F I R S TP R E V940NEXTLAST

The First Chinese in San Francisco
Due to the loss of records during the 1906 fire it is unclear when the first Chinese arrivals set foot in San Francisco. A surviving newspaper from 1848 confirms there were at least few Chinese living in San Francisco prior to the Gold Rush. We know the Eagle, a ship arriving in April of 1847, brought Chung Ming, a Cantonese merchant, and two other Chinese travelers. However an earlier, unsubstantiated story has a Chinese cabin boy arriving in 1838 aboard the trading ship, Bolivar.

But the oldest and most intriguing possibility of Chinese arrival in the Bay Area dates back to the fifth century. In 499 A.D, a Buddhist missionary named Hui Shan reported to the emperor's court that he had visited the legendary land of Fusan, seven thousand miles east of Japan. Another Chinese mariner, Hee-Li, blown off course arrived in Fusan and described of a shoreline matching that of San Francisco and Monterey.

Proponents of the theory that California was the Fusan of Chinese literature are supported by the recent finding of ancient Chinese stone anchors along the California coast. If true, that means Chinese sailors visited North American nearly a thousand years before Columbus.
[ MAP F-14 ]