Chinese Historical Museum opened 25 years ago
The San Diego Chinese Historical Museum first opened at 404 Third Ave. downtown 25 years ago. The San Diego Chinese Historical Society and Museum is inviting the public to participate in a virtual celebration later this month featuring a tour of the Museum’s revamped permanent exhibition. From The San Diego Union-Tribune, Saturday Jan. 13, 1996:
CHINESE MUSEUM DEDICATED TODAY
A museum of Chinese history is being dedicated today in the old Chinese Quarters downtown.
Housed in the renovated, whitewashed old Chinese Mission building that was moved last year from two streets over, the museum at Third Avenue and J Street will be a place for education and contemplation, organizers said.
“There is such a diverse cultural mixture in San Diego that we feel it is important to share our background with others,” said Tom Hom, director of the Chinese Historical Society board.
“It makes better Americans of all of us.”
The Chinese Mission was saved from demolition by Hom’s wife, Dorothy, in 1988 while it was still at 645 First Ave., Hom said.
Transformed under a $1.2 million restoration project, the 69-year-old building now stands just a few doors from the San Diego Chinese Center in the newly designated Asian Pacific Historic Thematic District.
The mission is a one-story structure that was once used for religious training and as a social center.
The museum’s entry gate is dedicated to the Chinese republic’s founding father, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, a physician who led a revolution in 1911 to overthrew the last imperial dynasty.
The gate leads to an open area where a 7-foot, 3-inch, 1,000-pound bronze statue of Confucius stands guard.
Confucius, the patron saint of ancient Chinese culture, is revered for his nonpolitical and nonreligious teachings of harmony and social order that still permeate Chinese and other Asian cultures.
The statue is a gift from Taiwan’s Cultural Ministry to the city of San Diego, said the Chinese Historical Society’s president, Alexander Chuang.
Behind the masterpiece is lush landscaping that surrounds a running brook -- eventually to become home to colorful koi, fish that are symbols of good luck to the Chinese.
Although the museum’s interior is empty, displays are expected to arrive from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan over the next two to three months, Chuang said.
“We will not have antiques or art or objects on display, but there will be plenty of graphics and photographs,” Chuang said. “Our goal is to educate.”
Displays will include Chinese-American immigration into San Diego, which Hom said dates to 1849.
Immigrants worked in the gold fields of Julian and the backcountry before moving on to railroad labor, farming, and setting up their own businesses, he said. Some trickled through the then-loosely guarded border to Baja California.
Other displays will include traditional Chinese art and culture, minority and aboriginal art, and ancient technology and science.
Today’s dedication ceremony, which begins at 11 a.m., will be marked by a lion dance and fireworks. A 6:30 p.m. dinner and fashion show at the Marriott Hotel & Marina on Harbor Drive will end the day’s festivities.
HISTORICAL PHOTOS AND ARTICLES FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE ARCHIVES ARE COMPILED BY MERRIE MONTEAGUDO. SEARCH THE U-T HISTORIC ARCHIVES AT NEWSLIBRARY.COM/SITES/SDUB