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Chinaman's chance

January 01, 1970

Chinaman's chance is an American idiom which means that a person has little or no chance at success, synonymous with similar idioms of improbability such as a snowball's chance in hell or when pigs fly. Although the origin of the phrase is unclear, it may refer to the historical misfortunes which were suffered by Chinese-American immigrants. The expression is controversial due to its use of the term "Chinaman".

Chinaman's chance
Not a Chinaman's Chance (1894), Charles Marion Russell
Meaningnonexistent or highly unlikely probability of success

Meaning edit

The idiom is defined as meaning "no chance at all" in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English.[1]: 94  Sometimes an extended form not a Chinaman's chance is used.[2][3]

Potential origins edit

The origin of the phrase is not well documented. In The Chinese looking glass (1967), Dennis Bloodworth asserts the Chinese people have a long association with gambling. He states they believe "it is better to be lucky than clever", concluding the I Ching has encouraged the acceptance of chance and fate: "the philosophy that makes the Chinese the soothsayer's best customer makes him one of the world's outstanding gamblers, too." This in turn resulted in a resilient attitude in response to misfortune and bad luck: "in the course of a long and turbulent history [the Chinese have] sooner or later overthrown by violence every single major dynasty that [have] misruled [them]".[4]: 253, 261 

Two potential origins of the phrase have been advanced, depending on the capitalization of the term. Either the phrase is written with the pejorative (capitalized) term "Chinaman", and Chinaman's chance refers to the treatment of Chinese immigrants to America in the 1800s, or the neutral (lower case) "chinaman" is used instead, with chinaman's chance referring to the fragility of fine porcelain.

Chinese immigration edit

When Federal officers mete out such treatment to a man previously established to be an American citizen, we can well understand the bitter irony of the current phrase "A Chinaman's chance."

Justices Denman, Stephens, and Healy, Chun Kock Quon v. Proctor (1937)[5]

 
Chinese gold miners using rocker boxes

One early potential origin for the phrase is from the California Gold Rush of 1849. The travel time for news of the gold rush to reach China was quite long, and by the time Chinese immigrants arrived to prospect, many of the rich mines were already claimed. These Chinese immigrants who missed out had to work with only those lands which had already been exploited or which were rejected by others, meaning these late-arriving immigrants had a slim chance of success. The historical record, however, indicates that many Chinese combined efforts with each other and did very well in the goldfields, introducing mining techniques then unknown to non-Chinese.[6]: 104–107  Alternatively, in 1920 the phrase was explained to describe the low probability for the Chinese in America to make a fortune at gold mining. Although there were Chinese in the gold mining camps soon after the news broke, "they were extremely unpopular [and] the slightest excuse was sufficient to warrant their being beaten or chased away; consequently they had no chance to get a real foothold" to establish mining rights.[7]

 
Chinese laborers replacing the trestle at Secret Town with an earthen embankment (1877)

Another potential origin of the phrase Chinaman's chance traces it to the high probability of death or injury during the construction of the U.S. transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s.[2] During its construction, unstable bottles of nitroglycerine were used for blasting. Chinese workers reportedly were lowered over cliffs by rope and boatswain's chairs to set the nitroglycerine in place. In this work, if they were not lifted back up before the blast, serious injury or death would result.[8] Although these accounts of construction techniques have been debunked as mythmaking after the work was complete,[9][10] it is undeniable that many Chinese immigrants died while building the railroad. According to a newspaper article published in 1870, 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) of bones from Chinese railroad workers were shipped to China for interment. The article calculated the bones were from 1,200 workers.[11] It is estimated that 20,000 Chinese immigrants worked to build the railroad.[12]

 
Rock Springs Massacre (1885), published in Harper's Weekly

A third possibility is in reference to the low probability of a fair verdict in murder trials with a Chinese victim, assisted partly by California state law first issued in 1850.[13] The conviction of a white man for murdering a Chinese miner was overturned in the case of People v. Hall (1854).[14] In that ruling, the California Supreme Court expanded the definition of "black person" in the California Crimes and Punishments Act of 1850[15] to exclude "all races other than the Caucasian", throwing out evidence provided by a Chinese immigrant's testimony.[13] The law was amended in 1863 to explicitly exclude testimony from witnesses of certain races: "No Indian, or person having one half or more of Indian blood, or Mongolian or Chinese, shall be permitted to give evidence in favor or against any white person."[16] In a second case, People v. Brady (1870), the Supreme Court of California upheld the statute against the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, stating "the power of testifying is neither an object of desire, nor in any sense a right".[17] New evidence laws were passed in 1872, superseding the prior rules and restoring the right to testify to Chinese Americans.[18]

