Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 558 Dragon History

"I was disembarking in San Francisco and taking the train to New England. The enthusiasm of the children was very strange. I just got off the ship and I was on the train again, and I didn't feel tired. I watched the grassland and farmland beside the tracks and was very absorbed. Train crashes, robberies and shooting incidents, the ride was perfect.

   We first heard gunshots, and then the women and children began to cry in fright. Then two ferocious robbers came with revolvers. We all fell to the ground in terror. They robbed, shot the train driver, and fled on horseback, only by telegraphing the train company to send another driver. "

   Ronald returned to his hotel in New Haven and began to carefully read the book written by his ancestor Li Enfu. It turned out that in 1873, under the arrangement of Rong Hong, the first Chinese graduate of Yale, he came to America to study in America from China.

   This was published in the newspaper after his marriage, recalling his childhood article, which was very popular after publication, and was finally published as a novel.

   "It's as if the imagination is a little richer, and the train robber is too bizarre." Ronald continued to read after evaluating the plot.

   "I was put in high school in Springfield, and everyone was put in a family, and we all stayed and boarded with that family. A doctor named Henry Vaille was my host family.

  When the train arrived at Springfield Station, Sarah, the doctor's wife who came to pick me up, hugged me and kissed me passionately, the first kiss I remember. It doesn't mean my mother doesn't love me, it's just that we express it differently. I will always remember this kiss. "

  No wonder my great-grandfather started, everyone's middle name is abbreviated as a V, which is probably Li Enfu's tradition, all boys' middle names use Vaille to commemorate his unforgettable kiss.

  Ronald figured out the origin of his middle name initials. No wonder, starting from his great-grandfather, all the men in the family used a middle name.

Putting away all the family documents carefully, Ronald returned the car in New Haven, bought a bus ticket, and returned to the Port Building Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue in New York, immediately called a taxi and went home Find your aunt.

   "Auntie, guess what I found? My ancestors came from China." Ronald excitedly put the document down and reported his findings to Aunt Karen.

   "Oh, is it?" Auntie took out cookies and coffee as a treat.

   "What, you knew it before?"

   "Know a little", Aunt Karen went to the interior and took out a wedding photo of herself and her dead husband. On it, her parents stood beside her aunt and her husband, smiling happily.

   "Your mother and I fell in love with your father and Steve respectively. But Steve and I were married on Staten Island, and your parents did get married in Massachusetts."

   "Why?" Ronald wondered.

"It's ridiculous to think about it now, but in the 1950s, states in the United States had not abolished anti-intermarriage laws. In southern states, it was a felony that would go to court and annul marriage. Although New York doesn't have this law, Stanton Conservative forces on the island are also less likely to accept intermarriage between Chinese and white women.

  If it is discovered that your father is of Chinese descent and he marries your mother, we are afraid of trouble. Your mother was one of the prettiest young women in Totville at the time, married to an out-of-state man whom many local boys swore to compete with. "

   "Is it so exaggerated?" Ronald did not expect that racial discrimination in America was so serious before the Civil Rights Movement.

   "Yes, Staten Island had slaves before the Civil War. So to be safe, they went to your father's hometown, Massachusetts, the most open and tolerant state in America."

   "Oh, then why didn't you tell me before?" Ronald heard that he had to avoid conservative areas when he got married, and he was also glad that he was not reborn in the 1950s and 1960s.

"I have always agreed with Dr. King's proposition that a person should be judged by his talent and achievements, not by ethnicity and skin color. Look at you, your hair is dark blond and your eyes are amber, even if your great ancestors You are Chinese, and you are only one-sixteenth of your bloodline.

  Amelica is not about ethnicity, but about personal struggle. You are of Chinese descent and you are of English descent. Your mother's side is French, German, maybe Scandinavian and Irish. Where are you from? "

   That's true, Ronald nodded to be taught, "I'm an American."

   The next day, Ronald's interest continued and he went directly to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue to find the deeds of his great ancestor, Li Enfu. Although I don't have much Chinese blood, I was a Chinese in my previous life. When I came across such a twisted and bizarre story, I wanted to find out. This real incident that happened to me can almost be made into a movie.

  "YanPhouLee", using Gaozu's English name as a key word, in the library's classification card, I really found some of his previous deeds.

   In 1887, the year of his wedding, in addition to publishing his first novel, he published a very powerful article in a Boston newspaper.

