Tongs in San Francisco (CA Chinese mafia in 1850s-1890s) bore a large role in Northern California after thousands of Chinese expatriates settled in the second half of the nineteenth century, first to mine gold and later to log forests, cultivate farms, and bestow the manpower to build much of its framework.

Though tongs were connotated a criminal organization by the United States government, they didn’t equate with crime, they were more so a group of ethnic minorities “outside of the legal and political structures of power” to the degree they develop “parallel power structures.” Being denied fair treatment or as much opportunity as other people, they were forced to engage in vice to enhance their system of complex associations — these were associations that provided legal, monetary, and protective services to a wave of laborers excluded from mainstream American institutions .
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Originally they modelled themselves after the basis of many ancient Chinese secret societies such as White Lotus Society, who worship Queen Mother, she was associated with the West and Taoism, though illustrations and inscriptions of her on oracle bone predates Taoism. She’s identified as the transcendent Buddha who never incarnated but exists without coming into being or transforming into non-being, but was nevertheless foretold to come down upon earth to gather all her children at the millennium into one family and guide them safely back to Heaven, the “home of the true emptiness”

* watch in 240p for full effect *

Peer into real accounts of the Kwong Duck Tong and other criminal elements in early San Francisco Chinatown with our specialist and investigate their traditions including medicine, religion and politics.

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In the San Francisco Chronicle, May 15, 1894
“another war of the tongs, or Chinese highbinders, has commenced and once started there is no telling where these feuds will end. For several weeks the tongs all over Chinatown have been playing war music in their rooms, and while the shrill, saw-like sound of the Chinese fiddle and the squeak of the Chinese clarinet are common sounds in the Mongolian quarter, those familiar with Chinatown and Chinese ways know that when the music continues until late in the night . . . some lodge of tongs is at work offering sacrifices to the god of war and preparing to wreak vengeance upon its enemies.”

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See New York City’s perspective in Tongs – Part 2: NYC Chinatown Wars. The NYC Chinatown Police Squad found it difficult to prevent such wars or to apprehend the highbinders who, when pursued, would disappear into Chinatown’s dark alleys. That’s when the police turned to harsh and unconstitutional methods.

0:00 – Prelude
1:10 – Chinese Underworld in America
4:20 – 19th Century Chinatown of San Francisco & the Four Families
7:18 – Original Secret Societies of China
12:33 – Outlaws of 18th Century China
14:15 – Rise of The Six Companies
15:23 – The Tongs of Chinatown
21:32 – National Expansion of the Tongs

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SOURCES
https://archive.org/details/chineseinsanfran00farw/page/n5/mode/2up
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Shame-of-the-city-When-Chinese-sex-slaves-were-12477457.php#photo-14797352
https://archive.org/details/hatchetmensto00dill/page/n1/mode/2up
https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/the-read/articles/the-tong-wars
https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Tongs_of_Chinatown
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_Wars
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/chinatown-tong-wars/
http://www.sfmuseum.org/sfpd/sfpd4.html
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2005534/tong-wars-how-new-yorks-1900s-chinatown-descended
https://oldnyc.blogspot.com/2008/08/chinatowns-tong-wars.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_Wing_Mock
FOOTAGE
Dirty Ho (1979), 2 Wondrous Tigers (1980), DAUGHTER OF THE TONG (1939), The Tong Man (1919), Hatchet Man (1932), Shaolin Drunk Monk (1982), Ruttmann Opis IV (1925), Zwanzig bilder aus dem lebe eine Komposition (1927), The Birth of the Robot (1936), The Play of Bubbles (1937), Glen Falls (1937), “Trip Down 1905” on Archive.org, https://archive.org/details/ssfCHNTALY
MUSIC
The Criminals 1976, Vengeance 1970, The Web of Death 1976, Five Fingers of Death 1972 and Shaw Brothers’ film scores

Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research
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Thank you and God bless you!

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