A series of free lectures on or about Chicago Chinatown is offered jointly by Chinatown Museum Foundation and the Chicago Public Library Chinatown Branch. "Early Chinese Restaurants in Chicago: The Days before Dim-sum," by retired owners of leading restaurants, will be on October 25 at 1-2 p.m. Before 1950s Chicago Chinese restaurants were mainly known for chop suey and chow mien. These dishes are disappearing from menu nowadays. Instead, they serve dim-sum, the Cantonese appetizer that has become an eating style, as well as many other authentic Chinese dishes. The change from chop suey to dim-sum is more than a shift in food fashion; it relates to the rising confidence of an immigration population.
On November 29, at 1-2:30 p.m. Helen Lee, President, Chinatown chamber of Commerce, and Mary Lawton, Professor Emerita, Loyola University, will give a talk on "The Power of the Dragon: From the Yellow Sea to Lake Michigan." Chicago Chinatown is about to build a large glazed-tile dragon wall at the Cermak and Wentworth corner. The tiles were made in Beijing and will be assembled here by artists from North China. After several thousand years of evolution, the image and significance of Chinese dragons have changed. They mean different things to different people. The lecture will feature discussions by an art historian as well as by the organizer of the Nine-dragon Wall project.