The couple shown here is a puzzle. The Harvard anthropologist Frederick Ward Putnam, who was a top Fair official and should have known what he was talking about, described them as "the most prominent Chinese at the fair." He wrote that Ah Que had been educated by Presbyterian missionaries in San Francisco and that "she is said to be very popular" in that city. As for Wong Ki, Putnam credits him with being "the architect of the Chinese Building and the decorator and designer of the Joss House."
The problem is that Putnam's captions contradict other sources. Wong Ki certainly was not the most prominent male Chinese at the Fair. Hong Sling and Gee Wo Chan received more publicity, and leading members of the Moy family were more influential. True, one Wong Kee, said to be the richest man in (the Clark Street) Chinatown, was a financial backer of the Chinese Theater and Joss House. But that Wong Kee was an established Chicago merchant, not an architect-designer from San Francisco. And we have not seen anything else about Ah Que. We don't think she is same person as the "Chinese beauty," who appears on another page of this website and may have been the wife of Hong Sling, the manager of Chinese exhibits at the WCE.
The photo of the farm house interior was discovered by Mae Ngai.