Bill Bryson believed the phrase could be traced to the Rock Springs Massacre of 1885, referring to the forced expulsion of Chinese American residents, whose chances of living were slimmed by the dual threat of armed mobs and freezing overnight temperatures.[19] Amy Uyematsu also related it to the Rock Springs, writing that the phrase had grim and bitter reality if the fair treatment of Chinese immigrants was impossible.[3] In 1887, as many as 34 Chinese gold miners were massacred along the Snake River in Oregon by a gang of white horse thieves, typical of the anti-Chinese violence in Oregon of the time. Three were arrested and tried for the massacre in Oregon, but none were convicted.[20]

Delicate chinaware edit

 
Tad Dorgan used the phrase in a 1914 comic

The lower-case term "chinaman" also has a non-pejorative interpretation as a dealer of porcelain from China; the "chinaware" they sold were notoriously delicate and fragile.[21] Based on this, several scholars have advanced a hypothesis that "chinaman's chance" refers to the low probability of avoiding broken chinaware during the long journey from their sources in China to chinaman shops in Europe.[21][22]

William Morris advanced the lower-case "chinaman" hypothesis in 1957, stating "the phrase 'a chinaman's chance' accurately describes the odds against a merchant of china if he were to find 'a bull in his chinashop!'"[22]

In addition, Peter Tamony concluded in 1965 the phrase can be traced back to the sport of boxing in early 19th-century Great Britain. Tamony's hypothesis is based on terms such as having a crockery chin or a china chin, which characterize some pugilists as delicate and fragile. An equivalent American idiom would be to say a fighter has a glass jaw.[21] Tamony stated the lowercase phrase chinaman's chance was transferred to the United States via Australia, but based this on his belief the first use of the phrase was from 1914, in a cartoon drawn by Tad Dorgan and published in the San Francisco Call.[23]

In fact, the phrase was already in use by 1893,[24][25] and as Kenneth Porter wrote in a Western Folklore article published in 1966, "in American usage [Chinaman's chance] is clearly [a reference] to the little chance a native of China would have in any controversy with white Americans. Americans who use the expression, if they consider its origin at all, probably associate it with the anti-Chinese agitation of the 1870's and '80's."[26] Under this interpretation, the phrase may have originated as local slang in California and spread via the journalism of William Randolph Hearst and his flagship newspaper San Francisco Examiner in the 1890s.[21]

Usage history edit

Chinaman's chance
It means very little likelihood of success. And if you use the term, it means you have very little likelihood of brain activity.

 — Michael Coard, 2012 Philadelphia column[27]

In describing a potential race between a bicyclist and a thoroughbred racing horse in 1893, The World quoted a horse expert as saying "The bicyclist would win sure ... I don't think the horse would have a Chinaman's chance to beat him."[24] The capitalized term "Chinaman" had become "thoroughly entwined with anti-Chinese racial animus" by the early 20th century and the phrase "Chinaman's chance" carried the same pejorative connotations, alluding to the low probability of success resulting from "the endless social barriers that were thrown up against Chinese immigrants seeking opportunities to advance".[28]

In 2018, Governor of West Virginia Jim Justice used the phrase "Chinaman's chance" to describe the low probability of passing a natural gas tax,[29] for which he received criticism.[30]

Cultural usage edit

 
Children's Valentine's Day greeting card featuring the phrase, c. 1930s

Literature edit

  • A Chinaman's Chance, 1919 short story by American writer Harold Lamb[31]
  • Chinaman's Chance, 1938 short story mystery by American writer Maxwell Grant
  • "Asia is rising against me. / I haven't got a chinaman's chance. / I'd better consider my national resources." — Allen Ginsberg, America (1956)[32]
  • Chinaman's Chance, 1978 thriller novel by American writer Ross Thomas[33]
  • A Chinaman's Chance, poem in Dwarf Bamboo (1987) by Chinese-American poet Marilyn Chin[34]

Nonfiction edit

  • Chinaman's Chance, 1932 short recollection by American writer Arthur Mason[35]
  • Chinaman's Chance, 1940 autobiography by No-yong Park[36]
  • Chinaman's Chance: The Life Story of Elmer Wok Wai, 1969 memoir cowritten with Veta Griggs[37]
  • A Chinaman's chance: the Chinese on the Rocky Mountain mining frontier, 2000 narrative by Professor Liping Zhu[38]
  • A Chinaman's chance: one family's journey and the Chinese American dream, 2004 memoir by Eric Liu[39]

Art edit

Film edit

The phrase "a Chinaman's chance" is used in the following films:

