# Where does that stereotypical "oriental" song come from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 3, 2005, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196 "2005-02-03T17:15:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Doctorduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Doctorduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctorduck)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/21 "2005-02-04T17:34:50Z")
Someone on the other thread mentioned Charlie Chan movies. Can anyone confirm hearing this song in that series? ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/22 "2005-02-04T19:10:05Z")
I know the tune the OP is talking about. Its the one my cell phone rings too. Its included as a ring tone in the Sanyo RL7300. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/23 "2005-02-04T19:17:53Z")
> [@x-ray vision](#): > > I know the tune the OP is talking about. Its the one my cell phone rings too. Its included as a ring tone in the Sanyo RL7300. Might some ring-tone download site have a named copy of it? Or is the name “Turning Japanese”? Damn … this is one of the few times I’ve really seen the board stumped. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/24 "2005-02-04T19:34:28Z")
dee-dee dee-dee dee-da-dee-dee–dee dee-dee-da-dee-dee-dee-dee GONG ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/25 "2005-02-04T19:38:32Z")
drop the last dee ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/26 "2005-02-04T19:44:23Z")
Got it! Go [here](http://www.matrixm.com/asp/media/ringers/default.asp?genreid=34&mediatype=9&sortid=3) and play “asian jingle”. ---
**Author:** ![Doctorduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Doctorduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctorduck)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/27 "2005-02-04T19:58:23Z")
that’s it on the beginning of the ring tone… not so much the second half of it though ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/28 "2005-02-05T04:57:07Z")
what **Carnac** said. all the dee dee duh duhs makes no sense to me. visit [Pucca](http://www.vooz.co.kr/flash/index2.html) and check out their flash animations’ intro ditty, which is similar to **x-ray vision** ’s link. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/29 "2005-02-05T15:30:45Z")
I don’t hear an intro ditty. What’s supposed to happen when you click “jump”? I’m trying to time my jumps and nothing’s happening. ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/30 "2005-02-05T16:40:16Z")
i have no idea. i don’t get the jump button either. i didn’t realise the link wasn’t a direct one. you’ll have to click on ‘vooz menu’ for the dropdown list and click on ‘animation’, then choose a title from the Pucca’s animation list. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/31 "2005-02-05T17:42:10Z")
It [this](http://doorbell.net/junk/musica.gif) the tune fragment you are looking for? ---
**Author:** ![Doctorduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Doctorduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctorduck)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/32 "2005-02-06T02:54:47Z")
yeah, that’s the one. so, any clues? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/33 "2005-02-06T14:25:22Z")
Unfortunately, no. I only posted that score snippet so we could be on the same page; at least we know it’s not _Chopsticks!_ I posted the same link on the Musipedia song search forum, but haven’t received any replies yet. As good as that site would be for this kind of search, it doesn’t seem to have a large membership. I tried encoding the motif as Parsons code (see the Musipedia site) and searching on Musipedia. Unfortunately, the Parsons code is so general that it returned 10+ pages of possible tune refs and I didn’t spot a good match in the first 3 pages. When I wrote that snippet in music notation, I had in my head Elton John’s _Crocodile Rock._ I can also recall Spanky & Our Gang using it for _Hong Kong Blues,_ and Henry Mancini using it whenever Mickey Rooney’s ersatz oriental character popped up in _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_. It was probably used by every piano player that ever accompanied a silent movie. ---
**Author:** ![nitroglycerine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c5a1d2/32.png) [@nitroglycerine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nitroglycerine)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/34 "2005-02-06T22:04:24Z")
No help here, but the riff is also used in the New York Dolls “Bad Detective”(a cover song IIRC) ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/35 "2005-02-06T22:41:36Z")
Use the “code” tag: > [@F. U. Shakespeare](#): > > ```auto > > ________ > | | | | | | | | | > / / / / / / / / O > G G G G F F D D F > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/36 "2005-02-06T22:52:12Z")
I found a promising, then dissapointing, page: [Movie Music Folios,](http://www.perfessorbill.com/index2.htm) piano music intended for silent films. At the top of the contents list for “Sam Fox Moving Picture Music,” it says, “Click on a title to play,” and some of the titles include _Oriental Veil Dance, Chinese Music,_ and _Oriental Music_. But the titles are not links and nothing plays. However, the written notes for another folio on the same page say > [@](#): > > There is also no shortage of Asian or “Oriental” tunes which were steeped in stereotype, and may actually have helped establish the precedent of traditional musical stereotypes for many decades that followed. Similar but equal treatment was offered for Middle-Eastern nationalities as well in the form of Arabian and “Hindoo” melodies. So close, and yet so far. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/37 "2005-02-06T23:58:39Z")
