Lady in a Gilded Cage: The Chinese Lady at Stages

According to U.S. immigration records, in 1834 there were only a handful of Chinese in America. All were male and lived on the West Coast as traders or, mostly, manual laborers. On October 17, 1834, when the merchant ship Washington landed in New York City harbor, there were still only a handful – plus one – the first Chinese woman to step foot on American soil. Her name was Afong Moy, and Lloyd Suh’s evocative play The Chinese Lady, which receives a formidable production from Stages, is her story.

As a 14-year-old Chinese girl from Guangzhou, the only Chinese port where international trade was permitted, Afong was bought from her father by Salem, Massachusetts, merchant brothers Francis and Nathaniel G. Carnes in business with the ship’s captain Benj. Obear. It was a two-year contract with a promise to return Afong home. How they secured the deal and any details of the financial transactions are long lost, but Afong did not return home. Why they secured the deal, though, has not been lost.

Her arrival was craftily arranged with newspapers alerted to this strange cargo. Headlines flashed the news: “Unprecedented Novelty! The Chinese Lady.” It was a grand publicity stunt that Hearst or Pulitzer, and later her last exploiter P.T. Barnum, would later copy.