Wong Tong Yen, Traveling Chinese Barber

Image: 19th century British illustration of a traveling Chinese barber.

At this year's Ching Ming, SOCC shared information about Wong Tong Yen, Riverside's traveling Chinese barber. Mr. Wong worked in Riverside and San Bernardino Chinatown and made regular visits to the homes on Chinese vegetable gardens along the way. Itinerant barbers' work dwindled after the queue hairstyle was no longer maintained after 1910. As such, Mr. Wong had little work in the last years of his life and died a poor man on May 26, 1914. He was buried in Olivewood Cemetery in a section of the cemetery where most Chinese were laid to rest. His burial expenses were paid by local Chinese residents, likely by the Chee Kung Tong organization, of which he was a member. Mr. Wong left a wife and two children in China. According to a local newspaper report, he made only one trip to China to visit his family since his immigration to the U.S. Cemetery records reveal that he was disinterred in August 1937. 

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