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Wilson, Kenneth G. (1993). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-06989-8. Retrieved 23 June 2022. An echo of the taboo word Chinaman is in the idiom (now much suppressed as well) a Chinaman's chance, which means 'no chance at all.'
  2. ^ a b "House Concurrent Resolution 90: Requesting government agencies and tourism entities and related businesses to support efforts to use the official name of the island of Mokoliʻi". Twenty-third Legislature, State of Hawaii, House of Representatives. March 2005. WHEREAS, the phrase "not a Chinaman's chance" was coined during that period and the usage of it reflected the unfortunate reality that, to decision makers in business and government, the lives and safety of working people in general and the lives and safety of Chinese laborers in particular were not of great concern;
  3. ^ a b Uyematsu, Amy (October 1969). "The Emergence of Yellow Power in America". Gidra. Vol. 1, no. 17. Retrieved 16 June 2022. Perhaps, surviving Asians learned to live in silence, for even if 'the victims of such attacks tried to go to court to win protection, they could not hope to get a hearing. The phrase "not a Chinaman's chance" had a grim and bitter reality.'
  4. ^ Bloodworth, Dennis (1967). "22: Chinaman's Chance". The Chinese looking glass. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 249–261. LCCN 67-22047.
  5. ^ Chun Kock Quon v. Proctor, F.2d 326, 329 (9th Cir. 1937).
  6. ^ Zhu, Liping (15 February 2000). "5: The Quest for Riches". A Chinaman's Chance: The Chinese on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier. University Press of Colorado. pp. 97–128. ISBN 978-0-87081-575-1. Retrieved 28 April 2018. Although they adopted Western tools, the Chinese also created new types of equipment, often incorporating Chinese agricultural devices into their placering kits. For instance in California, Chinese miners were the first to improve rockers, which separated rocks from sand. The new device was immediately adopted by all western miners. [...] With their unique mining methods and extreme patience, the Chinese often distinguished themselves from the other miners. Most Chinese miners often worked in companies of ten to fifteen. [...] Incredibly patient, the Chinese miners would leave no stone unturned. At every step, they tried to recover as much gold as possible. Some contemporary observers realized that the Chinese miners were superior to white miners in saving fine grains of gold under difficult circumstances. [...] Chinese miners scavenged 'exhausted' placers, often with surprisingly good returns. They usually reaped profits from these places, which were no longer attractive to whites who spurned slow rewards.
  7. ^ "A Chinaman's Chance". The Northwestern Miller. Vol. 124, no. 5. Minneapolis, Minnesota: The Miller Publishing Company. November 3, 1920. p. 586. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  8. ^ Fuchs, Chris (April 24, 2019). "150 years ago, Chinese railroad workers risked their lives in pursuit of the American dream". NBC News. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  9. ^ "Chinese laborers did not use bosun's chairs and hanging wicker baskets in the railroad construction at Cape Horn" (PDF). Colfax Area Historical Society. September 2018. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  10. ^ Strobridge, Edson T. (2001). "The Central Pacific Railroad and the Legend of Cape Horn 1865 – 1866". Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  11. ^ "Bones in Transit". Weekly Colusa Sun. July 2, 1870. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  12. ^ Kennedy, Lesley (May 10, 2019). "Building the Transcontinental Railroad: How 20,000 Chinese Immigrants Made It Happen". History. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  13. ^ a b Chin, Gabriel J. (2013). "'A Chinaman's Chance' in Court: Asian Pacific Americans and Racial Rules of Evidence" (PDF). UC Irvine Law Review. 3 (4): 965–990. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  14. ^ People v. Hall, 4 Cal. 399 (Cal. 1854).
  15. ^ California State Assembly. "An Act concerning Crimes and Punishments". First Session of the Legislature. Statutes of California. State of California. Ch. 99 § 14 p. 229. No black or mulatto person, or Indian, shall be permitted to give evidence in favor of, or against, any white person. Every person who shall have one eight part or more of Negro blood shall be deemed a mulatto, and every person who shall have one half of Indian blood shall be deemed an Indian. direct URL
