Newsletter, Jan 29, 2006. EXHIBITION OPENING AND FACILITY IMPROVEMENT PLANS
Hello everyone --
Dr. Tee and John Rohsenow join me in wishing everyone a very good year of the Dog ahead. Dr. Tee is in Malaysia for the New Year celebration and John will soon dash off to some exotic places like Hawaii or Michigan.
Let me bring you up to date on what has happened to the Foundation in the four weeks.
I. Exhibitions & Collections
A. The opening of the new exhibition, Silk and Wood - Recent Acquisitions, on January 14 was the highlight of the month. Two weeks prior to the opening the team was at war with the deadline. They did it. Grace Chun, the curator, did a wonderful job in spearheading the show and keeping the team happily intact. A fuller report on the preparation team was included in the previous newsletter. About 100 people attended the opening reception. The new exhibition is picking up attention from the press. Friday's Sun-Times carried a good size featured article about the museum exhibitions. http://www.suntimes.com/output/galleries/wkp-news-chinesemuse27.html
B. Tofu - the Wonder Food exhibition planning. Due to be open in mid-March, the team, that includes Joanne Chiu, Garret, and Julianne, met on 1/28 to finalize the contents. Being crafted by a young and creative team, the show promises to be fun and colorful. They are looking for help from photographers and audio-visual persons. They would also like to interview a couple more tofu factories, owned by Chinese or other ethnic groups, in the area. Please connect them if you have suggestions. Joanne will be happy to hear from you.
C. Chicago's Two World Fairs - Asian Perspectives. The team, Ling Arenson, Andrea Stamm, Ben Bronson, and Bob Salika, met on January 7 and decided on limiting the perspectives to the three East Asian countries but will include other world fairs in the Midwest. The team is looking for relevant objects - let them know if you have any leads. Sheila Chin, a new recruit to take the role of administrator, will be happy to hear from you.
D. Research, Collections
The Committee met on 1/14. Andrea Stamm and Conrad Winke had fun using theie newly acquired PastPerfect program in accessioning. They like the program and expect it to be very useful. We look forward to having updated computerized data for the collections, which is growing fast.
Liza Zhao, Ling Wang, and Li Fu also did a review on the labels of Silk and Wood and suggested improvements. This is one good example that our flexible system with in-house capabilities works well. We have no technical problems in making changes to labels or moving objects even at this stage. Such changes are not always possible in other more professionally organized exhibition team. Being able to accommodate changes is one of the strengths of small and self-dependent museums.
Andrea's effort in building a stronger research team is working. They will dig up newspaper and other references in connection with the Foundation's exhibition and publication projects. She herself helped in digging up information regarding the 1906 imperial Chinese Commissioner visit for me to give a presentation at its 100th anniversary celebration. Elinor Pearlstein, a behind-the-scene researcher for the Foundation, also came up with excellent data. The celebration was broadcast by Channels 9 and 7 on 1/19. The Harlem Irving Times-- a Pioneer Press picked up the interest, along with a few Chinese language newspaper as well. Our website has included some of the presentation slides <http://www.ccamuseum.org/Research-2.html#anchor_173.
2. Facility Improvement
A. The Parking Garden Subcommittee met on 1/26. They now shoot at having the construction blue print ready on April 15. Tom Yuen, Robert Sit, and Joe Farruggia will meet at Robert's office, which means Ernest Wong will be able to join them as well, in doing the schematic design for the whole construction. Their estimate is that the parking space should be in place before the end of October.
B. Phase IB - i.e. the storefront, the I Beam, and the disability entrance. Mark Birbeck has contacted two I Beam contractors through referrals by Joe and Ian Chin. The decision will be made as soon as the bids are in hand.
The storefront renovation means contracting glasswork people, as well as deciding on construction details. Mark and Ben Bronson, with input from several building-related subcommittee members, have been working with Kinman Auyeung in finalizing details. It will be desirable to coordinate the storefront and I Beam project together so as to minimize the blockage of the front.
Disability issues. Ian and Ben are looking into temporary elevators that are also code compliant. The entrance will have to use a mobile ramp until the permanent entrance for the disabled can be constructed (which will be part of the Parking Garden Committee's charge).
C. Phase II. Second floor renovation. The committee will finalize the choice of a contractor by the end of next week, and will push the start of the project by February 10.
