Chinese Launderer

"No tickee, no shirtee!"

—Stereotypical phrase, first recorded use in 1886

Prior to the invention and mass production of modern laundry machines, doing laundry was a lengthy, hot, dirty and tiring chore. Naturally, many people turned to professional launderers to get the job done. In The Wild West, many of these launderers were Chinese in origin. Since they were barred by law or custom from most other occupations, and they were willing to do hard work for low pay, this was seen as a good opportunity by the immigrants. Indeed, at one point, Chinese immigrants operated 89% of the laundries in San Francisco, and had a strong presence in other cities and towns.

Perhaps the most famous real life Chinese Launderer is Yick Wo, of the U.S. Supreme Court case Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, which held that a law that on its face was racially neutral, but was applied in a racially discriminatory fashion violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which the court maintained applied to resident aliens as well as full citizens. It's an important precedent.

By the 1930s, New York City had around 3550 Chinese-run laundries, proudly displaying "Hand Laundry" signs to show their commitment to traditional methods. Unfortunately, in an effort to drive the "dangerous foreigners" out of the city, laws were passed in 1933 to among other things restrict ownership of laundries to American citizens. (The laws of the time prevented Chinese immigrants from becoming naturalized citizens.) After negotiations by the traditional Chinese social organizations failed, the openly leftist Chinese Hand Laundry Association was formed to fight this discrimination. They did a very good job at this, and in helping support their Chinese homeland against the Japanese invasion with infusions of cash. Unfortunately, in the 1950s, the Red Scare smeared the CHLA as "Communist" and membership sharply declined.

This trope also exists in the United Kingdom, and is often associated with the London district of Limehouse, which was home to many Chinese immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (there is little sign of this today, with London's Chinatown having moved elsewhere).

Subsequent technological and social developments have pretty much killed off the Chinese Launderer as a current stereotype. If they appear in any form nowadays they're likely to either be laundromat owners or dry cleaners.

In most fiction, the Chinese launderer is a Funny Foreigner, spouting pidgin English and clashing with customers over the amount of starch in shirts. They sometimes have bit parts in mysteries set in the appropriate time period, due to the use of laundry marks to identify where a piece of clothing has been.

Examples of Chinese Launderer include:

Advertising

A famous Calgon water softener commercial from the 1970s references this, at least insofar as the laundry owners are of Chinese descent.
One of the infamous Asian stereotype t-shirts made by Ambecrombie and Fitch has two stereotypical Chinese cartoons with the slogan "Two Wongs will Make it White"
- A reference to a racist political slogan of the yesteryear, which was used in barring Asian immigration to the US and Canada: "Two Wongs don't make White".
This commercial for Jawbone headsets involves a character citing the stereotype of a Chinese Laundry at length and getting curb stomped in revenge.

Comic Books

In Lucky Luke, Chinese people are either launderers or restaurant owners, but the launderers are really ubiquitous. They are the focus of the story once or twice but are mainly peaceful background characters who only want to mind their own business, although they are somewhat obsessed with the cleanliness of people's clothes (just as undertakers are obsesssed with people's measurements). Rene Goscinny was accused of Unfortunate Implications once because of that, accusations to which he answered scathingly (and then, as the person protested that Chinese people were always launderers and never mayors, he added a Chinese mayor in a later story).

Film

Sid Caesar and Edie Adams accidentally broke through a hardware store wall into a Chinese laundry in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
A Chinese launderer in Broken Trail becomes the interpreter between the two cowboy heroes and the five Chinese girls they have rescued from indentured prostitution.
Referenced by Jack Nicholson in his most racist scene in The Departed.
A Stealth Pun in The Dark Knight, Lau, member of the Chinese mob, works for Gotham criminals as a Money Launderer.
Subverted in the 1943 Batman serial. Due to it being set in World War II, the main villain was a Japanese spy. Thus, one of the clues found is a handkerchief with a Japanese laundry mark. Robin quips that he's never heard of a Japanese laundry mark.
Yen Sun, the girl Doc falls in love with in Young Guns is the daughter of a Chinese launderer.
The Seven Year Itch: Richard Sherman's dress shirt was torn once when he sent it to a Chinese laundry service.
At one point in Thoroughly Modern Millie, Mrs. Meers disguises herself as a Chinese laundress.
The Warrior's Way: Yang takes over the laundry when he arrives in Lode, mainly because that's what everyone assumes he'll be good at. He actually has to learn how to do it from Lynne.

Literature

Patrick Bateman, the titular American Psycho, takes his blood-stained clothes to a local Chinese dry-cleaner.
The title character of the story "The Deed of the Deft-Footed Dragon" by Avram Davidson.
Francie Nolan takes her father's shirts to a Chinese laundryman in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
The Laundry takes its name from the fact that it was run out of the apartments above a Chinese laundry during World War II.
One The Dana Girls novel involved a Chinese launderer.