  16. ^ California State Assembly. "An Act to amend an Act concerning Crimes and Punishments, passed April sixteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty". Fourteenth Session of the Legislature. Statutes of California. State of California. Ch. 70 p. 69. direct URL
  17. ^ People v. Brady, 40 Cal. 198 (Cal. 1870).
  18. ^ California State Assembly. "An Act to amend an Act entitled an Act to regulate proceedings in criminal cases, passed May first, eighteen hundred and fifty-one". Nineteenth Session of the Legislature. Statutes of California. State of California. Ch. 371 p. 528. direct URL
  19. ^ Loewen, James (2005). "3. The Great Retreat". Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. New York City: The New Press. p. 51. ISBN 1-56584-887-X. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  20. ^ Stratton, David H. (1983). "The Snake River Massacre of Chinese Miners, 1887". In Smith, Duane A. (ed.). A Taste of the West: essays in honor of Robert G. Athearn. University of Colorado Press. pp. 109–129. ISBN 9780871086419. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  21. ^ a b c d Tamony, Peter (July 1965). "Western Words: Chinaman's Chance". Western Folklore. 24 (3). Western States Folklore Society: 202–205. doi:10.2307/1498079. JSTOR 1498079.
  22. ^ a b Morris, William (July 16, 1957). "Words, Wit & Wisdom". San Bernardino Sun. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
  23. ^ Tad (April 30, 1914). "Indoor Sports". San Francisco Call. That's what I call handling a lobster / The poor boob hasn't got a Chinaman's chance
  24. ^ a b "Horse or Wheelman?". The World. October 3, 1893. p. 6. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  25. ^ a b "Not a Chinaman's Chance". Yale University Art Gallery. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  26. ^ Porter, Kenneth (January 1966). "Notes and Queries: Still More Ethnic and Place Names as Derisive Adjectives". Western Folklore. 25 (1). Western States Folklore Society: 37–40. doi:10.2307/1498597. JSTOR 1498597.
  27. ^ Coard, Michael (March 13, 2012). "Pop Language Quiz: Racist or Not Racist?". Philadelphia. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  28. ^ Zimmer, Ben (April 26, 2018). "'Chinaperson' and the Sanitization of a Racial Slur". The Atlantic. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  29. ^ "Justice, government leaders ask PEIA to hold off on changes". West Virginia Education Association. April 2018.
  30. ^ Mistich, Dave (February 12, 2020). "Gov. Justice Defends Calling Opposing Girls Basketball Team, Coaches 'Thugs'". WV Public Broadcasting. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  31. ^ Lamb, H.A. (May 24, 1919). "A Chinaman's Chance". Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine. Vol. CVIII, no. 2. The Frank A. Munsey Company. pp. 253–263.
  32. ^ Ginsberg, Allen (1988) [1956]. "America". Collected Poems 1947-1980. Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-091494-3. Retrieved December 7, 2011.
  33. ^ Thomas, Ross (1978). Chinaman's Chance. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-58288-259-8. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  34. ^ Chin, Marilyn (1987). "A Chinaman's Chance". Dwarf Bamboo. Greenfield Center, New York: The Greenfield Review Press. pp. 29–30. ISBN 0-912678-71-2. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  35. ^ Mason, Arthur (October 1932). "Chinaman's Chance". Blue Book. Vol. 55, no. 6. The McCall Company. pp. 143–147.
  36. ^ Park, No-Yong (1943). Chinaman's Chance. Boston, Massachusetts: Meador Publishing Company.
  37. ^ Griggs, Veta (1969). Chinaman's Chance: The Life Story of Elmer Wok Wai. Exposition Press.
  38. ^ Zhu, Liping (2000). A Chinaman's chance: the Chinese on the Rocky Mountain mining frontier. University Press of Colorado. ISBN 978-0-87081-575-1. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  39. ^ Liu, Eric (2004). A Chinaman's chance: one family's journey and the Chinese American dream. New York, New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-61039-195-5. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  40. ^ "Not a Chinaman's Chance". Amon Carter Museum of Art. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  41. ^ American Stories Through Song at AllMusic. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
  42. ^ "Old First Concerts presents Jon Jangtet: A Chinaman's Chance, A Choy's Chance". OldFirstConcerts.org. May 10, 2019. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  43. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the : "Flip The Frog: Chinaman's Chance". YouTube.

