Remarkably, the three nineteenth-century Chinese temples featured in this book, all located in former gold-mining towns in Northern California, are unique on this continent in that they are in their original locations, with their original furnishings. Those furnishings-sacred images, gilded carvings, censers, ritual implements, and gold-embroidered textiles-are culturally interesting, colorful, and as high in artistic quality as those found in many Asian temples and art museums.
Visit these beautifully furnished temples on the pages of the most authoritative book yet produced about the three oldest Chinese temples in the United States.
Written for average readers and illustrated with over 150 color images, Three Chinese Temples in California provides unprecedented access to these important religious buildings. Based on familiarity with Chinese folk religion and on original research into English and Chinese language documents and inscriptions, many of them previously neglected, the book offers new, insightful views of Chinese American temples, religious art, and worship.
The familiarity of authors Chuimei Ho and Bennet Bronson with Chinese temples in Asia and their knowledge of the specialized Chinese terms used in ritual inscriptions makes this volume a unique resource for anyone interested in American ethnic history, Asian culture, or exploring extraordinary places.
About the Author: Chuimei Ho holds a PhD in archaeology and art history from the University of London and is a founder and first president of the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago.
Bennet Bronson holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an emeritus curator of Asian archaeology and ethnology at Chicago's Field Museum.
Both have written extensively on the archaeology and history of the Chinese in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and North America, including the books Splendors of China's Forbidden City, Chinese in Chicago, 1870-1945; Chicago's Chinatown-A Visitor's Guide; and Coming Home in Gold Brocade: Chinese in Early Northwest America.
Their current research focuses on the Chinese in the Pacific Northwest, and for the past six years, they have coedited the website of the Chinese in Northwest America Research Committee, www.cinarc.org, a leading resource for students of early Chinese American and Chinese Canadian history.
