More frequently, Chinese-white relationships were ridiculed rather than described portentously. In New York, the comedy of actor/theater manager Edward Harrigan featured stereotypical characters like Mrs. Dublin, the Irish washerwoman, and Hog-Eye, the Chinese laundryman. Store windows displayed mechanical toys of Chinese men dancing with Irish women. In March 1858, Yankee Notions ran a cartoon on its cover ascribing the following dialogue to a Chinese-Irish couple:

MRS. CHANG-FEE-CHOW-CHY (the better half of the Celestial over the way): Now, then, Chang-Mike, run home and take Pat-Chow and Rooney-Sing wid ye, and bring the last of the puppy pie for yer daddy. And, do ye mind? Bring some praties of your mother, ye spalpeens. (To her husband) How be’s ye, Chang Honey?

CHANG-HONEY: Sky we po kee bang too, mucho puck ti, rum foo, toodie shee sicke.

Despite these caricatures, the Chinese-Irish marriages seemed to work well. When a New York World reporter told two Irish women they should be married to whites, not Chinese, one retorted that their Chinese husbands were as “white” as anyone, even “whiter” than most of their neighbors. Some Chinese husbands were studying English at night, to move up in American society. A writer for the New York Sun described his visit to a Chinese clubhouse and his exchange with a “young and pretty Irish girl, scarcely over eighteen”:

“Today we had a nice dinner, chickens and such things, and the men and their wives are now smoking and drinking sour wine. The wives are all Irish girls. I’m married.” “What, married to a Chinaman?” “Certainly,” she answered proudly, “married two weeks today.” Then laughing outright she went on to say that the Chinamen were all good “fellows,” that they work hard, go to night school, and are devoted to their wives.

(Chang 111-112)