Finding the humor and philosophy in ‘Chan-isms’

People I’ve heard quote Earl Derr Biggers’s fictional detective Charlie Chan over the years often start with “Confucius say . . . ” as though all Charlie ever did was recycle Confucian wisdom. If you’ve ever seen a Chan film or read one of Earl Derr Biggers (EDB) six novels, you’ve come across Charlie delivering lines like, “Confucius say, ‘Sleep only an escape from yesterday.’ ” 

But “Confucius say,” like facial hair and bold headwear, was Hollywood’s version of the detective. EDB’s Charlie said plenty of wise things, but most of them weren’t from the great Chinese sage Confucius.

Say what?

Google “Confucius say meme” and you’ll see the lingering results of a fad that swept American popular culture in the late 1930s and early ‘40s. To this day, the introductory words “Confucius say” often act as a setup for a vulgar one-liner. The original “Confucius say” jokes, puns, and plays on words became common in newspapers and other mass media decades ago.

Charlie Chan films played a part

Just when newspaper columnist Walter Winchell and network radio star Jack Benny were helping popularize “Confucius say,” Charlie Chan films were all the rage. The movie Charlie’s Chanisms used the formula as early as 1938’s City in Darkness: “Confucius has said,“A wise man questions himself, a fool, others.”

Interestingly, the ever-accurate internet attributes that saying to Jumble cartoonist Henri Arnold and archaeologist Henri Arnold Seyrig. But not Confucius, Charlie Chan—or even Earl Derr Biggers.

As documented and elegantly categorized in Lou Armagno’s great book on Chan-isms, the aphorisms and literary flotsam and jetsam spoken by Chan and other characters in the Biggers novels came from many sources, Eastern and Western. The often quirky “fortune cookie” Chan-isms in the movies were mostly the work of scriptwriters.

What is to be, Will be: Before Doris Day

The first reference to Confucius shows up shortly after Charlie’s first appearance in print, in Earl Derr Biggers’s The House Without a Key (1925). 

Miss Minerva faced Chan. “The person who did this must be apprehended,” she said firmly.

He looked at her sleepily. “What is to be, will be,” he replied in a high, sing-song voice.

“I know—that's your Confucius,” she snapped. “But it's a do-nothing doctrine, and I don't approve of it.”

A faint smile flickered over Chan's face. “Do not fear," he said. “The fates are busy, and man may do much to assist. I promise you there will be no do-nothing here.”

Interestingly, Miss Minerva is wrong, "what is to be, will be" doesn’t come from Confucius, and Charlie doesn’t correct her.

Brief digression: Many classic film fans can’t help thinking about Doris Day whenever someone says “What will be, will be.” She sang a song, which became a hit, featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, "Que Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).”

Turns out the saying is older than the Hitchcock movie, older than Miss Minerva, but probably not as old as Confucius. It certainly doesn’t appear in the Confucian canon. Scholars have actually traced “What is to be, will be” to its initial adoption by a sixteenth-century English earl, John Russell or his son, and their descendants, as a family motto and battle cry in its Italian form, che sarà sarà. An even earlier usage, an English manuscript dated 1471,  has also been documented.

Did Charlie Chan really quote Confucius?

Usually, no. EDB’s Chan mentions Confucius a few times, including in Keeper of the Keys (1932):

"What is to be, will be. The words of the infinitely wise Kong Fu Tse—"

Apparently, Charlie agreed with Miss Minerva’s sourcing of the quote. Biggers must have liked the saying; it crops up several times in his books, seven times in five of the six Chan novels by Lou Armagno’s reckoning.  

But sometimes, yes! In Behind That Curtain (1928), Charlie says: 

"It was the wise K'ung-fu-tsze who said, 'he who is out of office should not meddle with the government.' ”

That’s a real quote from Confucius (or K’ung-fu-tsze, as Charlie/Biggers renders the name). Biggers probably had a copy of the 1907 Lionel Giles translation, which renders the quote: “He who is out of office should not meddle in the government.”

