The other day while surveying my vast estate, I happened upon and dusted off the old boardgame, "Chop Suey", which was an exhilarating Chinese-American version of the old Parker Brothers classic, "Monopoly." The object of "Chop Suey" was to acquire as many Chop Suey restaurants in San Francisco's famous 'Chinatown,' while crushing all competition. Instead of a racecar, Scottie dog, thimble, tophat and cane, the tokens employed by 'Chop Suey' consisted of a rickshaw, Shi Tzu, fortune cookie, pair of black horned rimmed glasses, and expertly tailored Hong Kong suit, among other things.
There were, of course, slight differences in the games: 'Chop Suey' had no real "jail" in the middle, nor was there any $$$ given for passing 'Go.' Also, the cheapest properties usually consisted of some sort of laundry or dry cleaner, with the 'Boardwalk' being Mr. Chow's Chop Suey on Kearny Street. And to be sure, playing 'Chop Suey' meant involvement with much more corruption than its better known counterpart, including gambling in the back of many of the 'chop suey house' properties, and many a game often unfortunately ended in a fistfight, due to the intensity and passion generated by the quest for control of Chinatown.
The game, 'Chop Suey', has now been out of circulation for some years now, and of course, good old fashioned chop suey houses are basically a thing of the past. But when it comes to hard nosed Darwinian capitalism, Oriental style, there was no better game and no more appropriate way to spend a Saturday.
"Here's to yer health, 'Chop Suey!"
2 comments:
Enjoy praying game 'Chop-a-suey' with my famiry. Remind me of Chinese-Scottish Restaurant in which owner had stlange blogue when he ask 'Would you rike some flied Lice?'
Jon, the best chop suey I ever had was at Angus McWong's Chop Suey in Edinburgh. However, the owners refused to give me orange juice AND toast (at the same time).
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