For a while now, I’ve been meaning to start a thread about that little ditty you always hear in movies and TV (or used to; it tends to be viewed as a little racist these days) when depicting someone or something Asian, but particularly Chinese. You know the one: di-di-di-di-dum-dum, da-da-daaaa! You can hear it in the flute part at the start of “Kung Fu Fighting”. I’ve been wondering whether this tune is part of an actual Chinese song, as in the case of “Sakura”, the tune that’s used in a similar way to signify someone or something Japanese, and is a real Japanese folk song.
So I was reading the thread on strangers getting your references, and lo and behold, here is the answer to my question, in the Wikipedia article linked in Earl Snake-Hips Tucker’s post:
So: we don’t know! But at least now I know we don’t know, which is great! (I still don’t understand the significance of the Oriental Riff in conjunction with a turnstile, but who cares?)
No problem. This might require a visual, though. Imagine I am walking thru this and a much smaller woman is walking behind me. I don’t want to just plow on thru, since she might have been moving slower, so I was making little totter steps, like a Chinese woman of old who had been the recpient of foot-binding. That was the oriental connection (at least in my mind), so I whistled while I tottered-- and the woman behind me seem to catch on.
I think it was used in an episode of MASH. It was the two-parter where they bugged out. When they were bugging back in the score was a sort of march, and the oriental riff was alluded to, just before resolving to the “Suicide is Painless” theme.
If this is an Earl Snake-Hips Tucker appreciation thread, count me in. I joined the dope to ask the teeming millions a question I had a bet with a freind about. The responses were all crap and I thought this place was a waste of time. Then a looooong time later who comes in with some facts? You guessed it!
