Remarks:
This was a huge hit in 1974. It sold 11 million copies and went to #1 on the US R&B chart and on pop charts straight across the Anglosphere.
It is a British song, though the singer was born in Jamaica and the producer, Biddu Appaiah, was born in India. Douglas is the first person born in Jamaica to have a number one hit in Britain. Likewise, Biddu was the first person born in Asia to produce a #1 British hit.
The song was recorded in ten minutes as a throwaway B-side to “I Want To Give You My Everything”. That is why it is over the top with the “hahs” and “huhs”. But the record company liked it so much they made it the A-side.
In the US, Douglas is a one-hit wonder. The song was on the radio at the same time that the show “Kung Fu” (1972-1975) was on television.
This song is the best-known example of the nine-note “Oriental riff”: dee dee dee dee duh duh dee dee duh. The first four notes go back to the north-eastern US in 1847. All nine appear by 1930 in Hollywood cartoons. It is used in the US in songs, ads and film scores to make something “seem” East Asian. You hear it at the very beginning of The Vapors’s song “Turning Japanese” (1980) and a version of it in David Bowie’s “China Girl” (1983). In the film “The Aristocats” (1970), Disney had a Siamese cat with buck teeth play it with chopsticks (on the wrong keys) while singing, “Shanghai Hong Kong egg foo young, fortune cookie always wrong.” Count the stereotypes!
The riff does not “sound Chinese” to most people in China, but it does to most people in the US. That is because it uses a pentatonic scale, which is common in East Asia (and West Africa) but not in the West. It seems the riff was invented by someone in the US in the 1800s trying to “sound” Chinese by playing the black keys on a piano.
Misheard lyrics: I thought “Those kids were fast as lightning” was “Those cats were fast as lightning”.
See also:
- Welcome to Asian American History Month 2016
- songs, the 1970s
- David Bowie: China Girl
- David Carradine
- yellowface
- General Tso’s chicken
Lyrics:
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact, it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timingThere were funky China men from funky Chinatown
They were chopping them up
They were chopping them down
It’s an ancient Chinese art
And everybody knew their part
From a feinting, to a slip
And a kickin’ from the hipEverybody was Kung Fu fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timingThere was funky Billie Chin and little Sammy Chong
He said, here comes the big boss, let’s get it on
We took the bow and made a stand
Started swaying with the hand
A sudden motion made me skip
Now we’re into a brand new tripEverybody was Kung Fu fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they did it with expert timingOh-hoh-hoh-hoh, ha
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh, ha
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh, ha
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh-ha
Keep on, keep on, keep on
Sure enoughEverybody was Kung Fu fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
Make sure you have expert timing
Kung Fu fighting, had to be fast as lightning…
Source: A-Z Lyrics, Songfacts, NPR.
I didn’t think you’d do a post on this. To this day the artist who recorded this song said he did this with no racial malice intended. What might have been fun was hurtful to another group of people. The artist who recorded the song said it was because he loved martial arts. After being on this blog for a while I remembered this song and asked for a post to be done on it. I wonder if Mr. Douglas understands how his song makes Asian-Americans and Asian people feel?
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@ Mary Burrell
Great points!
The lyrics sounded offensive to Chinese people when I first heard it years ago.
Especially the “…funky China men from funky Chinatown.” line.
Sometimes the path to learning other people’s viewpoints can be long and winding.
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“…funky China men from funky Chinatown.”
.
@ Afrofem
Back in the day, IN the Black music (/entertainment) scene, “funky” had a POSITIVE/COOL connotation. In its musical context “funky” had nothing to do with odors or smells, and had everything to do with style and genre.
People might be offended today (with political correctness overload!) but back then, I doubt that many people, Chinese or otherwise, had a problem with it. In that context, many may have felt flattered that “funky Chinatown” was indeed considered, “funky.”
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When i first heard the song i was quite ignorant of how offensive this might have been. It has been a quite a few years i have been commenting on this forum and learning about race politics and micro/macro aggressions. I was living quite an insular life. I asked for a post about this song in the Welcome to Asia month thread. I remembered this song and i wondered how Asians perceived it? I thought my request for this post would be ignored. Surprised to see the post. You used the word “Sturm und Drang” among commenters.” I had to google that word i realized it sounded like a German word, turbulent emotion. That is a more eloquent word than what i would use for this thread. lots of emotion and stress and turmoil.
