Chinamen who were watching him deliberately stepped in front of the
camera, completely spoiling the negative. The younger generation, and
especially the girls, will occasionally pose for you, and a truly
picturesque group they make in their queer mannish dress of bright
colors, as they laugh and chatter in their odd but musical jargon.

A few years ago you could not persuade a Chinaman to talk into a
telephone, for, as one of them said, "No can see talkee him," meaning
he could not see the speaker. Another said, "Debil talkee, me no likee
him," but now this is all changed. Some there are who still cling to
their old superstitions, but they are few. The march of commerce
levels all prejudices, and the telephone is an established fact in
Chinatown. They have their own exchange, a small building built in
Chinese style, and their own operators. Even the San Francisco
telephone book has one section devoted to them, and printed in Chinese
characters. And so civilization goes marching on, the old order
changeth, and even the Chinaman must of necessity conform to our ways.

But the Chinatown of to-day is not the Chinatown existent before the
great disaster of 1906. It has changed, and that for the better,
better both for the city and the Chinaman.

Mr. Arnold Genthe, in his Old Chinatown, says: "I think we first
glimpsed the real man through our gradual understanding of his
honesty. American merchants learned that none need ever ask a note of
a Chinaman in any commercial transaction; his word was his bond." And
while they still have their joss houses, worship their idols, gamble,
and smoke opium, they are their own worst enemies; they do not bother
the white men, and are generally considered a law unto themselves.