Sometimes Charlie quotes Confucius without mentioning his name, like in Behind That Curtain (1928):  

"Coarse food to eat, water to drink, and the bended arm for a pillow—that is an old definition of happiness in my country.”

Biggers probably had a copy of of Analects of Confucius translated by William Edward Soothill, since it comes close: 

“With coarse food to eat, water for drink, and a bent arm for a pillow, — even in such a state I could be happy . . . ”

Other early 20th-century translations use phrases like “we may be merry” and “have still joy” instead of Chan’s paraphrase of “I could be happy” as an “old definition of happiness.” 

I knew that aphorisms would be important in my revival of the Biggers version of Chan with a new series of books. My goal in consulting more ancient sources than are represented in the Biggers novels was to broaden Charlie's intellectual underpinnings a bit.

So I looked for additional English translations that would've been available in the 1920s and '30s.Not only Confucius, but also Lao Tzu, Lieh Tzu, and something a bit more contemporary to the original Chan era: Lin Yutang's The Importance of Living, published in 1937. In short, I try to put words in Charlie's mouth that sound like him, without resorting to the fun-but-hokey fortune cookie Chan aphorisms that cropped up in the later films.

Who really said all those things?

When Biggers didn’t make up aphorisms himself (which he clearly did from time to time) he harvested quotes, proverbs, and old sayings from myriad sources. In The Chinese Parrot (1926) Charlie says: 

“Chinese have saying that applies: 'He who rides on tiger can not dismount.' "

That one is still prevalent today. It wasn’t Confucius, but Charlie’s attribution (“Chinese have saying”) was correct. The Chinese proverb "Ch'i 'hu nan hsia pei" was translated in 1875 as "He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount."

Chan and other characters in the books quote from quite a few sources: the Bible, Shakespeare. Even the legendary Lao Tze’s most famous saying, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” makes an appearance. 

Why Biggers made Charlie Chan a master of quotations

The fans love the way Charlie seems to have one for every occasion and his frequent use of them for pointed remarks—and humor. Critics point out that the Chan-isms—like the character itself—aren’t authentically Chinese. After all, the idea of Chan is that of a very Americanized Chinese-born naturalized U.S. citizen.

And Biggers was a White mid-westerner interested in creating an interesting character in a mystery novel; he was no scholarly Sinologist. He had been to Hawaii only once before creating Charlie Chan and never traveled to China.

So why have Charlie spout so many quotes? What was the point, aside from entertainment?

Philosophers gonna philosophize 

"I had seen movies depicting and read stories about Chinatown and wicked Chinese villains," Biggers told an interviewer, "and it struck me that a Chinese hero, trustworthy, benevolent, and philosophical, would come nearer to presenting a correct portrayal of the race."

There you have it. Biggers wanted to create a Chinese hero whose many fine qualities included “philosophical.” And a philosophical detective must philosophize, thus the Chan-isms. His idea that a smart Chinese detective would frequently quote the classics may have been fanciful, but it caught on with readers. 

And with film fans, although it must be said that EDB’s Charlie was more likely to express something genuinely philosophical than Hollywood’s Chan. “Envelope, like skin of banana, must be removed to digest contents” (Charlie Chan at the Olympics) is just one example of what screenwriters thought a Chinese detective character should say. Although many Chan movie fans love them, Charlie’s sayings strayed farther and farther away from the original Biggers as the film series went on. 

One could argue that Biggers intended Charlie to quote from a wide variety of sources because his backstory for Charlie (i.e., born in China, speaks “rusty Cantonese,” has spent fifteen years in Hawaii) was intended to include the ability to quote from both Eastern and Western sources. If Charlie’s working life started as a “house-boy in the Phillimore mansion,” then he may have been self-educated, so somewhere along the line, he acquired a sizeable vocabulary and a full stock of aphorisms and proverbs. That’s one possibility.

More likely, Biggers was just a writer who wanted to arm his Chinese protagonist with wise pronouncements. And he was probably less concerned with cultural authenticity than with writing what critics in those days called “a rattling good yarn.”

Whatever their source, the Chan-isms are in their second century now. Just like Charlie Chan, they endure.