Chinese Heritage Tour of the American West

Tour participants might not have noticed it on Day 1 of the Chinese Heritage Tour of the American West. But food and water magically appeared at different intervals as the bus rolled down the highway.

Think sandwiches, cookies, Vitamin C candy, Chinese candy, chips, chocolate mints, fruit gummies, crackers, bottled water, peanuts and granola bars (different kinds). In fact, you might have forgotten that some of these munchies existed had you not sat down on the tour bus.

So what do these supplies look like?

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Members of the Chinese Heritage Tour started the Tuesday portions of the 2010 voyage by taking a guided tour of the Wing Luke Museum – including the boarding rooms and meeting area above the ground level.

The boarding rooms of the Freeman Hotel were a place where immigrants could stay before going to their next destination. Many Chinese immigrants would save their money and move to other areas in Seattle, such as Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley, when they could.

The Freeman Hotel also gave them a chance to be around those who spoke the Toisan dialect. The East Kong Yick Building – The Wing’s home – also has a community meeting room on the top floor.

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It’s fitting that the shirts participants on the Chinese Heritage Tour of the American West are wearing reflect an Asian American or Chinese theme.

Case in point: One tour member, a man, was wearing this shirt with three Chinese characters. It translates to: “Toisan man.” Toisan – or Taishan – is the area in southern China where many of the first Chinese immigrants to the United States once called home.

One youth sported a shirt from the International Examiner, a Seattle-based newspaper which focuses on Northwest Asian American communities.

There are hats, too.

“America” headed east Tuesday with a group of Chinese American history buffs, ready to pursue stories more than a century old from the Oregon hills.

Actually, the country itself was not moving on the highway.

The name sat on top of the chartered blue bus that left the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle and made its way east on Interstate 90, as the 2010 Chinese Heritage Tour of the American West - the moving part of it, that is - began.

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