Chinaman's chance

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.

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

Meaning

The idiom is defined as meaning "no chance at all" in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English.[1]: 94  The phrase is sometimes used in extended form as not a Chinaman's chance or not a Chinaman's chance in hell, indicating that the lives and safety of Chinese immigrants were not valued[2] or fair treatment of Chinese immigrants was impossible.[3]

Potential origins

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)[4]

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]".[5]: 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
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. 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] 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
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

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

Literature
  • 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
  • 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

Film

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

See also

References
  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. "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. 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. Chun Kock Quon v. Proctor, F.2d 326, 329 (9th Cir. 1937).
  5. Bloodworth, Dennis (1967). "22: Chinaman's Chance". The Chinese looking glass. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 249–261. LCCN 67-22047.
  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. 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. Tamony, Peter (July 1965). "Western Words: Chinaman's Chance". Western Folklore. Western States Folklore Society. 24 (3): 202–205. doi:10.2307/1498079. JSTOR 1498079.
  22. 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. "Horse or Wheelman?". The World. October 3, 1893. p. 6. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  25. "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. Western States Folklore Society. 25 (1): 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 Wayback Machine: "Flip The Frog: Chinaman's Chance". YouTube.
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