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mmcirvinFrom 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.
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.