The American origins of the Chinese takeout font

Chop suey fonts are a subcategory of so-called "ethnic" display fonts, and are a unique American invention with roots in the 170 year history of Chinese migrants in United States.

If you enjoyed this video, please consider supporting the great work at Welcome to Chinatown. https://www.welcometochinatown.com/
  / welcome.to.chinatown  

Special thanks to Raven Mo for her contribution to the original research, title dividers and personal perspective shared in this video. https://ravenmo.info/
  / ravenmodesign  

---

0:00 This lettering will look familiar... unless you're from China.
1:06 What is a Chop Suey font?
1:35 Typographic Stereotypes from repeat usage
2:02 Typographic Stereotypes with design intent
3:04 How Chinese writing works, compared with Chop Suey fonts
4:44 Where it started, how it began
5:22 Some historical context
6:41 Chinatown's theatrical reinvention
7:21 How exclusion propelled Chinese restaurant expansion
9:16 Repetition trumps authenticity
10:05 Why Chinese restaurants perpetuated this trope
10:57 Can a font be racist?
11:17 The type equivalent of a fake foreign accent
12:16 Or... don't be a hack?
13:14 Where are things headed?
13:50 Chinese food is more than takeout food
15:11 Corporate high-end dining
15:42 Embassy restaurants
16:06 New-school Chinese American restaurants
16:45 An expression of Chinese identities
17:54 TienMin Liao's multi-script typography
19:02 How to support Chinatown's survival

---

Sources and further resources:
   • Writing Systems of the World | Abjads...  
   • The dark history of the Chinese Exclu...  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Maî...
https://www.printmag.com/design-resou...
https://99percentinvisible.org/episod...
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/chop-su...
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article...
http://fontdata.com/american-typeface....
https://scholars.org/brief/untold-sto...
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
https://apebhconference.files.wordpre...
  / heres-what-chinese-takeout-menus-can-teach...  
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3576038/
  / bilingual-lettering-2-observation  
https://typeji.com/MultiScript

Type 1 typographic sterotypes:
https://linedandunlined.com/archive/n...
https://firstamericanartmagazine.com/...

Plus:
   • Why the US photographed its own WWII ...  
https://www.vox.com/videos/2019/3/26/...
https://fortune.com/2020/06/21/chines...
https://www.mocanyc.org/
https://margaretcho.com/2012/03/21/ch...
https://exhibits.lapl.org/chinatown/

Images:
http://menus.nypl.org/menus
https://www.foodanddrink.amdigital.co...
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/c...
https://tessa.lapl.org/cdm/search/col...
https://www.loc.gov/collections/genthe/
https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/
https://californiarevealed.org/

🛒My YouTube Gear https://kit.co/timesnewboman/youtube-...
🛒Amazing AI Upscaling https://topazlabs.com/ref/1205/

Music from Artlist and Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/referra...