Jue Quon Tai, Part 1: Chinese Princess, All-American Girl

From the George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of introducing you to Jue Quon Tai, the chain smoking, slang talking, 19-year-old Chinese princess turned vaudeville singer. Although practically unknown today, Jue Quon Tai was evidently quite a sensation when she made her debut in 1915. Her first year in vaudeville is very well documented in newspapers of the time. Because the articles present such a fascinating look at how she was received by the American press, I've decided to transcribe and post them here in their entirety as primary material for further research. It's a lot to read, but if you are at all curious about the early history of Chinese American performers, I think you will find it worth your while.

Reading the articles together, in the order of their appearance, you can see the tension between Jue Quon Tai's identity as a Chinese American and her persona — whether created by herself, her manager, or the press — as an "authentic" Chinese performer on the American stage. By the end of 1915, Quon Tai's story had evolved into a PR-friendly fairy tale about a Chinese princess who fled to America to escape an arranged marriage. Whatever the truths that may have inspired the various newspaper accounts of her life, one fact became increasingly obscured: that Jue Quon Tai was an American citizen.

The first article about Quon Tai that I've been able to find is this one, filed from her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Although it says that she was born in China, I've seen several passenger lists that clearly indicate she was an American citizen. (In the book Yellowface, author Krystyn R. Moon claims that Jue Quon Tai was born in Los Angeles, but I've been unable to confirm this.)

Wealthy Chinese Girl Makes Debut
on Stage With Wonderful Wardrobe

Portland, Ore., April 10 — Jue Quon Tai, a 19-year-old full-blooded Chinese girl, has come from Portland to the Orpheum at San Francisco for a tryout in Frisco during April. Whether Jue Quon Tai makes good or not during her first attempt makes little difference, as she is the daughter of the richest Chinese on the Pacific coast, born in China, but educated in Portland. Her stage training has been under the direction of R.J. Powell, whose wife accompanies the little Chinese girl on her trip south.

Jue Quon Tai is equipped with a wonderful singing voice. It is a mezzo-soprano of rich timbre. Her act opens full stage with a Chinese garden set. Tai appears as a girl, wearing a gown that was imported for her by her rich dad, and that required more than a year to complete. She changes into a mandarin suit and sings as a boy. This suit has been in her family for years, and represents the fourth order of rank below that of the emperor. Both of her songs in this set are Chinese versions of popular American airs.

She closes in one, with a plush drop, and in conventional American evening gown. Her songs here are English.

The father of Jue Quon Tai has not hesitated on expenses of equipping the act of his little daughter, and it is doubtful if any woman ever went to a stage career with such a wonderful wardrobe as has this little Chinese.

Back of it all is the faith of her American friends that Jue Quon Tai will make good. Her voice is under perfect control, and her tones are of rare sweetness.

—Galveston County Daily News, April 11, 1915

A week later, Quon Tai received the following notice in the Oakland Tribune.

When a pretty Chinese girl sings an American ragtime song, and American ragtime is next handled by an American artist in that sort of music, one gets a pretty fair idea of the different things that can be done with syncopated melody — and shoulders. Wherefore the "Ragtime Duel" at the Pantages between Jue Juon Tai [sic], fair Chinese singer, and Carl McCullough, noted musical comedy star, is more than interesting. Miss Tai, who is very pretty, is a charming singer, and uses all the tricks known to the American artist. McCullough, late star of "The Pink Lady," is also an artist. The battle at the Pantages yesterday was a draw.

—Oakland Tribune, April 19, 1915

Quon Tai seems to have caused quite a sensation. Three days later she was hailed in the Tribune as "the most beautiful Chinese girl in the world".

EXCELS WESTERN BEAUTY?
ARTISTS RAVE OVER JUE QUON TAI
ORIENT'S DAUGHTER FAIR

Jue Quon Tai, Chinese Girl of Oakland, Who Has Been "Discovered" as the Ideal Impressionist Type and Is Pronounced the Most Beautiful Chinese Woman in the World

Poster girls in Greek garb?