External links edit

 
Look up chinaman's chance in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  • The Chinese Question: political cartoon, print (1871).
  • Luke, Bettie (7 October 2010). "Reader's Corner: The top 10 lessons on life and politics that I learned from my brother, Wing Luke". Northwest Asian Weekly. Retrieved 28 April 2018. Wing was kind of like a Chinese Will Rogers, a political rock star. During his campaign, someone said to Wing, 'You don't have a Chinaman's chance!' Wing shot back, 'On the contrary, I am the only one who has a Chinaman's chance!'
  • Liu, Eric (July 21, 2014). "When to Use Ethnic Slurs: A Guide". The Atlantic.
  • Tréguer, Pascal (October 19, 2018). "A hypothesis as to the origin of the phrase 'a Chinaman's chance'". word histories [blog].

January 01, 1970
chinaman, chance, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, april, 20. This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Chinaman s chance news newspapers books scholar JSTOR April 2010 Learn how and when to remove this message Chinaman s chance is an American idiom which means that a person has little or no chance at success synonymous with similar idioms of improbability such as a snowball s chance in hell or when pigs fly Although the origin of the phrase is unclear it may refer to the historical misfortunes which were suffered by Chinese American immigrants The expression is controversial due to its use of the term Chinaman Chinaman s chanceNot a Chinaman s Chance 1894 Charles Marion RussellMeaningnonexistent or highly unlikely probability of success Contents 1 Meaning 2 Potential origins 2 1 Chinese immigration 2 2 Delicate chinaware 3 Usage history 3 1 Cultural usage 3 1 1 Literature 3 1 2 Nonfiction 3 1 3 Art 3 1 4 Film 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksMeaning editThe idiom is defined as meaning no chance at all in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English 1 94 Sometimes an extended form not a Chinaman s chance is used 2 3 Potential origins editThe origin of the phrase is not well documented In The Chinese looking glass 1967 Dennis Bloodworth asserts the Chinese people have a long association with gambling He states they believe it is better to be lucky than clever concluding the I Ching has encouraged the acceptance of chance and fate the philosophy that makes the Chinese the soothsayer s best customer makes him one of the world s outstanding gamblers too This in turn resulted in a resilient attitude in response to misfortune and bad luck in the course of a long and turbulent history the Chinese have sooner or later overthrown by violence every single major dynasty that have misruled them 4 253 261 Two potential origins of the phrase have been advanced depending on the capitalization of the term Either the phrase is written with the pejorative capitalized term Chinaman and Chinaman s chance refers to the treatment of Chinese immigrants to America in the 1800s or the neutral lower case chinaman is used instead with chinaman s chance referring to the fragility of fine porcelain Chinese immigration edit When Federal officers mete out such treatment to a man previously established to be an American citizen we can well understand the bitter irony of the current phrase A Chinaman s chance Justices Denman Stephens and Healy Chun Kock Quon v Proctor 1937 5 nbsp Chinese gold miners using rocker boxes One early potential origin for the phrase is from the California Gold Rush of 1849 The travel time for news of the gold rush to reach China was quite long and by the time Chinese immigrants arrived to prospect many of the rich mines were already claimed These Chinese immigrants who missed out had to work with only those lands which had already been exploited or which were rejected by others meaning these late arriving immigrants had a slim chance of success The historical record however indicates that many Chinese combined efforts with each other and did very well in the goldfields introducing mining techniques then unknown to non Chinese 6 104 107 Alternatively in 1920 the phrase was explained to describe the low probability for the Chinese in America to make a fortune at gold mining Although there were Chinese in the gold mining camps soon after the news broke they were extremely unpopular and the slightest excuse was sufficient to warrant their being beaten or chased away consequently they had no chance to get a real foothold to establish mining rights 7 nbsp Chinese laborers replacing the trestle at Secret Town with an earthen embankment 1877 Another potential origin of the phrase Chinaman s chance traces it to the high probability of death or injury during the construction of the U S transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s 2 During its construction unstable bottles of nitroglycerine were used for blasting Chinese workers reportedly were lowered over cliffs by rope and boatswain s chairs to set the nitroglycerine in place In this work if they were not lifted back up before the blast serious injury or death would result 8 Although these accounts of construction techniques have been debunked as mythmaking after the work was complete 9 10 it is undeniable that many Chinese immigrants died while building the railroad According