# Stereotypical "Oriental" and "Egyptian" music **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 27, 2002, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stereotypical-oriental-and-egyptian-music/134152 "2002-10-27T20:44:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2002, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stereotypical-oriental-and-egyptian-music/134152/1 "2002-10-27T20:44:07Z")
Lots of times when a musician wants to play an instantly-identifiable “Oriental” musical riff (this is too stereotypical to be “Asian,”) he’ll play a particular short tune. IIRC it’s present in “Limehouse Blues” and that “I really do believe that I am turning Japanese” song. If you’ll pardon the ASCII rendering of musical notes, it goes like this: “chinga-chinga ching ching, choong choong CHING.” It’s the kind of thing they played in madcap seventies comedies when a ninja appeared out of nowhere. “Oh no- the man in the ape suit has stolen the diamond!” \ \ “chinga-chinga ching ching, choong choong CHING, chinga-chinga choong choong ching. BONNNNNNNG!” Then there’s the stereotypical Egyptian music (I suppose it’s also used for India, especially snake charmers.) I can’t do an ASCII rendering, but I’ve heard it put to the following lyrics: There’s a place in France Where the naked ladies dance And there’s a hole in the wall Where the men can see it all. Who wrote these tunes, and when? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2002, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stereotypical-oriental-and-egyptian-music/134152/2 "2002-10-27T21:37:34Z")
An earlier thread on the Oriental question: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=77263&highlight=oriental](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=77263&highlight=oriental) The “Arabian music” question has come up before, too, in 1999 I think, but I have had trouble trying to go back that far to retrieve it. ---
**Author:** ![slipster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@slipster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slipster)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stereotypical-oriental-and-egyptian-music/134152/3 "2002-10-28T05:32:32Z")
The “Egyptian” tune is sometimes called “The Snake Charmer” and is sometimes found in books of piano instruction. Among other uses, i serves as the last few bars of the long-lived but obscure Colon Sphincter Band’s piece You Can’t Outrace the Mummy. There the band joins the vocalist to sing "nyah-nyah-nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah n’nyah… I recall hearing the late Steve Allen talk about how it fell to him to once entertain a group of Asians. I believe it may have been a delegation from the People’s Republic of China. He started off by playing the traditional “Oriental” piece, and got nothing but blank stares. Not only was it unfamiliar to them, but the whole sound of it seemed foreign to them. Allen admitted he had no idea where that tune came from, or where we got the idea that it was Chinese, anyway. Rightly or wrongly, I associate it with silent films, and suspect it goes back at least to that era. I recall that Jay Leno once observed that one frequently heard that tune played whenever a Chinese character toddled onto the screen in an old TV show, possibly because the producers feared the audience would otherwise think they had a Klingon on their hands. He went on to ask: when Clint Eastwood walks on screen in a movie dubbed into Chinese, do they play How Much Is That Doggy in the WIndow? ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stereotypical-oriental-and-egyptian-music/134152/4 "2002-10-28T08:06:23Z")
This is an excellent page on the history of the “snake charmer” song: > **["There's a Place in France" aka "Streets of Cairo" - That "Snake Charmer" Song](http://www.shira.net/streets-of-cairo.htm)** > > Learn the history of the song Streets of Cairo, which the general public in North America associates with belly dancing, snake charmers, and 'There's a place in France...' ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2002, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stereotypical-oriental-and-egyptian-music/134152/5 "2002-10-28T15:12:33Z")
I would just add that both of these tunes were used in the 1982/1983 hit “Lies” by The Thompson Twins. Does nothing to further the discussion, but I just thought I’d throw it in.