3. Finance and Development plans.
The two committees held a joint meeting on 1/20. Dr. Tee and David Lee (in the absence of Catherine Chin) decided that the 4/28 Oak Brook event should feature Chinese foot binding. Two seasoned foot binding lecturers, Ben Bronson and Dr. Tee, will adopt their former presentation for the medically oriented audience who will pay $150 (?) per ticket. Ann Connors will work on gathering grant information, Dr. Tee will work at engaging YY Ma for a later event. Both Ann and John Shea recommended some risk-free investment. Choonie Ting will work with Li Fan in setting up a more streamlined financial recording and reporting system.
4. Other news
A. Howard Chun and I gave a presentation on tea to 40 seniors at Admiral Senior Housing on 1/25. It went well. Howard was good at charming old ladies by helping them to reminisce.
B. Telly Cheung generated a beautiful panel for the Year of Dog. It is now posted in the reception area.
C. Matthew Eng has got us a remote control for PowerPoint projection.
D. Len Louie succeeded in persuading the owners of a building on Wentworth to donate banner space to the museum.
E. David Lee and I did a slide presentation at the Chicago's Children Museum on 1/27 for their "Monkey King" exhibition.
F. On January 29th, the day of the Chinese New Year Parade, the museum had a lot of visitors, including groups of girl scouts and of students from DePaul University. At least 80% of those visitors were non-Chinese.
G. We will turn off the red lights on our New Year Tree in front of the museum the day after the Lantern Festival on February 13th.
Enough news for today? Let me know if I have left out anything.
Chuimei
Newsletter, Jan 15, 2006. SILK & WOOD OPENING CREDITS
Hello everyone --
Yesterday's opening of the new exhibition, Silk and Wood - Recent Acquisitions, marks the second exhibition of the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago since the museum's grand opening last May. I enjoyed the reception and I hope you did too. The turnout was good. About 100 people were there, which is 25 more than we projected.
Although Silk and Wood is a relatively small show it has involved more than 40 persons to get it done. It is truly a team production and it is a job well done. The display is tasteful and the objects are interesting and beautiful to look at. As the acknowledgement panel does not fully reflect the efforts of everyone, I am giving you a who-done-it below. In reality many team members played multiple roles and stepped in to help with whatever was needed.
Curator, Grace Chun. Grace developed the exhibition contents, produced the overall planning, and managed the team. She is good at working with people, delivering her jobs with peace, good humor, and discretion. Grace's endless energy in finding the right items was admirable. Because of her, the museum now has a larger collection as well as a better exhibition.
Registrar, Sheila Chin. Among the many things Sheila did, documenting the objects and the progress of the exhibition were the most demanding tasks. Sheila took her job seriously and turned otherwise mechanical work into fun. There was never a dull moment when she was around. Not only did she translate ideas into action fast, she also did the work neatly and prettily.
Exhibition Preparator. Mark Birbeck's magic worked well again. His fondness for detail made the display outstanding. Be sure to admire the mounting of the window lattice when you visit the show the next time. He is a remarkable problem shooter -- and he loves challenges. For every day in the past two weeks he arrived early on his bicycle. Without knowing it, Grace and Sheila have transformed Mark the owl into an early bird.
3-D Designer. Julie Feng. Julie is articulate and so is her work. She joined the team at a time when we most needed help in visualizing the placement of objects. Julie also worked with the team on the ground, helping not only with placement but sometimes also with the choice of objects. She made a panel herself on which many colorful silk samples invite touching. Try yourself and have a feel of different silk textures!
2-D Designers. Scott Hammond. The beautiful bookmarks admired by everyone were designed by Scott who did it in a lightning fashion, in spite of his tight schedule. Scott will also help produce a poster later. Richard Lo designed the four exhibition text panels on incredibly short notice. Their talents and willingness to cope with our tight schedule are admirable. John Power generated the silk route map.
Conservator, David K. Chang. David helped clean up and fix display objects. By doing so he also provided training in conservation to the team. We are lucky to have David's highly professional input. We appreciate his time - he travels by train from McHenry County.
Language Support. It is lucky that we can continue to produce trilingual texts. Lisa Zhou and Ling Wong helped out with Chinese translation while the museum's old friends Eduardo and Rocio Arellano stepped in the last minute to provide the Spanish text. Today we are the first and only museum in the Midwest to have trilingual texts -- it takes a highly flexible system to make it happen. We are very grateful for our competent translators. Ceil Bouchet, a freelance writer, wrote the text panels based on Grace's draft. John Rohsenow helped edit them in an earlier stage and Ben Bronson added the final touches. Ben and Sheila also helped in finalizing the text of the object labels.
