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Comment by savingsPossible | Hacker News Reader

The rule "no racial stereotypes" was, in the original

> No Chinaman must figure in the story. (The "No Chinaman rule" was a reaction to, and criticism of, racial cliches prevalent in 1920s English writing. Knox explained, "I see no reason in the nature of things why a Chinaman should spoil a detective story. But as a matter of fact, if you are turning over the pages of an unknown romance in a bookstore, and come across some mention of the narrow, slit-like eyes of Chin Loo, avoid that story; it is bad.")

I quote it not to endorse it, but for a better feel for how they thought

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This is the original version from 1924 when there were only nine rules. The version from the decalogue (1929) expands a bit on it:

>No Chinaman must figure in the story. Why this should be so I do not know, unless we can find a reason for it in our western habit of assuming that the Celestial is over - equipped in the matter of brains, and under - equipped in the matter of morals. I only offer it as a fact of observation that, if you are turning over the pages of a book and come across some mention of 'the slit - like eyes of Chin Loo', you had best put it down at once; it is bad. The only exception which occurs to my mind - there are probably others - is Lord Ernest Hamilton's Four Tragedies of Memworth.

The phasing of that is obviously tone-deaf, but I can't object to the principle. Would you read something that mentioned "the narrow, slit-like eyes of Chin Loo"? Didn't think so.

The better solution is obviously to include whatever characters you want but write them well. However, since the authors of that time seemingly couldn't write Chinese characters well, leaving Chinese people out entirely makes for better literature.

He’s obviously never seen “Chan Is Missing,” one of the greatest noir movies ever: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chan_Is_Missing.

If you read OP, it’s mentioned in detail that the decalogue never applied to hardboiled/noir American stories.

Also I think that movie came 50+ years after peak hardboiled detective... 1983.

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