Stage for Cai (Tsai) Ting-kai in Stockton

May’s Photo Studio, Cai (Tsai) Ting-kai Panorama, 1934, Wylie Wong Collection of May’s Studio at Stanford Libraries.

Him Mark Lai notes that after gaining a hero’s reputation for his defense of Shanghai, Cai Ting-kai joined an anti-Chiang Kai-shek movement that quickly collapsed. He then went abroad on a “face-saving” fundraising tour and was warmly welcomed in San Francisco by the Mayor Angelo Rossi, Mandarin Theater benefactor Lain Chan, and others who helped arrange for Cai’s American tour. Lai writes “The welcoming banquet was held simultaneously at six Chinatown restaurants with more than three thousand attending. Before the banquet all the restaurants and stores lit firecrackers; that night all of Chinatown was lit brightly in his honor.”

From Lim Mark Lai, “Roles Played by Chinese in America During China’s Resistance to Japanese Aggression and during World War II,” page 83. file:///Users/mjohnson/Downloads/01-Roles-Played-by-Chinese-in-America-.pdf, downloaded February 16, 2024.