   This is a speech given by Li Enfu at Yale University, which is directly aimed at the Chinese anti-Chinese movement that was raging on the West Coast at that time. At that time, in the Chinese settlements in San Francisco, the white people clamored for the slogan "Chinese must go". The legislation did not accept Chinese immigrants for naturalization, and they had to be driven away and returned to their hometowns.

Li Enfu put forward a tit-for-tat speech that "the Chinese must stay", pointing out the great contribution of the Chinese to the construction of the railway across America, and also pointed out that the Chinese are a civilized race with a long and great history, as well as philosophers like Confucius teach. The full text was published in the newspapers of the time.

   It is said that a senator from New York State happened to hear Li Enfu's speech at the Central Church in New Haven. He joked that Li Enfu had to go, otherwise he would not be able to run for the Senate with such an orator.

   In the introduction of the author of the article, some resumes of Li Enfu are also mentioned.

  He was in a public high school, and he took the first place in English every year, and the school was also an important player on the baseball team. At that time, Rong Hong, who was in charge of studying in the United States, saw that he had a talent for language, and specially arranged for him to go to Yale, and shouted for the improvement of the treatment of Chinese in China.

  When he first came to the United States, he happened to encounter the famous train robber Jesse James in San Francisco, killing and injuring more than 30 people. Fortunately, the students are safe and sound, otherwise we would not be able to hear such a wonderful speech today.

   "It seems that you really encountered a train robber?" Ronald then realized that the great ancestor did not write a novel, but a real thing. Then the value of this book needs to be re-evaluated. Perhaps it is Li Enfu's real historical memories.

   In another Boston Globe report, first published in 1890, Ronald also found reports of the divorce of Li Enfu and Elizabeth Jerome.

In New England, especially in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the folk customs are relatively free and open. When Li Enfu married a young lady from Jerome's family, the people were not influenced by the exclusion of Chinese from the West Coast, and there was too much discrimination against Li, but the couple went out. Often surrounded by people.

   But after Li Enfu wrote this article against Chinese exclusion, he was hated by conservative forces. When he went to the scene in San Francisco to investigate the deportation of Chinese workers and was about to write a series of reports, Elizabeth's mother had a quarrel with him, and the two eventually divorced.

Jerome's family has only one daughter, Elizabeth, so it is unusual to publish her daughter's divorce statement in the newspaper, and arrange her own will, so that the Quaker priest will witness, after death, the property of one hundred thousand dollars (about eight One million in the early 1900s) for her daughter to support a pair of children.

   After staying in New York for several days, Ronald went to the library every day to find traces of his ancestors. Finally his agent couldn't take it anymore and called and caught Ronald.

"Ronald, are you writing a new script? I heard your aunt say you go to the library every day?" Nisita received several new scripts from Ronald's nominated director, hoping that Ronald, who was stranded in New York, would hurry up Back to Los Angeles.

"Aha, no. I did find my father's family information. My grandfather, and great-grandfather, I found their history, and I've been looking for their history these two days. You know what? My grandfather and Great-grandfathers, all fighter pilots, died on the European battlefield."

   "Hehehe, that would be very appropriate, Katzenberg from Paramount called me personally. He asked someone to write a script for a Navy fighter pilot and wanted to invite you to guide me."

   "Oh, World War I or World War II?" Ronald recalled that when he was shooting a Saab commercial, he searched for a long time before he found some aerial combat films shot in the later period of World War II.

   "No, for the latest fighter jets, come to Los Angeles, we'll talk to Katzenberg as soon as possible."

"Okay, I'll go back right now. Also... I've recently been interested in the history of Japanese and Chinese, can you help me find it, are there any novels or dramas of these ethnic groups in Asia that are suitable for adaptation? "

   "Why? Are Asian stories trending now? What are you hearing in New York?" Nisita was keen.

  Ronald was about to tell him about his Chinese ancestry, remembered the discriminatory words of white conservatives said by his aunt, and swallowed it back.

"Well, the Chen Guoren case in Detroit, the Chinese here in New York are marching again, and the Japanese are also participating. The momentum is very big, and the murderer is going to be prosecuted in federal court. I'm thinking, will this be a hot spot? And' The image of Dragon Power Kid's Master Miyagi is good, and I heard from Miss Jodie Foster that she was also impressed by the role, maybe it's a hot topic too?"

   "What, you met Judy? Well, come back as soon as possible, I will help you find the novel as soon as possible."

   (end of this chapter)