Never!

Poster girls a la Corregio?

Passe!

The Chinese girl has come into her own as the ideal type for the new style of art! And the ideal poster girl of the world has been found in Oakland.

She is Jue Quon Tai, declared by artists to be the most beautiful Chinese girl in the world — and she's further declared to have the type of features the impressionist artists have been groping toward for years! She's the very hidden sanctuary of beauty, say the critics — the ultimate in ideal form and feature, from the artist's standpoint.

"I consider Miss Tai one of the most remarkable examples of adaptable model I have ever seen," declared Henry Cutting, New York artist, now visiting the Exposition. "By that I mean that one could use her for a model for any subject, from a Madonna to a bacchante. Her face is one of the most wonderful I have ever seen!"

Miss Tai, however, is not going in for art, but is a singer of note. She has been invited to appear at the "Songs of Other Days" concert to be given as the first musical event of the Municipal Auditorium, under the auspices of the Rotary Club and Alameda County Music Teachers' Association. A great chorus of 350 voices and a number of noted soloists are to be heard in the old-time songs dear to all. Miss Tai has been invited to sing in some of these, and also some Chinese folk songs, that the two types of music may be compared.

—Oakland Tribune, April 22, 1915

In another article from the Oakland Tribune (May 9, 1915), it was noted that Jue Quon Tai had been signed to perform on the Pantages vaudeville circuit after her debut in Oakland at the Orpheum-Tribune's "Discovery Night". On April 28, 1915, she was already on the road and playing at the Pantages theater in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here is a review of her performance.

Jue Quon Tai, a Cantonese beauty, is as captivating as she is unusual, and her title of "The Chinese Nightingale" is well merited. Possessed of a wonderfully sweet voice, and with perfect enunciation, she charms the audience both with her singing and her charming personality. Her act is beautifully staged in the coloring of the Orient, and Miss Tai appears in marvelous costuming.

—Salt Lake Tribune, May 2, 1915

One week later, she was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the official starting point of the Pantages Circuit. It is here that Jue Quon Tai starts to be portrayed as a native Chinese girl ("highly Oriental") who "has been in America for some little time" rather than a Chinese American girl from Portland, Oregon.

Jue Quon Tai, Singer, Starts Tour Here

An unusual feature on next week's bill at the Pantages theatre will be the first appearance in America, of a renowned Chinese singer, Jue Quon Tai, who is known in the atmosphere of Oriental theatredom as the Canton beauty. Distinguished in her own native land, the appearance of Juo Quon Tai on the Pantages stage will make a feature as unusual as it is highly Oriental. The singer has been in America for some little time, and was engaged by Alexander Pantages at San Francisco for a tour of the circuit. Her first professional career of this continent, therefore, begins in Winnipeg next week.

—Manitoba Free Press, May 8, 1915

A few days into her engagement in Winnipeg, a more factual account of Jue Quon Tai appeared in the papers. I found her insistence on being referred to as Chinese American quite cool!

CHINESE-AMERICAN GIRL ON THE STAGE
MISS JUE QUONG TAI
Who is Headlining the Bill at Pantages This Week

It's a new sensation to meet a Chinese girl — "Chinese American," softly corrected Miss Jue Quong Tai — when one's previous acquaintance with the dwellers from the celestial kingdom has been limited to arguments with a blandly smiling but unyielding laundry man and Ah Sin of Bret Harte fame.

Miss Jue is headlining the bill at the Pantages this week, and not having been long before the footlights, four weeks to be exact, she has not yet had time to grow accustomed to the dazzle. "I like it fine," she drawled softly. "I always wanted to go on the stage, and here I am. My people not care to have me go, but I go just same. They say 'you are no good except as to spend money,' and I guess they're about right that I telegraph home five times already for money and they write 'you are cheaper at home'."

