The proprietor of Lo Fat's Chinese Laundry.
Background[]
Lo Fat was actually born in Newark, New Jersey. He doesn't speak Chinese, but maintains a Chinese flavor for his laundry as a commercial gig. He runs one of the local Chinese laundries in New York City while pretending to be 'traditional' Chinese to get more business, but he has a terrible accent. His daughter reads Pippin Longstocking. Once his bicycle was stolen and reported it to the 14th precinct but the police didn't help him.
He reads Newark Bee newspaper. He gives 2 dollars every year to Leyendecker Museum and actually some of the employees there are his customers. He has an arrangement with Yvette Delacroix and he does her laundry for free.
2 years ago he put a coupon for free pressing in the newspapers for advertisement but nobody used it. Only one woman had left a night gown but didn't claim it back for 2 years, until Laura Bow found that claim ticket.
Lo Fat's Epilogue[]
Lo Fat continued in the laundry business, eventually opening a chain of Lo Fat Chinese Laundries across the country and becoming a millionaire in the process.
Behind the scenes[]
His name is a pun on "low fat". There is also a reference to Lo Fat, mentioning him to be the cousin of Hop Singh in Freddy Pharkas.
Like Hop Singh, Lo Fat is likely not his real name but his pseudonym used for an act, to market his Chinese laundry business. He isn't apparently Chinese (or at least is several generations removed from traditional Chinese culture), his real ethnicity is not known, while possibly still Asian-American, its equally possible that he is only a Caucasian man in yellow-face.
When Laura hands him the coupon, he jokes that it will be ready "next Tuesday". This is a line that other characters say to Freddy Pharkas when he claims his old boots. While not clear where "next Tuesday" commentary originates from it also appears in other movies such as Star Trek Generations. When he mentions that 'next Tuesday' is an 'ancient Chinese joke' this may be a reference to the 1970's Calgon clothes washing ad where Chinese actor Calvin Jung is shown working in a Chinese laundry speaks with a 'bad chinese accent' claims that Calgon is an 'ancient Chinese secret' to the white American woman. While the Laundryman's wife speaks with a normal American accent, exposes that her husband actually uses Calgon. [1][2]
In the CD-Rom version Lo Fat is played by Sierra staff member Robert W. Lindsley, some believe it further indicates that Lo Fat character is intentionally intended to be 'yellowface depiction of a Chinese stereotype' depicted by a 1920's white business person for commercial means (rather than intended to be a 'modern depiction' of a racist trope). However, it is potentially meta sequence in that Laura Bow games themselves are portrayed as 'stage productions' with acts, so Lo Fat could represent a theatrical portrayal of of a white person acting in yellowface (rather than simply a theatrical example of Yellowface for the sake of not hiring an actual Chinese actor). On the other hand, it could just be a matter of keeping low budget actors for the game, instead of hiring real actors (most if not all the actors in the game are Sierra employees).
He may not actually a true 'stereotype', but he certainly plays a stereotype for his business. He may very well be a second or third generation Chinese-American, and doesn't actually know anything about the old ways. In this way he can actually be a deconstruction of racist stereotypes in that he's acts like an exaggerated stereotype because he chooses to do so for commercial/capitalism reasons. Those visiting his laundry are expecting that kind of 'atmosphere'. This had basis in actual history, see controversies.