Where did the Musical Cliché Figure Signifying the Far East come from?

[mmcirvin]

From several months ago: Martin Nilsson does some exhaustive research into this strange little musical motif that has come to be associated with Asian and specifically Chinese stereotypes (best known from the 1974 Bruce-Lee-craze novelty song "Kung Fu Fighting" and a lot of old cartoons). Its antecedents, he says, go back to musical Chinoiserie of the 19th century, though they really get going in the 20th, with the 1906 song "Chinatown, My Chinatown" (which became a hit in 1915, and later a jazz standard, with and without the motif) doing a lot of the work.

The most common modern variant, though, might appear earliest in "Kung Fu Fighting," apart from one 1935 Betty Boop cartoon that it might have replicated by chance.

Kai at Zuky has related thoughts, calling it "musical yellowface" and noting that the pentatonic melody might have a vaguely Chinese quality but nothing else about it does. I think Leah Verre once referred to this kind of thing as "fortune-cookie music", which pretty much sums it up.

It seems to be mostly American, but my correspondent notes that some of the later examples come from Japan, where it specifically reads as "Chinese", and wonders whether they know that it sometimes means "Japanese" over here (since in old or bottom-of-the-barrel American pop culture, all the Asian stereotypes tend to blur together). Early on, variants of the proto-cliché were sometimes used as pseudo-Arabian music, and even rarely as pseudo-American-Indian.

Comments

This reminds me of another familiar "foreign" tune:

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I recently read "The Devil in the White City," which is a book of two parallel stories: a turn of the century innovation that we know now as a "serial killer" and the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The killer in question was a Chicago resident at the time, and even brought several women to the fair, women who expired in his hotel of doom (he could, at will, gas people in any given room, and incinerate them in the basement). Hard to believe as it may be, the fair is the more interesting story; I won't tell you what amazing technical contraption was arranged for the fair that was built to upstate the paint-still-wet- Eiffel Tour, but it's a great one, and one of the many international ethnicities on display was belly dancers, that lascivious display that didn't fail to disappoint (because it's pretty chaste in reality).

The young dynamo that was arranging for the arrival of the belly dancing act was, at some premature stage, pressured to produce the music to which they dance. This guy, a native of the US and maybe Chicago (I forget) came up with something on the spot-- LJ doesn't let me relate the tune, but the familiar lyrics begin "There's a place in France." Is the tune in your head yet?

Re: This reminds me of another familiar "foreign" tune:

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, someone needs to write a history of that one too; it rapidly replaced the "Chinese" motif as the standard "Middle Eastern" musical stereotype in things like Popeye cartoons.

Re: This reminds me of another familiar "foreign" tune:

[plorkwort.livejournal.com]

Yeah, someone needs to write a history of that one too
Someone has. She teaches bellydance in Bloomington, IN.

Re: This reminds me of another familiar "foreign" tune:

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...The episode in the book seems to be a dramatization of an actual incident (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/070223.html).

Re: This reminds me of another familiar "foreign" tune:

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Ahah, that was illuminating, except for the stuff about Bay leaves. My dad eats them, but I pick them out. "Devil in the White City," is a great read, but at the same time it feels like poor history, emphasizing what's most interesting to modern readers instead of embracing the history. As far as the hunt for the killer was concerned, I got more out of "The Alienist," a brilliant fiction.

Turkish Bay, by the way, is the more common spice-jar variety, but it's easier to just grow a California Bay tree, as my dad does-- every few months I'll harvest a limb and dry the leaves. Tastes the same to me. (Turkish Bay leaves cook to softness quicker, but neither is particularly quick-- red beans are complete mush long before either bay leaves are tender.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Ha, i've been pondering this very thing for quite some time. I suspect that part of this is related to the prevalent scale used by each culture (like how the Hijaz scale ended up being associated with flamenco).

Other tunes that I don't see on Nilsson's list

[(Anonymous)]

Doesn't this motiv appear as an interjection at the end of "Slow Boat to China" and "Road to Mandalay" (at least the versions I can remember from Sinatra)? Of course, I don't remember if they are exactly the same as the figure from the Carl Douglas song.

...Chase (too lazy to create LiveJournal account)

[mskala.livejournal.com]

I'm sometimes intrigued by the depictions of China in Japanese anime - if the writers want to let you know that a character is Chinese, they'll hit you over the head with stereotypes of clothing, behaviour, hairstyle, accent, and music. No time right now (I'm on my way to school) to go digging through my discs for examples of the musical cliche, but I'm pretty sure I've heard it several times in (original, Japanese-language, not American dubbed) anime soundtracks, used to convey a Chinese vibe in particular, not just Asian in general.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

If you want a sort of counter-point, try watching the now airing show "Darker than Black", which is set in Japan with a Chinese main character mostly lacking in stereotypes. The rest of the show is very decent, too, so it's definitely worth watching.

Get your legally grey-area fan translated episodes here: http://a.scarywater.net/mishicorp/

I remember what I forgot to say

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I have fuzzy memories from the early 1970s of hearing something like this as a "Japanese" motif in the incidental music of the 1960s Hashimoto-San (http://www.toonopedia.com/hashimo.htm) cartoons, which, though they probably wouldn't pass muster today, get credit for being less insulting than most American depictions of Asian culture of the time.

Re: I remember what I forgot to say

[manfire.livejournal.com]

It was also used in the middle of a faux-Japanese beer ad (misidentified as Chinese by whoever uploaded this to YouTube) in an episode of the TV show "Grosse Pointe" wherein a female character becomes famous in Japan as "Ookii-Oppai-chan" (Miss Big Boobs).

I have to look up

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

a song whose composer I've forgotten, I think from the 1890s, called "I Want to Go to Tokyo." I don't remember if this motive was used in it or not. Unfortunately, I also don't remember if it was something my wife had or something we found in a pile from someone else's attic in putting together a musicale.

Musical yellowface? A darker origin, I think

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

Oh, my, wonderful piles of tune sleuthing.

I have to resist starting to go through old discs and cylinders for other examples or I won't get anything else done for weeks....

Hm, I think the exact figure is familiar from before 1974 as it's part of an old minstrel show era tune... I don't recall the name. Slow the melody down significantly and move it down an octave and see if you aren't humming the next few bars too, as its in classic era theater cartoon soundtracks. I'll have to ask a friend who's more up on the minstrel show repertory if no one here knows the name.

Re: Musical yellowface? A darker origin, I think

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

D'oh! It's from "The Arkansaw Traveler", of course.

Looney Tunes fans may recall it as Beaky Buzzard singing something like "I'm a little baby bumble bee..."

Re: Musical yellowface? A darker origin, I think

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Hmm... if it's the tune in the kid's song "I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee", I'd say that's similar to the "Kung Fu Fighting" form of the riff, and the rhythm is not far off, but it's not quite the same.