I am sure you have seen this font before, on Chinese takeout boxes, in Chinatowns, on Chinese restaurant signs or menus, or something that was supposed to be "Asian". It goes by a variety of names, such as Wonton, Chop Suey, Kung-fu, and so on. But did you ever wonder HOW this font came to be? And how did it become the face of Chinatown? The first appearance of this font family was registered in 1883 by Henry H Thorp of the Cleveland Type Foundry as "Chinese", though later it was changed to " Mandarin ". However, it is unknown if he personally designed it, as there are many design patents filed in his name even when he was unlikely to be directly involved. This type of font was known in typography as an "ethnic font", trying to evoke a particular culture or ethnic group, and there are hundreds of them. Some are actually based somewhat on the language's original writing, like those pseudo-Greek or pseudo-Cyrillic fonts, then there are thes
An exploration of San Francisco Chinatown typically NOT covered by tours