1937 New York, New York

Ming Jang

1934

New York City

Interviewed on January 28, 2019

by Alex Jang

My family and I always went to the movies, but the first movie that I remember is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). I think that I was around four years old at the time, and Snow White sticks out as the first movie that I remember seeing. After that, I have several memories where my family would go and watch movies regularly enough that I considered watching movies to be special, but not particularly uncommon. On this particular morning, my brother, mother, and I took the subway to Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Coming from New York City Chinatown, we always had to travel a bit to get to Radio City, but never really noticed since we were so excited. When we arrived, there was a line around the block with people waiting to enter. I remember that attending the movie theater would always be a day out. We would all dress up in our Sunday best and be on our best behavior for the day. Our mother made sure that going to the movies was also a big affair for us. The routine would rarely, if ever, change. We would always dress up to go to the theater, watch the show and the film, and then go for a meal afterwards.

After waiting in the long line, we finally entered the theater. I always feel lucky to have gone to such big movie theaters like Radio City. Radio City was a particularly beautiful movie theater. Especially at the age of four, the building seemed grand and luxurious, and the anticipation of seeing a movie and having a day out made the occasion feel even more special. After entering the theater, there were ushers galore to escort people to their seats. My mother usually liked to sit in the orchestra seats since there was a stage show that would accompany the film. At this film, I think that the Rockets were performing before Snow White, but I don’t remember a lot about their performance. As for concessions, there were always concession stands, but since we would go and eat after the show, we would never eat at the movie theater.

Snow White is an animated cartoon story. I probably remember it best since it was animated and, to a certain extent, a kid’s story. The movie is about the a witch who puts a spell on a princess who is prettier than her. I remember, being four, that the witch was really scary to me. The curse was, at the time, one of the scariest fates that I could think of. The film also had several musical bits that made it much more memorable than others. In particular, I remember the dwarves singing “Hi ho hi ho, off to work we go!”

We would see all the Disney movies at Radio City, Dumbo, Bambi, Pinocchio, among others, as well as every Easter and Christmas show. My uncles would oftentimes take my brother and me to the movie theater as well. When they came back from the war, they would wear their uniforms to the theater with us. Sometimes, when we would go to the theaters, there would be people that would tell us to get out of the theater, telling us that Asians weren’t allowed. After my uncles came back with their uniforms, all of that stopped. As such, there were many times after the war when my uncles would take us to the movie theater with our mother. Besides Radio City, my mother loved the stage shows and we would regularly frequent Paramount Theaters, but that’s a story for another time.