to a newspaper article published in 1870 20 000 pounds 9 100 kg of bones from Chinese railroad workers were shipped to China for interment The article calculated the bones were from 1 200 workers 11 It is estimated that 20 000 Chinese immigrants worked to build the railroad 12 nbsp Rock Springs Massacre 1885 published in Harper s Weekly A third possibility is in reference to the low probability of a fair verdict in murder trials with a Chinese victim assisted partly by California state law first issued in 1850 13 The conviction of a white man for murdering a Chinese miner was overturned in the case of People v Hall 1854 14 In that ruling the California Supreme Court expanded the definition of black person in the California Crimes and Punishments Act of 1850 15 to exclude all races other than the Caucasian throwing out evidence provided by a Chinese immigrant s testimony 13 The law was amended in 1863 to explicitly exclude testimony from witnesses of certain races No Indian or person having one half or more of Indian blood or Mongolian or Chinese shall be permitted to give evidence in favor or against any white person 16 In a second case People v Brady 1870 the Supreme Court of California upheld the statute against the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution stating the power of testifying is neither an object of desire nor in any sense a right 17 New evidence laws were passed in 1872 superseding the prior rules and restoring the right to testify to Chinese Americans 18 Bill Bryson believed the phrase could be traced to the Rock Springs Massacre of 1885 referring to the forced expulsion of Chinese American residents whose chances of living were slimmed by the dual threat of armed mobs and freezing overnight temperatures 19 Amy Uyematsu also related it to the Rock Springs writing that the phrase had grim and bitter reality if the fair treatment of Chinese immigrants was impossible 3 In 1887 as many as 34 Chinese gold miners were massacred along the Snake River in Oregon by a gang of white horse thieves typical of the anti Chinese violence in Oregon of the time Three were arrested and tried for the massacre in Oregon but none were convicted 20 Delicate chinaware edit nbsp Tad Dorgan used the phrase in a 1914 comic The lower case term chinaman also has a non pejorative interpretation as a dealer of porcelain from China the chinaware they sold were notoriously delicate and fragile 21 Based on this several scholars have advanced a hypothesis that chinaman s chance refers to the low probability of avoiding broken chinaware during the long journey from their sources in China to chinaman shops in Europe 21 22 William Morris advanced the lower case chinaman hypothesis in 1957 stating the phrase a chinaman s chance accurately describes the odds against a merchant of china if he were to find a bull in his chinashop 22 In addition Peter Tamony concluded in 1965 the phrase can be traced back to the sport of boxing in early 19th century Great Britain Tamony s hypothesis is based on terms such as having a crockery chin or a china chin which characterize some pugilists as delicate and fragile An equivalent American idiom would be to say a fighter has a glass jaw 21 Tamony stated the lowercase phrase chinaman s chance was transferred to the United States via Australia but based this on his belief the first use of the phrase was from 1914 in a cartoon drawn by Tad Dorgan and published in the San Francisco Call 23 In fact the phrase was already in use by 1893 24 25 and as Kenneth Porter wrote in a Western Folklore article published in 1966 in American usage Chinaman s chance is clearly a reference to the little chance a native of China would have in any controversy with white Americans Americans who use the expression if they consider its origin at all probably associate it with the anti Chinese agitation of the 1870 s and 80 s 26 Under this interpretation the phrase may have originated as local slang in California and spread via the journalism of William Randolph Hearst and his flagship newspaper San Francisco Examiner in the 1890s 21 Usage history editChinaman s chanceIt means very little likelihood of success And if you use the term it means you have very little likelihood of brain activity Michael Coard 2012 Philadelphia column 27 In describing a potential race between a bicyclist and a thoroughbred racing horse in 1893 The World quoted a horse expert as saying The bicyclist would win sure I don t think the horse would have a Chinaman s chance to beat him 24 The capitalized term Chinaman had become thoroughly entwined with anti Chinese racial animus by the early 20th century and the phrase Chinaman s chance carried the same pejorative connotations alluding to the low probability of success resulting from the endless social barriers that were thrown up against Chinese immigrants seeking opportunities to advance 28 In 2018 Governor of West Virginia Jim Justice used the phrase Chinaman s chance to describe the low probability of passing a natural gas tax 29 for which he received criticism 30 Cultural usage edit nbsp Children s Valentine s Day greeting card featuring the phrase c 1930s Literature edit A Chinaman s Chance 1919 short story by American writer Harold Lamb 31 Chinaman s Chance 1938 