Talk:The Heathen Chinee

A fact from The Heathen Chinee appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 December 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the 1870 poem "The Heathen Chinee," written by Bret Harte as a satire of racial prejudice, was publicly embraced as a mockery of Chinese immigrants, and shaped anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S. more than any other work at the time?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/December.

Wikipedia

Bill Nye

Is the poem supposed to have a reference to Bill Nye? I always thought of him as the "Science Guy" but maybe he took his name from this poem...

It looks like he was born Bill Nye. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-12-18 17:21Z
Harte was referring to the 19th-century humorist Bill Nye, whose real name was Edgar Wilson Nye. Sicherman (talk) 22:16, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just want to point out the incorrect statement here. Bret Harte invented the name "Bill Nye". The humorist, who was 15 at the time of the poem's publication, later adopted it as his pseudonym. "The Science Guy" came several decades later. --17:23, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Should the full text of the poem really appear on this page as opposed to Wikisource? 65.100.23.77 23:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Several decks

The statement that Ah Sin had "several decks" hidden in his clothes may be a misconception. Bartleby gives the original version of the poem here: [1]. It reads "twenty-four jacks", not "twenty-four packs" as usually given. Editors who did not know that jacks are high in euchre may have changed "jacks" to "packs". But twenty-four jacks in Ah Sin's sleeves is merely "coming it strong," in the words of Truthful James. Twenty-four packs would be impossible. Sicherman (talk) 22:23, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you bring up an interesting point, though the Bartleby link is actually to the 1912 Yale Book of American Verse. Saying twenty-four packs would be impossible is, I'm afraid, original research and a personal opinion. I am seeing both versions ("jacks" and "packs") coming up in Google searches. But, Harte's own edition of The Heathen Chinee and Other Poems (1871) does indeed use "packs". I think that was Harte's intention. See here. --Midnightdreary (talk) 18:53, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]