Hometown Couplet, panel 2

Chen Huanzhang, Hometown Couplet, two panels, each 84 x 16 inches, Collection: Ning Que Protective Association.

Although the other couplets displayed in the Ning Que Tong are unsigned, the Hometown Couplet is by renowned intellectual Chen Huanzhang, who received degrees in both China and the United States, and was affiliated with Chinese revolutionary leader Yuan Shikai for a time. As scholar Chase Wang writes: “The history of Chinatown is definitely not as simple as the fight between the Tongs. I think if we dig deeper, we will find that they had connections with the first-class scholars of the Republic of China at that time. At that time, the scholars in the north were very rigid, and the latest convergence of eastern and western ideas took place in the coastal area of Guangdong. The relationship between these leading Cantonese scholars and the people of San Francisco may explain the deeper cultural network of Chinatown.”