Curatorial support came from Soo Lon Moy and Ben Bronson, who helped with decision making and providing assistance when needed, before and during the opening. They spent lots of hours at the museum in setting up the site. Soo Lon in particular helped with shopping for display material, food for the reception, and lining up help. Ben as the advisor of the show made sure the production is professionally acceptable. He also produced many of the computer-generated images, as well as a page for the show on our website.
Others who provided essential help at different stages of de-installation of Paper Sons and installation of Silk & Wood: Ian Chin, Howard Chun, Matthew Eng, Len Louie, David K. Lee, Billy Moy, Nick Moy, Ram Moy, John Rohsenow, Bob Salika, John Sun, Eric Tee, Malcolm Woo. These gentlemen (along with some of the above-mentioned ladies) did most of the heavy duty chores. Among them Eric spent a good deal of time carrying objects between the third and the first floors, Howard always came with the right tool to do the right job, and Bob quickly became Mark's right hand man. Malcolm and David are two wonderful persons who can switch jobs between engraving donors' bricks and giving a hand in installation. Daniel Tjokler took some object pictures.
Highly skilled but physically less demanding jobs were mostly dome by ladies. They helped with ironing, cleaning, stitching, mending, and displaying. These were Andrea Stamm, Sarah Schuster, Fung Chau Moy, and May Wong.
Printing. Loong-yan Wong helped coordinate with printers for the bookmark and the new banner.
RSVP. Joanne Chiu kept track of the guest list and helped out with the printing of labels. She and Sheila handled confirmations.
Media Response. Matthew, L-Y Wong, and Telly Cheung notified the media at different stages. Grace, Soo Lon, Ian, and I gave interviews to the media. Telly and Sheila generated and packaged the media kits. The TV program "Connections" will feature the show on March 1. Howard will tell us the schedule.
Opening Reception. Telly Chiu prepared the badges (it is not her fault for not having prepared a name badge for everyone - my oversight.) as well as flyers. Joanne Chiu, Julie Chiu, Telly, and Linh Khoo manned the registration desk. Ram and Soo Lon set up and cleared the food and drinks for the reception. Gee Louie and Linh tidied up the space and helped out with reception.
Behind the scenes were the watchful but discrete eyes of Dr. Tee and Andrea. Everyone helped with greeting guests. Wai-Chee Yuan's speech at the opening ceremony added respectability to the museum in the eyes of the community.
Jeffrey Moy's presence as an advisor, a major donor for the show, and a well-know connoisseur, was most welcome. As we all know, Jeffrey's hectic schedule keeps him away from many museum functions. It was great that he could make it this time.
All directors came to the opening except P.C Leung, Sheldon Wing, and Kinman Auyeung.
Nine advisors were there: Ben Bronson, Mary Lawton, Raymond Lee, Len Louie, Jeffrey Moy, Ruth Moy, Charles Weber, John Shea, and Ian Chin.
I myself had a lot of fun. The guests were enthusiastic, the exhibition was wonderful, and it was a constant pleasure to work with so many talented, dedicated people.
Together, inch by inch, we have reached another milestone. We should be SO proud.
With fondness,
Chuimei
------------------------------------------------------------
Newsletter, Jan 2, 2006. EXHIBITION PLANS AND RESEARCH
Hello everyone --
I wish you a healthy, peaceful, and productive year ahead.
One of my New Year resolutions is to share with you more frequently the CAMOC information. Here is the first update of the year.
1. Museum facility improvement
a. holiday lights. Mark Birbeck, Ben Bronson, and Malcolm Woo put on 1000 small red lights onto the tree in front of the museum building. The three large red lights shining behind the stairway of each floor, plus a large blinking snow flake were put up by Ben. The snowflake will be taken down soon but the others will stay, hopefully until the end of the Chinese New Year holidays.
b. security video. Malcolm with the help of Ben installed two cameras at the first floor and will complete the basement and the second floor next week.
c. third floor storage. Ben and Eric Tee set up the garment cabinets last Thursday. The area was further tidied and cleaned by Ben last Saturday.