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@ Mary Burrell
“…lots of emotion and stress and turmoil.”
Since you are a long time commenter, what would you attribute the emotion, stress and turmoil to on these topics? I know you will share only what you are comfortable sharing. I also recognize you as a straight shooter who does not mince words. You are not afraid to express different opinions and I respect you for that.
I don’t know if there is more acrimony or less than in times past. I’m still new to this comment community and still learning the ropes.
What say you, Miss Mary?
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@ Fan
Thanks! (smile)
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@Afrofem: To be honest The Asian thread is just a clusterf**k. But i have seen many posters come and go. The Black poster comment and we rail and we speak of things that have happened to us in our various journeys in life where racial injustice, marginalization, micro/macro aggressions etc. So i guess it’s time for another group to vent and rail. Not to derail the thread but i just discovered James Baldwin’s quote about being a Black person in America and being relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” Kiwi seems to be in a state of rage all the time. I know he is angry about white white men and Asian women but now his anger is directed at Black Americans. I think it started on the Peter Liang thread and has been going full force ever since.
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@ Mary Burrell
LOL! I knew you would not pull any punches. Thanks.
James Baldwin is always on point. I’ve been trying to channel my ever-present
rage into something positive that serves others. Otherwise the rage would eat me up inside like battery acid. Not good.
How do you handle your “conscious rage”?
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“I think it started on the Peter Liang thread and has been going full force ever since.”
@ Mary
I think it began on the Reparations thread when he argued that a reparations payout to Black people would cause other PoC to distance themselves from Blacks (without substantive proof/studies/research/data…).
And yes, the Peter Liang thread further showcased his true self regarding how he really feels about Black people!
Now that I’m thinking about it, his animosity toward Blacks may have begun even before he appeared on this blog… possibly having something to with his gripes about Asian women, and his personal lack thereof.
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Afrofem: I try to turn my rage into thinking about other things that don’t have anything to do with race.
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@Afrofem: You should continue to keep doing what you do something positive.
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Ah Kiwi
I see you’re back at your old and tiresome stupidity!
If you’re going to attempt to argue at something I said, hows about you keep it real (as if that were possible for YOU)? Instead of making nothing into something, why not advance your weaknesses to perhaps the subjects I’m contending.
1. “Funky” at the time this song came out was not an offensive word.
It’s neither a racist or political word! In the 70’s “funky” was about a style, groove, sound, look. It was about being cool, hip, deep and so on.
2. Why can’t you just stop whining about (wm & af) interracial couples for years and years on end and just give it a rest already???
Hopefully, if you had an Asian woman/wife/girl-friend… you wouldn’t be on here endlessly trying to terrorize other people with your tiring issues!
Have a good evening, Colonel (Disingenuous).
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@Mary Burrell
Your way seems pretty effective. After all, you haven’t harmed anyone…yet. (smile)
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“I didn’t bring up WM/AF on this thread.”
.
With your super-twisting inclinations, it would’ve been only a matter of time before you worked YOUR non-stop issue onto this thread.
If I’m obsessed about anything it’s about why you persist about being here among people you clearly don’t like!
Say “hey” to the Captain!
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“2. Why can’t you just stop whining about (wm & af) interracial couples for years and years on end and just give it a rest already???
Hopefully, if you had an Asian woman/wife/girl-friend… you wouldn’t be on here endlessly trying to terrorize other people with your tiring issues!”
Bravo Fan … glad to see people coming to my point of view on Kiwi.
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@ Mary Burrell
I think some of the current animosity may come from this thread as well:
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I cannot speak for Asians living in the US, but when that Kung Fu Fighting riff is played, it’s met with audible groans by the Asians here where I come from.
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@Fan
Comments deleted. Kiwi has a name. It is not Colonel.
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” on Mon 30 May 2016 at 04:19:26
Kiwi
@ gro jo
Nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning, huh?”
Napalm? Is that what you call the drug you’re on?
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Maybe a post about Wu Tang Klan and the Shaolin Temple would good to hear about. I would like to hear opinions.
http://www.usashaolintemple.org/press/hip-hop-fist-wu-tang-clans-rza-and-his-sifu-shaolin-monk-shi-yan-ming/
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There’s is no accounting for bad taste whichever way you slice it.