Native of San Francisco
Miss Jue is a native of San Francisco as is her mother, but her father hails direct from China. Miss Jue has visited in the land of her forefathers, but did not seem to have had much difficulty in tearing herself away. "Quong Tai is my given name." She proferred the information rather shyly. "My uncle think that up." It means 'may the next baby be a boy'." It appears this thoughtful uncle was very much put out at Miss Jue being a woman child, his brother already having one daughter and one son. "They dress me in boy's clothes for nine years," said Miss Jue, "and then another brother came." It was a great relief to hear that the uncle's disappointment was not life-long. Miss Jue was educated in San Francisco and later in New York. She is a tall, handsome girl with the heavy black tresses and the mystic eyes of her race. But she is a girl all through with a naive confidence in her own star and an undoubted enjoyment of life.

Father Was Opposed
"I had quite a time getting started in my profession," she confided. "My father was against it. But I said nothing and went ahead and ordered my scenery. When it came to pay, father was hot. But my mother came through, and after that I should worry."

Asked as to whether she had many calls from her own countrymen, Miss Jue laughed softly. "Why, yes; but they only come to tell me how terribly I am disgracing my people." Evidently this was another time that "she should worry."

—Winnipeg Free Press, May 13, 1915

A month and half later, Jue Quon Tai was being portrayed as a Chinese example of the Western world's "new woman". In spite of the Orientalist zingers tossed off by the writer, Quon Tai keeps it real: "I am going to sing... Chinese songs, maybe next time I come around. [The audience] will laugh, but the songs are very nice, only they don't understand them. The Chinese, you know, had opera thousands of years ago." Of course, most Americans didn't know that. They believed the Chinese were musically inferior. That's why audiences were so surprised to hear Jue Quon Tai sing American tunes in a "sweet voice" with "perfect enunciation".

CHINESE MAID ON STAGE WEARS AMERICAN DRESS;
SINGS CHINESE

Spokane, Wash., June 28 — The "new woman" movement in the house of Jue Sue did not bloom and blossom like a rose. For Papa Jue Sue was a mandarin in China, and though now engaged in business in America, clings, nevertheless, to many Oriental ways, particularly the Chinese custom regarding the duties and position of women.

Therefore, when Jue Quong Tai, daughter of Jue Sue, announced that she was going on the stage it created somewhat of a furor in the home of Jue Sue.

But Jue Quong Tai was tired of rich candies and chow fan, and chow men, and pineapple chop suey, and the laziness of an Oriental household. And, besides, her ways were the ways of the Occident, not of the Orient. She wore American clothes — gowns of the very latest design; and, moreover, she wore them well! And, too, she had an American education — having studied in a finishing school at Morristown, N.Y., after a course in the public schools of Portland, Ore.

So Jue Quong Tai, an Americanized product of Chinese aristocracy, went on the stage. Her face, which Artist Henry Cutting said was "the most wonderful I have ever seen," and a good singing voice, were her assets.

"Oh yes, I like it, in the spotlight," said she, in her dressing room. "It is very pleasant to stand out and know people are thinking that maybe you look nice and sing nice. Except sometimes they say I am not Chinese, but only an American girl dressed up. That is not nice.

"I don't sing real rag to them; no, I just sing nice little songs they know. Then I sing 'California' in Chinese. I could sing them ragtime in Chinese, but that would not be entertaining, only funny.

"But I am going to sing them Chinese songs, maybe next time I come around. Then they will laugh, but the songs are very nice, only they don't understand them. The Chinese, you know, had opera thousands of years ago."

Thus said Americanized China, eighteen years old, in a silvery sheath gown. Oh, the honorable ancestors would turn over in their mausoleums could they but see!

—Fort Wayne Sentinel, June 28, 1915

Well, the "honorable ancestors" weren't the only ones turning over in their mausoleums. It seems that White Americans also had trouble wrapping their brains around this audacious Chinese American girl, who refused to confine herself to the prevailing fantasies of East and West.

Stay tuned for more about the amazing Jue Quon Tai!