2. Collection & Research
a. Paper Sons. Soo Lon Moy and her team will start de-install the exhibition on Monday at 9 am. Loan objects will be returned to lenders, and museum objects will be put away. By the afternoon of January 5 the gallery should be completely void of Paper Sons objects.
Joanne Chiu, Mr. Louie, Ben, and I took some farewell photos at the gallery yesterday. It is hard to believe in less than 2 days Paper Sons will be no more; the kind of loss feeling one has to go through repeatedly if we want to stay in business. That is why catalogues are here to be loved.
Thanks again to the team who put Paper Sons together, Soo Lon in particular. Looking back, we should all be very proud that it has happened. Let us use it as our exhibition threshold and continue to work on even better shows.
b. Silk and Wook - Recent Acquisitions. Yes, you are reading it right. It was "Wook", a genuine typo. In spite of the typo, the cards are quite beautiful but directors will not get one as we did not print enough -- I will show one to you when at the next board meeting. The cards are products of a team effort from Grace Chun, Mr. Wong, John Rohsenow, Ling Wang, Lisa Zhao, Dr. Tee, Ben, and myself.
Grace, the curator and the administrator, will start the installation on Monday while the de-installation is in progress. Her leading team members include Mark, Soo Lon, Sheila Chin, Julie Feng, Malcolm, and Eric. A new volunteer, Ceil Bouchet, has started helping with exhibition texts.
Unlike Paper Sons of which 90% of the objects are loans, Silk and Wood are entirely from our museum collections. Please let Grace know if you are interested in helping. The exhibition reception will be held on January 14, 1-4 pm. A formal invitation will be emailed to you later today.
The following new exhibitions will continue to need Julie's help as a 3-D graphic designer, Ceil's help as a text-writer, Mark's input as a installation specialist, and Ben's expertise in museum issues. The museum is very lucky to have such professional help from them.
c. Tofu - the Wonder Food. Joanne who is now bearing the banner as her high-school team members have been distracted over the holiday seasons. She nonetheless enjoys the fun of making decision without opposition. She wants to use a lot of large and colorful photographs for the show. If you know of any photographers who want to donate time and printing to the museum, please let her know. The next meeting will be held at the museum on January 14 (Sat), 11 am.
d. Chicago's Two World Fairs - Asian Perspectives. The next meeting will be held at the museum on January 7 (Sat), 9 am, to be attended by Ling Arenson, Bob Salika, Andrea Stamm, and myself. The team will have to be expanded very soon as the show will coincide with the museum's anniversary. Let me know if you can spare sometime to help. One way you can help is to look for objects relevant for the show -- we have quite a few images but not enough items.
e. Sweet Hometowns. Not much progress has been made yet as it is now scheduled to take place in 2007. We will decide in March if this project is a no-go or not.
g. Research 1. Chinese cemetery. Ben and Andrea have been digging up more information about early Chinese funerals in Chicago. The results will be added onto the website. The latest interest is whether Chicago's Chinese practiced secondary burial and whether that was used as an excuse for the Rosehill cemetery to drive the Chinese out of the grave.
h. Research 2. Imperial Chinese Commissioner came to Chicago in 1906. Andrea and I are collecting information regarding this historical trip as we are motivated by an event to be held at the Wright College on January 19 (Thursday). 50 local Chinese-Americans dressed in Qing robes were put at the front line to greet the 55-person team of commissioners at the Northwestern Station. When the commissioners left Chicago three days later for New York, there were also 50 young Chinese-American men to see them off. This time the newspaper identified them as members of the Protect the Emperor Association (Baohuang Hui). The results too will be posted on the website.
i. Research 3. Police Department archives. Malcolm, the first Chinese-American policeman to retire from the city's police force, has agreed to look into the archives for material relevant to Chinese-Americans before 1960.
j. Research 4. Early Chinese-American data. We have now albums and albums of data accumulating over the past two years through exhibition preparation and various programs. Andrea and her committee will consider tabulating the data for easy access. It is going to be a huge task but very essential for building up the museum's credentials as a research institution.
k. Accession the museum collections. Andrea removed and rebuilt a work station at the first floor last Friday. Her team will start accessioning and storing the museum collections. This part of the work should be closely connected with the storage management. My dream is to see that some basic renovation be made to the third floor so that it won't be sitting there as a huge refrigerator in the winter. The ultimate answer is money.