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@vanishingpoint
Thanks for posting the link to the article on USA Shaolin Temple.
The paragraph caught my eye:
On a lighter note, the Chinese man in the photo is quite handsome. Thanks for sharing.
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@Vanishing Point: That would be an interesting post. I am not a die hard HipHop fan or a fan of those martial arts films but I know lots of young Black boys back then who were huge fans. Don’t know what the Asian community thinks or feels about them because the seem like exploitation to me even though Asians created them.
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Interesting. So the Asian-Americans would take this song as insulting? When … if it weren’t for an Asian-American, the Bruce Lee, one of the most respected and revered Asian-Americans on the planet, we probably wouldn’t even know anything about martial arts and especially kung fu! This song are very popular. Are people saying that only non-Asian-Americans liked this song?? That’s baffling. (O.o)
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Sorry for the typo. The “late Bruce Lee”.
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“the late Bruce Lee, one of the most respected and revered Asian-Americans on the planet,”
Ah! I love Bruce Lee. Not only was he a great father, super-fast martial arts expert, film star, he was a philosopher:
“Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception. To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion.”
In an indirect way it was through Bruce Lee I had come to learn of Jiddu Krishnamurti: “Truth is a pathless land.”
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He is a legend.
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And he could do a two- finger pushup. Eat that Sylvester Stallone.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WCQGghedDM)
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What’s racist about his song ? He’s bigging up Kung Fu ! What I find very funny about this video was how still and static the crowd was (lol)
Seriously watch it back again. They looked as if they’d been drugged or were Zombies or something. They were just there staring, not doing a thing
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Be like Water: Bruce Lee
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APx2yFA0-B4)
I can watch him playing table tennis with nunchakus over and over again.
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@Afrofem & Mary, thanks for commenting on my link, I always enjoy reading your input on issues.
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@taotesan
That is pretty deep.
Good to see you post again.
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I’ve recently read quotes of you’re concerning your views on racism.
Are you aware that every society is racist? That every society thinks inherently that they are the best. That every individual has this tendency to self promote. You focus on white society is only relevant because it is the society in question.
As an American who grew up loving and becoming obsessed with anime, your words have angered me.
I was a child who saw blonde and blue eyes. That’s fucking confusing. I already feel weird enough being obsessed with another man’s culture.
You are racist because you assume if the tables were turned the situation would be any different.
Humans are mostly terrible. We make generalizations because it’s useful for learning. Some generalizations are useful some are offensive. People in ignorance and bad information fight.
This begins with something as simple and mundane as a child calling their mom “the best”.
As a person belonging to groups which are mostly marginalized and ostracized I am familiar with the very real damage this does.
As long as our culture values winners and casts away losers, there will be mistreatment. Calling the problem white is just another racism.
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Ah! Afrofem, thank you. Yes, Krishnamurti is a very deep philosopher and has a tremendous influence on my thinking. And Taoism, which is worth exploring. Bruce Lee was a beautiful exemplar of it.
I am thinking of Ubuntu now – African philosophy which I interpret as “I am because you are”. I am a human being because you are. For me it is not only the philosophy, but the locating in the person espousing them, qualities of excellence, worthy of emulation and lessons for personal integration. Both men- Krishnamurti and Bruce Lee, to my mind, embody Taoism.
Afrofem, I so thoroughly enjoy your commentary, especially the last while. And of course, not forgetting all the usual suspects. Sending out thoughts of love and wishes for all your well-being, especially in this difficult time that African Americans and other oppressed groups are facing.
( I am so fragmented and fragile now and in a heart and head space that I cannot write coherently – reading declassified information about the israeli South African relationship during apartheid. I might write about it at a later stage.)
Sorry, Abagond, my post is off-topic.
Back to ‘lurking’.
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@taotesan
Good to hear from you.
I understand your reaction to extremely disturbing reading material. No wonder we haven’t heard from you lately.
Slog through it and share what you can later.
Take care….
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The pentatonic scale was used all over the music of the British Isles (particularly Ireland).
