We think perhaps it is meant to point to the idea of how Jesus, based on the way he died, is perceived differently from say a drug addict. Also in a way, since based on the Biblical tale, Jesus willingly went to his own death, perhaps such is what System of a Down is referring to when they mention “self-righteous suicide” in the chorus. When fighting for basic human rights, authentic cultural expression is a luxury.The bridge of the track also references a couple of lines from the Bible, specifically those uttered by Jesus while he was being crucified. It is not abundantly clear how exactly this ties into the overall theme as detailed above. Typographic caricature was one minor insult among many for first-wave migrants. It was part of an outsider-created makeover that helped their economic survival during a time when they were the targets of suspicion and discrimination. If typography is a voice, what is this type but a fake foreign accent?….Sadly, it also has an equally long history of being used to mock and otherize people of Asian descent. .While Chinese migrants spread the use of Chop suey fonts, this font was never created by them. The font is also considered to be a reflection of stereotypes and tropes. In an ironic twist, the Chinese Exclusion Act ended up propelling the spread of Chinese restaurants across the US. …Where the dragon gates and pagoda roofs went, the chop suey font was sure to follow. They built exaggerated Chinese architecture that referenced temples from the Song Dynasty, a period in Chinese history that occurred during the middle ages. For the redesign, an architect and an engineer were hired who had never visited China. …After the 1906 earthquake destroyed San Francisco’s Chinatown, it had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Albeit objectionable, the design did lead to an expansion of Chinese-owned businesses, particularly restaurants. However, with the turn of the 20th Century, these communities were redesigned by those who incorporated exaggerated versions of ancient architecture.
As a result, the round letters in chop suey look almost shattered somehow.ĭue to the incredibly racist underpinnings of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, many Chinese communities in the United States became very insular.
The most curved stroke is the G?u, “Hook” stroke, and it’s only very slightly bent, so there’s a fundamental difference in structure that doesn’t naturally translate. The Latin alphabet has many letters that are built from circular shapes – O, B, D, etcetera.Whereas we don’t draw circles in Hanzi at all. Lettering artist Linus Boman spoke with designer Raven Mo to learn more about the so-called “chop suey” font that has been used rather ubiquitously to identify food of Chinese originating in the United States.Ĭhop suey fonts are a subcategory of so-called “ethnic” display fonts, and are a unique American invention with roots in the 170 year history of Chinese migrants in United States.īoth Boman and Mo explain the origins of this particular font in 1883, how the font was formed by mimicking two separate strokes from Chinese lettering – Ná (forceful stroke) and Tí (raised stroke), and how the font itself does not make sense to Chinese readers due to the difference in respective alphabets.
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