Let me stop writing at this point. This email is getting way too long. I will finish the updating later in the day.
Chuimei
------------------------------------------------------------
Newsletter, Nov 5, 2005. PROGRAMS AND 4TH BENEFIT DINNER
Hello Friends --
This evening we will be celebrating the fourth benefit-dinner of Chinatown Museum Foundation. As usual, we expect 400 guests to come. Along with many performances from local artists and school children, the highlight of the evening is to show results of our year-long archaeological project that takes place in the vacant lot next to the museum.
Before we turn our attention to the dinner, I will just give you a quick account of what has happened last month. As I was out of town for part of the month, I only learned about some events second- and third- hand. Please add to the news if you notice anything missing below.
1. October 1 (Saturday). BBQ Tour, led by Stewart Moy, Mr. Wong, Joe Chiu and coordinated by Matthew Eng. It went well -- about 30 people took the tour. Some came back after the tour was over to tell us how enjoyable it was. We got written up favorably in websites of some members too. Our tour leaders even brought back boxes of delicious BBQ food for us. I felt like one of those hungry chicks being fed by concerned parent birds.
2. October 7 (Thursday). Spotlight, a marketing venue for cultural institutions to talk to tour operators and hotel personnels, organized by the City's board of tourism. David K. Lee, May Wong, and I set up our table at Chicago Cultural Center among the other 100 cultural institutions in the city. David showed the Museum's grand opening in his newly edited DVD. He also displayed his fine salesmanship by chatting up just about everyone passed the table. About 200 did, all in three hours. Both May and I lost our voices at the end but not David.
3. October 17 (Monday). Lecture. John Rohsenow gave a lecture on immigration history to a group of 35 Northern Illinois University students who came to see the exhibition. David K. Lee and Joanne were there to help out with arrangements. Those were lucky students.
4. October 29 (Saturday). Lectures. CAMOC presented two lectures on the same day.
a. At CAMOC, by Soo Lon Moy and Ben Bronson on -- their favorite subject -- Americanized Chinese food, to a group of 20 teachers led by a Northwestern U professor. The teachers were apparently very happy with the talk -- two came back to ask for volunteer opportunities. We happily accepted their offer and they happily went away, even though we did not feed them any American or Chinese food.
b. At Northbrook Public Library, by Emily Chen and myself, "When There is No Home to Return to -- early women immigrants in America". The 30 people in the audience were enchanted by Emily's story about her mom and eventually Emily's "arranged" marriage. It was beautifully delivered.
5. November 3 and 4 (Thursday and Friday). Archaeological dig in progress, led by Scott Demel, organized by Ben Bronson, Soo Lon, and Dr. Tee. Scott decided to get more work done before the benefit dinner. On Friday 18 students, two parents, and four teachers from two local schools joined the team. It was a very lively scene -- complete with Scott's two nieces, one nephew, and several interns. Billy Moy and Dr. Tee of course were down in the trenches too. Grace Chun helped maintained law and order in the gallery, along with May Wong, Maria Moy, Ruth Moy, Soo Lon, Joanne Chiu, and Mr. Louie. Everyone noticed how black the soil was when found on the gallery floor. Several Chinese-language newspaper people came, including one TV channel. A deeply interested reporter from Chicago Journal came and was followed by Channel 23. Apparently the team has found some coins that made them very excited. We will hear more about the finds this evening from Scott.
6. November 4 (Friday). Lecture. David K. Lee and I gave a presentation on Chinese laundrymen to a group of 35 people at University of Illinois Extension Learning Group on the south side. Not only was David good at making people laugh but the audience just absolutely adored David whenever he disagreed with me. It was enjoyable for everyone.
7. Ben and Soo Lon appeared on the front page of the Tempo Section, Tribune, 11/3 (Thursday). It is a lengthy article with lots of remarks on food. Now that we have two experts on the subject we should have a party next time at a chop suey restaurant. We just have to take care not to invite Charles Hayford, the professor who brought the teachers to the museum on 10/29. Chuck quotes another famous sinologist saying "I will not eat it." Let me know if you need a copy of the newspaper clipping.
Along with these exposures, the museum has received a number of group visits throughout the month. Joanne Chiu, Mr. Louie, Ruth Moy, Joe Chiu, Grace Chun, and Soo Lon have been helping out with coordinating and receiving those visitors. Thanks to them all.
Chuimei