Live-Action TV

Rare modern example: Used in an episode of Monk, where the Chinese woman who owns the laundromat is able to confirm a vital piece of evidence. Oh, and Monk, being Monk, complains about the way she sews on buttons.
On one episode of The Practice, Eugene Young argues with his Chinese dry cleaner over a shirt that he thinks has been shrunken. As the exchange heats up, he starts mimicking the man's Pidgin English. As Eugene is black and frequently seen as scary, there's an unsettling "shoe on the other foot" sensation around his perceived racism.
There was an episode of The Lone Ranger where a Chinese launderer not only had to deal with prejudice from the locals, but some bandits kidnapped his wife.
The pilot episode of The A-Team had a scene in which Hannibal disguises himself as a "Mr. Lee" and meets with a prospective client at a laundry. Clients in later episodes would mention also having met Mr. Lee.
- Amusingly subverted in that while Hannibal plays Mr. Lee as a stereotypical Chinese Launderer, the episode reveals that the real Mr. Lee is not in fact Chinese.
Red Dwarf: Curiously, despite being a corporation-owned mining vessel, the Dwarf still has a Chinese laundry.
Get Smart seems to have a weird obsession with Chinese Launderers and fits them in wherever possible, even if it is just in the background.
The Doctor Who episode The Talons of Weng-Chiang features a Chinese Laundry, justified by being set in Victorian London.
Farnum from Deadwood tries to disguise delivery of a corpse in a wheelbarrow full of laundry to chinese pig-farmer Wu.
The entrance to Special Unit 2 underground headquarters is located in a dry cleaners run by an Asian man. Then a punk with a revolver runs in demanding all the money in the cash register. Every employee (including the Asian guy) then reveal themselves to be undercover cops by pointing their Hand Cannons at him.

Music

1930s-40s British ukelele whiz George Formby had an entire series of songs about a Mr. Wu, who started his career in a laundry ("Chinese Laundry Blues") but later moved on (thanks to World War II) to being an air raid warden, and then being in the military.

Newspaper Comics

Mock Duck from Krazy Kat. (He also does a sideline in fortune-telling.)

Radio

In The Goon Show episode "The McReekie Rising of '74", Seagoon poses as a Chinese laundryman in order to infiltrate the Scottish camp and steal their kilts.

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

The late John Pinette joked about the reaction of stereotypical Chinese buffet owners to his large appetite. He recounts one owner claiming their business has changed to a laundry to try and get rid of him.

"No buffet here! We dry clean now. I take jacket, be ready on Tuesday. Now go!

Tabletop Games

The Deadlands CCG Doomtown includes "Fu Leng's Laundry and Tailoring" (the name is a Shout-Out to Legend of the Five Rings).

Theatre

The 1993 musical The Last Hand Laundry In Chinatown was in part "an homage to the struggles of the pioneering NYC Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance."
The 1876 play Two Men of Sandy Bar by Bret Harte featured a Chinese launderer named Hop Sing, who appears to have been the Trope Maker for the stereotypes associated with the character, including the notorious "No tickee, no shirtee" line.
This referenced in an inversion in Hairspray: the heroine's mother has a laundry business which is called something like Occidental Laundry (to set it apart from all of the "Oriental" ones.)
Thoroughly Modern Millie, as noted in Film, above.
Widow Twankey from various Pantomime versions of Aladdin.

Video Games

The Dagger of Amon Ra features a Chinese laundryman named Lo Fat in the game's first act, from whom you get a few clues and a dress. thewatersupply hasn't played the game since middle school; it might have been hilariously offensive.
The Mount & Blade mod 1866 includes Frankie Luong, a Chinese former laundryman, as a possible party member. In keeping with the common stereotypical portrayal of Chinese laundrymen in Western films, he can't end a sentence without an exclamation point.
Mr. Wong's Laundrette ("If It Ain't Wong, It Ain't White!") of Grand Theft Auto III. The laundromat plays a minor role in the plot, as its transition from the established Mafia protection racket to a Triad one sparks a mob war between the two sides.

Web Original

This (The Customer is) Not Always Right entry.

Western Animation

Very borderline: In Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Fat Cat goes to a laundromat to see a pair of Siamese cats about a fighting fish.
Dr. Wang runs his Minoriteam from a laundromat.
According to his backstory from Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Vinny actually became obsessed with explosives after witnessing the Chinese laundromat next door to his family's flower shop catch fire and explode due to an faulty gas leak.
Mr. Washy Washy from Family Guy.
A Chinese laundry gets attacked by a robotic "monster" in the fourth An American Tail movie.
A Chinese laundry appears in the Daffy Duck short "China Jones".
There's a Chinese Launderer in Wheel Squad but he doesn't show the typical stereotypes that come with the trope. He once taught martial arts on the side.

Real Life

The Royal Navy still uses Chinese laundrymen on their vessels.
For some reason, there's a women's shoe company called "Chinese Laundry".
As stated at the top this has a strong historic basis and is not entirely uncommon to see even today. Further, in many cities where renting an apartment is more common than owning a single-family home, wash-and-fold service is still prevalent at many dry cleaners as an alternative to doing your own laundry at a laundromat.
- Laundries are also run by Koreans or Vietnamese.
- There also appear to be an inexplicable number of "French Laundries"... not just the well-known restaurant.