It is impossible to disprove a negative, so I can’t prove my assersion: this particular tune does not have an origin in any particular song. It is less a tune than a sound effect imitating so-called Oriental music forms by using parallel fifths. Tunes containing parallel fifths and containing mostly sequential quarter notes and eighth notes will often fool the untrained Western ear into thinking they are the same. I’ve already heard several people on this thread talk about 3 or 4 distinctly different instances of this form as though they were the same tune. The one that most people seem to agree on, which has also been displayed here in notation, is the sample from the funk tune “Kung Fu Fighting.” David Bowie’s uses a version of it in “China Girl” that is distinctly different although not dramatically so. If I’m right, this thread will never identify any origin of this exact tune snippet, but will eventually agree upon the first Western movie or song to make use of a very similar tune. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/38 "2005-02-07T00:27:54Z")
Hereare some excerpts from a paper entitled[Orientalism and Musical Style](http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/Info/CMJ/Articles/1997/02/01.html) . > [@Derek B. Scott](#): > > Sidney Jones made the more common move from Japan to China, when he followed up his musical success of 1896, The Geisha, with San Toy of 1899. Puccini moved just as easily from Japan to China (Madama Butterfly to Turandot). Ping, Pong and Pang (Turandot) are Chinese stereotypes. Note, especially, their Non v’è in China towards the end of Act II, scene 1, with its staccato chords, glittering timbre (harp, celeste, glockenspiel), pentatonicism, and singing in octaves rather than harmony. In accordance with the ideological assumption that the `lower orders' are more ethnically rooted than the `higher’, lowly Liù is given the pentatonic treatment, but not the Prince: see Signore, ascolta! followed by Non piangere, Liù! from Act I. Puccini’s augmented triads, gongs, etc. (from Butterfly and Turandot) are inherited by Ketèlbey and paraded in his In a Chinese Temple Garden. > > Sir Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia is the inspiration for Fred Weatherly’s `Nirvana’ (1900, music by Stephen Adams). Here, chinoiserie is constructed by bare fifths, pentatonic melody and the rhythmic pulse of the piano accompaniment… Pentatonicism and parallel fourths are the basic signifiers for chinoiserie; see Ravel’s characterisation of the China cup in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (1925), especially from figure 37 in the orchestral score. (That the parallel fourths are played on the celesta is also significant.) > > The twentieth century’s most successful Orientalist musical (prior to Miss Saigon) was Chu Chin Chow (music by Frederic Norton, 1916). The film version of 1934 opens with an image of an enormous cake in the shape of a domed palace or Mosque… > > The Far Eastern Orientalist style soon passed into dance band music and film music. An example is Ambrose’s recording of `A Japanese Dream'.[28] Roy Prendergast has remarked of the `Chinese’ music in films of the 1930s and `40s, "The Western listener simply does not understand the symbols of authentic Oriental music as he does those of Western music; therefore, Oriental music would have little dramatic effect for him."[29] An example of more recent pop chinoiserie is David Bowie's `China Girl’… > > \*\*There is a popular misconception to correct. Orientalist music is not poor imitation of another cultural practice: its purpose is not to imitate but to represent. \*\* I think these exerpts lend weight to my assertion that although we can all recall a specific instance of this form, that the form itself has no named precedent other than the body of western-composed Orientalist music. ---
**Author:** ![Josh\_dePlume](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Josh\_dePlume](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Josh_dePlume)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/39 "2005-02-07T00:32:27Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > most Western music was initially based on the major or minor scale; East Asian music is typically based on a five-tone, or pentatonic scale; our regular major/minor scale is nine toned, including both tonics. Nine? I would have thought seven-toned (in the same sense that pentatonic is five-toned) or, if you want to include both tonics, eight-toned (hence the octave). ---
**Author:** ![Doctorduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Doctorduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctorduck)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196/40 "2005-02-07T23:25:16Z")
I guess I probably should not have mentioned the Bowie song because it clearly does not have the _tune_ I’m talking about-- it only hints at it. And because it only hints at it, I may have confused the reader base here. I’m not referring to the pentatonic “sound” or that stereotypical ‘oriental’ music aesthetic. I am talking about the specific tune, and I’m sure it’s a specific tune rather than a “sound.” It’s obviously in “Turning Japanese” and “Kung Fu Fighting”. Surely we can agree that the snippets featured in these tracks are the same song, right? (Well, it seems that we’re getting somewhere with this. But still, maybe it’s worth getting Cecil involved, huh?) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-that-stereotypical-oriental-song-come-from/288196.md?page=3)