short story mystery by American writer Maxwell Grant Asia is rising against me I haven t got a chinaman s chance I d better consider my national resources Allen Ginsberg America 1956 32 Chinaman s Chance 1978 thriller novel by American writer Ross Thomas 33 A Chinaman s Chance poem in Dwarf Bamboo 1987 by Chinese American poet Marilyn Chin 34 Nonfiction edit Chinaman s Chance 1932 short recollection by American writer Arthur Mason 35 Chinaman s Chance 1940 autobiography by No yong Park 36 Chinaman s Chance The Life Story of Elmer Wok Wai 1969 memoir cowritten with Veta Griggs 37 A Chinaman s chance the Chinese on the Rocky Mountain mining frontier 2000 narrative by Professor Liping Zhu 38 A Chinaman s chance one family s journey and the Chinese American dream 2004 memoir by Eric Liu 39 Art edit Not a Chinaman s Chance 1893 94 wax sculpture 40 and painting 25 by Charles Marion Russell Not a Chinaman s Chance 2007 song released by Steve Missal on the album American Stories Through Song 41 A Chinaman s Chance A Choy s Chance 2019 six movement concerto by Jon Jang paying tribute to the legacy of historian Philip Choy 42 Film edit The phrase a Chinaman s chance is used in the following films Way Out West 1930 dir Fred Niblo by William Haines as Windy Bad Girl 1931 dir Frank Borzage by the actor James Dunn as Eddie Collins Chinaman s Chance 1933 dir Ub Iwerks an animated short featuring Flip the Frog 43 You Only Live Once 1937 dir Fritz Lang Lost Horizon 1937 dir Frank Capra Frontier Marshal 1939 dir Allan Dwan by Randolph Scott as Wyatt Earp to Cesar Romero as Doc Holliday The People vs Dr Kildare 1941 dir Harold S Bucquet by Alma Kruger as Molly Byrd Silver Bullet 1985 dir Dan Attias by Gary Busey as Uncle Red Dragon The Bruce Lee Story 1993 dir Rob Cohen when Bruce Lee portrayed by Jason Scott Lee is on his way to America in a ship Railroad to Hell A Chinaman s Chance 2008 dir Aki Aleong See also editBuckley s chanceReferences edit Wilson Kenneth G 1993 The Columbia Guide to Standard American English New York Columbia University Press ISBN 0 231 06989 8 Retrieved 23 June 2022 An echo of the taboo word Chinaman is in the idiom now much suppressed as well a Chinaman s chance which means no chance at all a b House Concurrent Resolution 90 Requesting government agencies and tourism entities and related businesses to support efforts to use the official name of the island of Mokoliʻi Twenty third Legislature State of Hawaii House of Representatives March 2005 WHEREAS the phrase not a Chinaman s chance was coined during that period and the usage of it reflected the unfortunate reality that to decision makers in business and government the lives and safety of working people in general and the lives and safety of Chinese laborers in particular were not of great concern a b Uyematsu Amy October 1969 The Emergence of Yellow Power in America Gidra Vol 1 no 17 Retrieved 16 June 2022 Perhaps surviving Asians learned to live in silence for even if the victims of such attacks tried to go to court to win protection they could not hope to get a hearing The phrase not a Chinaman s chance had a grim and bitter reality Bloodworth Dennis 1967 22 Chinaman s Chance The Chinese looking glass New York Farrar Straus and Giroux pp 249 261 LCCN 67 22047 Chun Kock Quon v Proctor F 2d 326 329 9th Cir 1937 Zhu Liping 15 February 2000 5 The Quest for Riches A Chinaman s Chance The Chinese on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier University Press of Colorado pp 97 128 ISBN 978 0 87081 575 1 Retrieved 28 April 2018 Although they adopted Western tools the Chinese also created new types of equipment often incorporating Chinese agricultural devices into their placering kits For instance in California Chinese miners were the first to improve rockers which separated rocks from sand The new device was immediately adopted by all western miners With their unique mining methods and extreme patience the Chinese often distinguished themselves from the other miners Most Chinese miners often worked in companies of ten to fifteen Incredibly patient the Chinese miners would leave no stone unturned At every step they tried to recover as much gold as possible Some contemporary observers realized that the Chinese miners were superior to white miners in saving fine grains of gold under difficult circumstances Chinese miners scavenged exhausted placers often with surprisingly good returns They usually reaped profits from these places which were no longer attractive to whites who spurned slow rewards A Chinaman s Chance The Northwestern Miller Vol 124 no 5 Minneapolis Minnesota The Miller Publishing Company November 3 1920 p 586 Retrieved 28 April 2018 Fuchs Chris April 24 2019 150 years ago Chinese railroad workers risked their lives in pursuit of the American dream NBC News Retrieved 15 June 2022 Chinese laborers did not use bosun s chairs and hanging wicker baskets in the railroad construction at Cape Horn PDF Colfax Area Historical Society September 2018 Retrieved 15 June 2022 Strobridge Edson T 2001 The Central Pacific Railroad and the Legend of Cape Horn 1865 1866 Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum Retrieved 15 June 2022 Bones in Transit Weekly Colusa Sun July 2 1870 Retrieved 5 May 2020 Kennedy Lesley May 10 