Ching Chong

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For the Hong Kong journalist for the Straits Times jailed in the People's Republic of China for espionage, see Ching Cheong.

Ching Chong is an ethnic slur historically directed at people of Chinese ancestry. Many public commentators on recent usage of the term have deemed it derogatory and referred its usage in history.[1][2] It is most frequently encountered in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia^{[citation needed]}.

1 Origin
2 Historical usage
3 Contemporary usage
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Origin

The most probable origin of the phrase “ching chong” is a mimicking of the Chinese language by those unfamiliar with it. Non-native speakers do not understand that tonal languages, as many Chinese languages are, generally have fewer sounds but differentiate these based on tones. To the untrained ear, it may appear that the speaker is repeating the same few sounds many times. Many Asian languages have sounds in them which to the untrained ear might sound like ching or chong. In Mandarin alone, there are more than 27 different characters (or words) that are pronounced as qing/ching. These include: 清, 请, 庆, 情, 青, 轻, 晴, 卿, 倾, 氢, 擎, 氰, 箐, 顷, 磬, 罄, 苘, 鲭, 蜻, 亲, 勍, 圊, 庼, 檠, 綮, 謦, and 黥. (However, of these, only 庆,青,顷 number among the 1,000 most frequently used characters[3]) Similar sounds include at least 45 characters pronounced as "qian", at least 37 pronounced as "qu", 34 as "chan", 33 for "zhen", 33 for "cheng", etc. In total, there are more than 1,000 characters that are pronounced similar to ching or chong[4], which may become even more confusing to non-native speakers when these are combined inside a single sentence. For example, the adjective 清楚 prononunced as “qingchu” means “clear” , and the noun 清除, also represented by the pinyin “qingchu” means “removal”. In Thai, the phrase ching chong is slang for urinate, equivalent to the American English phrase "take a piss".^{[citation needed]} It is also clothing brand by K.Mak.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Historical usage

The prevalent usage of this phrase began as an insult during the gold-rush eras of 18th Century in Ballarat, Australia, when the Chinese gold-prospectors were of Ching Dynasty origin [5].

Sometimes "ching chong" is combined with "Chinaman"; the combination is often used in nursery-style rhymes, such as:

Ching Chong Chinaman sitting on a fence
Trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.
Along came a choo-choo train,
Knocked him in the cuckoo-brain,
And that was the end of the fifteen cents.

However, while usually intended for ethnic Chinese, it has also been directed at other East Asians. Assumptions that all East Asians are Chinese, similar to how Canadians are often referred to as Americans in Asia, add to this non-Chinese usage.^{[citation needed]} A parallel in Latin American Spanish is the tendency for all East Asians to be called "chino", presumably because of a lack of exposure to and understanding of Asian diversity. Mary Paik Lee, a Korean immigrant who arrived with her family in San Francisco in 1906, writes in her autobiography that on her first day of school, girls circled and hit her, chanting:

Ching Chong, Chinaman,
Sitting on a wall.
Along came a white man,
And chopped his head off.^[1]

In 1917, a ragtime piano song entitled "Ching Chong" was co-written by Ted Baxter and Max Kortlander. Its lyrics had, e.g., the following words:

"Ching, Chong, Oh Mister Ching Chong,
You are the king of Chinatown.
Ching Chong, I love your sing-song,
When you have turned the lights all down;

In recent years, there has been a growing debate over the degree of offensiveness of the term "ching chong". Just as Chinese who cannot speak English often pretend to speak it by using the phrase "ther, ther, ther" because Mandarin has no "th" sound, some non-speakers of Chinese adopted the term "ching chong" as a way to pretend to speak Chinese. In a 2002 Pew Research Center poll, 96% of white Americans claimed to have used the phrase in a "playful manner", and 94% had never previously considered the phrase to be an ethnic slur. However, 34% of Asian Americans believed it to be racist language. [6]

[edit] Contemporary usage

In December 2002, the term gained international notoriety when National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal directed it, apparently in jest, at fellow NBA star and Chinese immigrant Yao Ming, during an interview on Fox Sports Radio. O'Neal was quoted as saying, "You tell Yao Ming, 'Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.'" Yao Ming responded with: "Chinese is a hard language to learn." After a public outcry, O'Neal apologized for making the comment, insisting that no prejudice or malice had been intended.

On January 24, 2006, comedian Dave Dameshek created an audio parody of the Asian Excellence Awards for the Adam Carolla Show. The premise of the parody was using the words "ching" and "chong" to mimic the awards show [7]. The awards honor Asian Americans in media who have made a difference in the United States and were conducted in English. Branding the segment as demeaning and racist, several Asian American organizations threatened to ask advertisers to withdraw their support from the show if the station does not issue an apology. [8] [9] On February 22, 2006, Carolla read a brief apology for the segment [10]. On April 26, 2006, Carolla invited the head of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, Guy Aoki, to further explain that when he aired the bit, he had no idea that "ching chong" was a racial slur [11] (clip).

On December 5, 2006, comedian and co-host of The View, Rosie O'Donnell, used a series of ching chongs to imitate newscasters in China [12]. She later apologized on The View, saying "To say 'ching chong' to someone is very offensive, and some Asian people have told me it's as bad as the n-word. Which I was like, 'Really? I didn't know that.' I'm sorry for those people who felt hurt or were teased on the playground. But I'm also gonna give you a fair warning that there's a good chance I'll do something like that again, probably in the next week, not on purpose. Only 'cause it's how my brain works." [13]

In November 2006, Bryn Mawr cancelled a performance by the independent band "Ching Chong Song," both of whom's members are white, after protests from various campus groups, including the Asian Students Association. The situation escalated one month later when a band member wrote an inflammatory letter to the student newspaper, claiming that the university had mistreated them while lobbing profanities at the student body. [14] Some critics considered the outrage to be inconsistent, because in January 2005 two Asian comedians hired by the college, joked during the university's comedy night that the Chinese language sounds like "ching chong." However neither comedian was Chinese (Amy Anderson is Korean and Dan Gabriel is half-Filipino) and the performance was considered controversial. [15]

On February 14, 2007, "Ching Chong Song" performed at New York University. Members of NYU's Asian Heritage Club demonstrated, and the band agreed to change its name to Church of Lurch [16] [17].