Upon reading the 8 of Clubs card with the book cover of "The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu," I decided to look up the book itself. The story depicts a criminal Asian man in Limehouse, London, who is a master of poisons and chemistry. He intends to return to Asia with the most talented engineers in Europe for criminal intentions.
The passage on the reverse side of the card is on the treatment of Asian, often Chinese men in the Limehouse area of London. I learned that at the time, many of the Chinese men in this area were the subject of fascination by many white women and they would often have sexual relations resulting in a great number of mixed race children. However, these relations were viewed heavily negatively despite the community treating each other effectively as one giant family. Outside, they were seen as revolting. Inside, they were united. But when the time came for war, there was no hesitation to draft the children into the military.
What I gather from this is that skin color is never an issue when it comes to sacrificing one's life for others. When it's a job that no one else wants, it is not a problem when a less "desirable" person takes it upon themselves to fulfill that duty. Even so, hundreds of Chinese men were deported out of Great Britain when they were no longer useful.
It really strikes me as disgusting that it was deemed okay at the time for the public to portray an Asian man as a villain not because of what he is doing in particular, but because his culture is too much for others to even try to understand. There was so much mystery surrounding his character that he ended up being a villain, and no one bothered to consider he might have had a goal for the greater good, rather than the greater evil.
What made it okay in the 1940's for this to be such a popular theme in entertainment, and was there even a group of people speaking up against this?
The Adventures of Fu Manchu (1956)
This is the full eight episodes of the series, one of many to show an Asian man as a villain.
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