History Main / ChineseLaunderer

* A Chinese laundry appears in the WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck short "China Jones". Porky Pig turns out to be the owner, who wants Daffy to settle a "small matter of large bill", and the cartoon ends with Daffy having to WorkOffTheDebt.

* A Chinese laundry appears in the WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck short "China Jones".

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode ''The Talons of Weng-Chiang'' features a Chinese Laundry, justified by being set in VictorianLondon.

* [[Literature/TheLaundrySeries The Laundry]] takes its name from the fact that it was run out of the apartments above a Chinese laundry during World War II.

By the 1930s, [[BigApplesauce New York City]] had around 3550 Chinese-run laundries, proudly displaying "Hand Laundry" signs to show their commitment to [[GoodOldWays traditional methods]]. Unfortunately, in an effort to drive the [[YellowPeril "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 of it, and of supporting [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar the Guomindang's defense]] [[NoMoreEmperors of China]] against ImperialJapan with invaluable medical personnel and aid to reduce the apallingly high number of troop-deaths from wounds and disease. Unfortunately, despite ongoing support for the Guomindang, once [[RedChina the Communists]] [[ChineseWithChopperSupport destroyed the Guomindang]] in the Chinese Civil War in 1950 the RedScare somewhat inexplicably saw the CHLA denounced as a "Communist" organisation and its membership sharply declined.

Perhaps the most famous real life ChineseLaunderer is Yick Wo, of the U.S. Supreme Court case [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yick_Wo_v._Hopkins 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.

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

* ''Film/TheWarriorsWay'': 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, the white woman who had befriended the ''previous'' ChineseLaunderer.

** Amusingly subverted in that while Hannibal plays Mr. Lee as a stereotypical ChineseLaunderer, the episode reveals that the real Mr. Lee is not in fact Chinese.

* There's a ChineseLaunderer in ''WesternAnimation/WheelSquad'' but he doesn't show the typical stereotypes that come with the trope. He once taught martial arts on the side.

** Laundries are also run by Koreans or Vietnamese.

[[AC:Comic Books]]

[[AC:Commercials]]

[[AC:Film]]

[[AC:Literature]]
* Patrick Bateman, the titular ''AmericanPsycho,'' takes his blood-stained clothes to a local Chinese dry-cleaner.

* Francie Nolan takes her father's shirts to a Chinese laundryman in ''ATreeGrowsInBrooklyn''.
* [[TheLaundrySeries The Laundry]] takes its name from the fact that it was run out of the apartments above a Chinese laundry during World War II.

[[AC:Live Action TV]]

[[AC:Music]]

[[AC:New Media]]

[[AC:Newspaper Comics]]

[[AC:Radio]]
* In ''TheGoonShow'' episode "The [=McReekie=] Rising of '74", Seagoon poses as a Chinese laundryman in order to infiltrate the Scottish camp and steal their kilts.

[[AC:Stand Up Comedy]]

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC:Theater]]

[[AC:Video Games]]

[[AC:Western Animation]]

* Dr. Wang runs his {{Minoriteam}} from a laundromat.

* There's a ChineseLaunderer in ''WheelSquad'' but he doesn't show the typical stereotypes that come with the trope. He once taught martial arts on the side.

[[AC:Real Life]]

* 1930s-40s British ukelele whiz GeorgeFormby 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 UsefulNotes/WorldWarII) to being an air raid warden, and then being in the military.

* Mock Duck from ''KrazyKat''. (He also does a sideline in fortune-telling.)

* 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, [[DefectiveDetective being Monk]], complains about the way she sews on buttons.
* On one episode of ''ThePractice'', 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 [[ScaryBlackMan frequently seen as scary]], there's an unsettling "shoe on the other foot" sensation around his perceived racism.
* There was an episode of ''TheLoneRanger'' where a Chinese launderer not only had to deal with prejudice from the locals, but some bandits kidnapped his wife.

* 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 Cannon}}s at him.

* In ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'', 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 obsessed with people's measurements). Rene Goscinny was accused of UnfortunateImplications 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).

* A Chinese laundry appears in the DaffyDuck short "China Jones".

* Mr. Washy Washy from FamilyGuy.

* Subversion in the western comedy ''The Great Bank Robbery'', where the town's example of this trope turns out to be an undercover Secret Service agent.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5R2ZCKB0RY This commercial for Jawbone headsets]] involves a character citing the stereotype of a Chinese Laundry at length [[spoiler:and getting curb stomped in revenge]].

* ''Film/TheWarriorsWay'': 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.

* 1930s-40s British ukelele whiz GeorgeFormby 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 WorldWarII) to being an air raid warden, and then being in the military.