but the actual China is not like this."
Aid China
As early as the early 1930s, Huang Liushuang publicly condemned the Japanese occupation of northeast China. Later, because "I didn’t want a Japanese-style garden opposite my home", she moved to another house specially.
After his trip to China, Huang Liushuang began to donate materials to China through the China Aid Federation. This is a non-governmental organization used by the American people to help China.
In 1937, she paid all the money for her new Christmas film to Margaret Chung, a Chinese doctor of the China Aid Federation.
In order to raise medicine for China, she auctioned off all her dresses. At the auction, she also brought an extra item-five volumes of papers shot in China. She hoped that the West would know more about China, and that more people would join the fund-raiser and contribute to China’s anti-Japanese war.
In the late 1930s, Huang Liushuang’s popularity gradually declined. During this period, she devoted more energy to aiding China, and later worked full-time for the American Association for Aid to China.
In order to support the anti-Japanese war, she starred in propaganda film’s Bombing Myanmar, aiming at exposing the evil deeds of the Japanese aggressors; She also wrote a preface to Xinhua Recipe, which kept Chinese restaurants busy during the war. In 1942, she portrayed Guan Mei, an anti-Japanese heroine, in the film Woman from Chongqing. In the movie, Guan Mei said categorically before being executed: "The people of China will surely defeat the invaders!"
However, her contribution to aiding China to resist Japan failed to change the views of some Chinese people.
In 1943, at the most difficult time in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, China, Song Meiling came to the United States for assistance. At the Hollywood gala, Song Meiling and a group of Asian stars pushed for a change, but Huang Liushuang was missing from the crowd.
Wagner, a close friend of Huang Liushuang, was indignant: "No one has worked harder for the cause of aiding China more faithfully than Huang Liushuang. But was she invited to say hello to Song Meiling at this movie reception? No! "
Later, it was learned that Song Meiling and some opponents thought of Huang Liushuang: she represented the image of old Chinese, which consisted of only laundries, restaurant owners, gangs and coolies. Huang Liushuang was very frustrated.
After recalling these days, although she has regrets, she still feels extremely proud: "I have done my best to support and assist China in resisting Japanese aggression for a long time, and I have no regrets for life."
After the war, Huang Liushuang’s career as an actress was nearing the end, and she chose to return to a quiet life. In 1960, she became the first Chinese to stay on the walk of fame.
·Huang Liushuang’s stay on the walk of fame.
A year later, at the age of 56, she died of a heart attack, ending her ups and downs.
More than half a century later, Huang Liushuang’s name appeared on the American currency. Ventress C Gibson, director of united states mint, said: "This coin was designed to reflect the breadth and depth of Huang Liushuang’s achievements. She is a brave advocate."
Regarding this move by the United States, Qian Feng, director and researcher of the Research Department of the National Institute of Strategic Studies in Tsinghua University, told the reporter of global person: "The Democratic Party of the United States has always boasted that it respects ethnic minorities, and this move is one of its many measures to win over ethnic minorities. Especially since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, American society has been torn apart day by day, and discrimination against Asians has become more and more serious. Therefore, the Democratic Party also hopes that this coinage plan can save the image of the United States. "
In 2019, another Chinese name, Liu Yuling, appeared next to the star in Huang Liushuang on the walk of fame.
When she made her debut, Liu Yuling suffered an Asian stereotype similar to that of Huang Liushuang, but she persisted. In his speech on the Avenue of Stars, Liu Yuling said: "If my work helps to bridge the gap between the stereotyped role originally given to Huang Liushuang and the mainstream success today, I am very happy to be a part of this process."
Original title: Being discriminated against for a lifetime, this Chinese actress is now on the dollar.
Editor: Chen Yanqi
Editor: Liao Yi
Audit: Feng Fei