And where there is no Jesus, there is no kingdom of God. And until someone is able to see just how poor they truly are compared to Christ there will be no room for Him in the inn of their hearts. What made them “best” in the eyes of the world and “last” in the eyes of God was their self-dependence and faith in themselves. Those the world deems worthy and the best and brightest, God calls last. It’s the polar opposite in God’s kingdom. (Mark 10:31) The author of Hebrews said of those the world persecuted and despised because they followed Christ that they were “men of whom the world was not worthy”. Jesus said, “The last shall be first and the first, last” numerous times, one time was just after a rich young ruler whom the world would consider “rich in spirit” and successful. But God says of these they shall be last. The movers and shakers, the influencers and popular people, the dramatic as well as the intellectual and talented, the fighters and all who tend to rise to the top in this life – all these the world deems worthy. The world considers those who are feisty and conniving and inspiring and “on top of their game” as ones who are “Blessed”. But when we do come to Him we are ‘Blessed’ in every sense of the word. Until we see our need for Him, until we see just how empty we are, we will not come to Him.
It’s this revelation that is the first step in coming to Christ. They are the ones who see and know that they are spiritually bankrupt. The derisive, joking attitude surrounding the “Chinese laundry ticket” reflects the peception in America that Chinese laundrymen in particular, and Chinese in general, are odd or even ‘inscrutable’.A person who is poor in spirit is one who knows their need for God. Even so the term still casts a derogatory tone toward Chinese and it is unfortunate that it remains in use even as Chinese laundries have almost disappeared from society. “No tickee, no laundree” has since come to be used as a catch-phrase for an impasse in many conflicted transactions quite unrelated to the Chinese or laundries. But the story is used to disparage the unfortunate laundryman who receives the unwarranted pummeling from Josh. In the story, it was Uncle Josh, and not the laundryman, who was in the wrong. This type of confrontation between customers and laundrymen over picking up laundry without presenting a ticket was not uncommon. Hop Soon, if you don’t hop round and git me my collars and ciffs and other clothes what I left here, I’ll be durned if I don’t flop you in about a minnit, I will by chowder.” “…and in a couple of days I went round to git my washin’, and that pig tailed heathen he wouldn’t let me hev em, coz I’d lost that lotery ticket. “ … he giv me a little yaller ticket that he painted with a brush what he had, and I’ll jist bet a yoke of steers agin the holler in a log, that no livin’ mortal man could read that ticket it looked like a fly had fell into the ink bottle and then crawled over the paper.”Ĭonfused, he asked a man what the ticket was and he was conned, “Wall sir that’s a sort of a lotery ticket every time you leave your clothes thar to have them washed you git one of them tickets, and then you have a chance to draw a prize of some kind.” Not wanting to enter the lottery, Josh sold the “lottery ticket” to the stranger for 10 cents. No one is sure how the term arose but it may have started with the 1903 story by a humorist, Calvin Stewart, in which Uncle Josh takes his clothes to a Chinese laundry. The phrase is just one example of the way whites often fabricated pidgin English terms to make fun of the difficulty Chinese had in pronouncing English. But no Chinese laundryman would have used the phrase, “No tickee, no washee,” or its other forms, “No tickee, no laundee”, or “No tickee, no shirtee” to make this point.
Furthermore, someone might claim clothing that did not belong to them.
It is not all unreasonable for the laundryman to require the customer claiming laundry to present a ticket because without it, locating the customer’s clothing is made difficult. To whites, these ‘chicken feet scratches’ symbolized alien and inscrutable Oriental ways. Whites could not decipher the Chinese characters the laundryman recorded on the ticket to itemize and price the washed clothing articles. It has nothing to do with the actual provided services, yet the laundry ticket came to be a source for ridicule of the Chinese laundryman. A Chinese laundry ticket is nothing more than a small piece of paper that serves as a claim check linking each customer with his laundry items.
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