2019 Building the Transcontinental Railroad How 20 000 Chinese Immigrants Made It Happen History Retrieved 15 May 2022 a b Chin Gabriel J 2013 A Chinaman s Chance in Court Asian Pacific Americans and Racial Rules of Evidence PDF UC Irvine Law Review 3 4 965 990 Retrieved 28 April 2018 People v Hall 4 Cal 399 Cal 1854 California State Assembly An Act concerning Crimes and Punishments First Session of the Legislature Statutes of California State of California Ch 99 14 p 229 No black or mulatto person or Indian shall be permitted to give evidence in favor of or against any white person Every person who shall have one eight part or more of Negro blood shall be deemed a mulatto and every person who shall have one half of Indian blood shall be deemed an Indian direct URL California State Assembly An Act to amend an Act concerning Crimes and Punishments passed April sixteenth eighteen hundred and fifty Fourteenth Session of the Legislature Statutes of California State of California Ch 70 p 69 direct URL People v Brady 40 Cal 198 Cal 1870 California State Assembly An Act to amend an Act entitled an Act to regulate proceedings in criminal cases passed May first eighteen hundred and fifty one Nineteenth Session of the Legislature Statutes of California State of California Ch 371 p 528 direct URL Loewen James 2005 3 The Great Retreat Sundown Towns A Hidden Dimension of American Racism New York City The New Press p 51 ISBN 1 56584 887 X Retrieved 28 April 2018 Stratton David H 1983 The Snake River Massacre of Chinese Miners 1887 In Smith Duane A ed A Taste of the West essays in honor of Robert G Athearn University of Colorado Press pp 109 129 ISBN 9780871086419 Retrieved 25 April 2018 a b c d Tamony Peter July 1965 Western Words Chinaman s Chance Western Folklore 24 3 Western States Folklore Society 202 205 doi 10 2307 1498079 JSTOR 1498079 a b Morris William July 16 1957 Words Wit amp Wisdom San Bernardino Sun Retrieved 16 June 2022 Tad April 30 1914 Indoor Sports San Francisco Call That s what I call handling a lobster The poor boob hasn t got a Chinaman s chance a b Horse or Wheelman The World October 3 1893 p 6 Retrieved 15 June 2022 a b Not a Chinaman s Chance Yale University Art Gallery Retrieved 28 April 2018 Porter Kenneth January 1966 Notes and Queries Still More Ethnic and Place Names as Derisive Adjectives Western Folklore 25 1 Western States Folklore Society 37 40 doi 10 2307 1498597 JSTOR 1498597 Coard Michael March 13 2012 Pop Language Quiz Racist or Not Racist Philadelphia Retrieved 23 June 2022 Zimmer Ben April 26 2018 Chinaperson and the Sanitization of a Racial Slur The Atlantic Retrieved 23 June 2022 Justice government leaders ask PEIA to hold off on changes West Virginia Education Association April 2018 Mistich Dave February 12 2020 Gov Justice Defends Calling Opposing Girls Basketball Team Coaches Thugs WV Public Broadcasting Retrieved 15 June 2022 Lamb H A May 24 1919 A Chinaman s Chance Argosy and Railroad Man s Magazine Vol CVIII no 2 The Frank A Munsey Company pp 253 263 Ginsberg Allen 1988 1956 America Collected Poems 1947 1980 Harper Perennial ISBN 978 0 06 091494 3 Retrieved December 7 2011 Thomas Ross 1978 Chinaman s Chance New York Simon and Schuster ISBN 978 1 58288 259 8 Retrieved 15 June 2022 Chin Marilyn 1987 A Chinaman s Chance Dwarf Bamboo Greenfield Center New York The Greenfield Review Press pp 29 30 ISBN 0 912678 71 2 Retrieved 15 June 2022 Mason Arthur October 1932 Chinaman s Chance Blue Book Vol 55 no 6 The McCall Company pp 143 147 Park No Yong 1943 Chinaman s Chance Boston Massachusetts Meador Publishing Company Griggs Veta 1969 Chinaman s Chance The Life Story of Elmer Wok Wai Exposition Press Zhu Liping 2000 A Chinaman s chance the Chinese on the Rocky Mountain mining frontier University Press of Colorado ISBN 978 0 87081 575 1 Retrieved 15 June 2022 Liu Eric 2004 A Chinaman s chance one family s journey and the Chinese American dream New York New York PublicAffairs ISBN 978 1 61039 195 5 Retrieved 15 June 2022 Not a Chinaman s Chance Amon Carter Museum of Art Retrieved 28 April 2018 American Stories Through Song at AllMusic Retrieved 3 August 2022 Old First Concerts presents Jon Jangtet A Chinaman s Chance A Choy s Chance OldFirstConcerts org May 10 2019 Retrieved 15 June 2022 Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine Flip The Frog Chinaman s Chance YouTube External links edit nbsp Look up chinaman s chance in Wiktionary the free dictionary The Chinese Question political cartoon print 1871 Luke Bettie 7 October 2010 Reader s Corner The top 10 lessons on life and politics that I learned from my brother Wing Luke Northwest Asian Weekly Retrieved 28 April 2018 Wing was kind of like a Chinese Will Rogers a political rock star During his campaign someone said to Wing You don t have a Chinaman s chance Wing shot back On the contrary I am the only one who has a Chinaman s chance Liu Eric July 21 2014 When to Use Ethnic Slurs A Guide The Atlantic Treguer Pascal October 19 2018 A hypothesis as to the origin of the phrase a Chinaman s chance word histories blog Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Chinaman 27s chance amp oldid 1221304444, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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