Decades ago, I lived in a rooming house in the Chinese “ghetto” in Columbia, MO, and one of my housemates was a Yucheng Zhu, from Red China, a tea specialist studying at Mizzou. I suspected he always knew more than he let on. I couldn’t resist laying accolades on that admirable great Chinese detective, Charlie Chan, never letting on for a minute that I thought of him as anything other than a real life great detective. (I also obtained some Chinese language Catholic tracts for him from Fr. Kenneth Baker ... don’t know if it did any good.)
Apparently Charlie Chan was based on a real Chinese detective in Honolulu, Chang Apana who was a legend on the Honolulu police force.