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yeah now that you mention it, this is taking me back to music theory in college!
http://www.jazclass.aust.com/lessons/jt/jt11.htm
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@Trevor I Petersen:
Every society is egocentric, that it contains prejudices? Yes. Racism – not necessarily. But why does it matter? Should we not criticize it because “everyone does it”? That’s a piss-poor form of moral reasoning. Everyone speeds – is speeding OK?
Where the fuck does Abagond (I presume you are asking about him) suggest if the “tables were turned” things would be “different”? Abagond has used the tables-turned situation (e.g. “Asian Supremacy” post, for example) on a number of times as a device, but I don’t think he has said it would be “different”, rather he uses it to make points about hypocritical attitudes of White racists (e.g. with “Asian Supremacy” he says that White racists should support having the tables turned on them by Asians if they are to follow their racist “data” like “IQ tests” to its logical conclusion, and the fact they don’t shows them to be inconsistent, i.e. hypocritical). I have never heard Abagond actually glorify or sound like he would really desire a tables-turned situation and not an equality situation. He usually uses them to make rhetorical points, and important ones at that, I think.
Except that “white” is a “winner” category in one dimension, racism. There are many different dimensions, each with a different “winner” group and a different “loser” group (e.g. in sexism, the winner is males, in ableism, it’s the able-bodied, in “sanism” it’s the able-minded, in “weightism” it’s the right-weight, in economic inequality it’s the Rich, etc. Losers are respectively females, disabled, mentally ill, obese, Poor, etc.). The exact categories and groups may differ from society to society but that’s how it works in pretty much all societies. The more “winning” categories you’re in the more of a “winner” you are and conversely for the “loser”. The blog focuses on racism. Do you want people to either focus on EVERY “ism” under the sun? Why can’t people prioritize, or focus on the things that matter to them and which inflame their passion?
How is it a racism to point out that one group is the winner and others the losers, a concept you are not yourself unfamiliar with by your own admission? Is it sexism to point out males get advantaged in the unequal society? Is it classism to point out the rich are at an advantage? Is it … … … ???? Is it “-ism” in general to point out inequality?
Then you should understand his opposition to discrimination AND the fact that some groups are more advantaged AND that it is legitimate to point out their fact as being such. If I point out your group is marginalized and a corresponding opposing group is ADVANTAGED, am I “xyz-ist”? (E.g. if you’re gay (I’m just using as an example), I say straights have straight privilege. Is that homophobia to say that?) If you say so, you are terribly confused.
I want to point out that when I started reading this anti-racism stuff, including Abagond, I used to get mad at it and think it “wasn’t fair to whites” much as you do. But I was driven on and on to understand it by a deep passionate, pained ache in my heart to do what was right and that I wanted to try and do right by Black people and other such groups because I wanted to help bring about the achievement of a unified human race in the spirit of the Baha’i religion, which although I didn’t become a committed follower, my parents raised me with it and I liked the social justice values and many of the moral teachings. So I spent the last 3 years researching, reading over and over, finding as many stories as I could and obsessing, often late at night, trying to understand because I wanted that “goodness”. And now I can say I have a vastly improved appreciation for what people like Abagond are trying to do and I have a much better understanding of how the rhetoric goes and what the different things mean and for that I am quite grateful. In fact now I have trouble fathoming how people can possibly think that pointing out and criticizing inequality somehow is a form of racism or discrimination. It seems hideously twisted and backwards to me.
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@mike4ty4
Well said. I loved the clarity and conviction of your reasoning.
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These drive by racist like Trevor I. Peterson i notice they do their excrement and leave they are such cowards.
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“Napalm is a used as a weapon, not a drug. I was referring to the fact that it’s something you would probably use on Asians, given your dehumanizing racist stereotyping of them, including one which Abagond had to delete.”
There you go again with your masochistic fantasies. You need a good shrink to overcome your feelings of inadequacy and paranoia. I’ve never expressed the slightest desire to harm you in anyway. I’m having too much fun ridiculing you.
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Oh yeah. Kung. Fu.
(https://youtu.be/AOgdRVm-zzw)
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And then she named me, Kung Fu
Don
t have to explain it, no, Kung Fu
t know how youDon
ll take it, Kung Fu
m just trying to make it, Kung FuI
…
Keep your head high, Kung Fu
I will til I die, yeah, Kung Fu
Don`t be too intense, no, Kung Fu
Keep your common sense, yeah, Kung Fu
a wise song indeed
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