Walking through San Francisco's Chinatown, a tourist from the Midwest
was fascinated with all the Chinese restaurants, shops, signs and banners.
He turned a corner and saw a building with the sign "Moishe Plotnik's
Chinese Laundry."

"Moishe Plotnik?" he wondered. "How does that fit in Chinatown?

So he walked into the shop and saw a fairly standard looking
Chinese laundry. He could see that the proprietors were clearly aware of
the uniqueness of the name as there were baseball hats, T-Shirts and
coffee mugs emblazoned with the logo "Moishe Plotnik's Chinese Laundry."
There was also a fair selection of Chinatown souvenirs, indicating that
the name alone had brought many tourists into the shop. The tourist
selected a coffee cup as a conversation piece to take back to his office.
Behind the counter was a smiling old Chinese gentleman who thanked him
for his purchase.

The tourist asked, "Can you tell me how this place got a name like
"Moishe Plotnik's Chinese Laundry?"

The old man answered, "Ahh... Everybody asks me that. It's the name
of the owner."

Looking around, the tourist asked, "Is he here now?"

"He is right here," replied the old man. "He is me."

"Really? How did you ever get a name like Moishe Plotnik?"

"Is simple," said the old man. "Many, many years ago when I came to this
country, I was standing in line at the documentation center. The man in
front of me was a Jewish gentleman from Poland. The lady at the counter
looked at him and said, 'What is your name?' He said, 'Moishe Plotnik.'
Then she looked at me and said, 'What is your name?'" I said, 'Sam
Ting.'"