ABSTRACT
Wong Chin Foo (1847-1898), allegedly the first Chinese American, was best known for his political activism and cultural advocacy for the Chinese immigrants in America during the era of Chinese exclusion. Wong was a talented and prolific writer who produced a wide array of nonfictional and fictional works in English that were published in American periodicals. His major literary works include “The Story of San Tszon” a compact adaptation of Journey to the West; a short story, “Poh Yuin Ko, the Serpent Princess” which was based on the Chinese legend of the White Snake; and the “Chinese historical novel” Wu Chih Tien, the Celestial Empress (1889). Wong was not only the first Chinese who introduced those famous Chinese tales to the English audience “in conformity to modern standards”; he also recreated those stories as allegories to advocate a world of common humanity, to bridge the gaps between different races, religions, genders, and classes. Wong incorporated the Western biblical and mythical subtexts in his Chinese stories and highlighted universal themes such as love and equality, deliberately narrowing the distance between his Chinese stories and modern Western audience. Wong was aware of the marginal status of Chinese culture in the new world order, so he constructed China as an ancient and moral other of Western modernity to critique the money-worshiping Western culture, nationalism, racism, and the linear conception of history. Wong’s diasporic literary works are arguably the earliest texts of modern Chinese literature, embodying the Chinese desire for living in a diverse and inclusive world culture. By actively making the world home through the cross-cultural fertilization in his literary creations, Wong Chin Foo also deserves to be studied as an important figure in the history of world literature.
