Historical Usage
The prevalent usage of this phrase began as an insult during the gold-rush eras of the 19th century in Ballarat, Australia, when the Chinese gold prospectors were of Ch'ing (which is in Wade-Giles romanization, Chinese character: 清, also spelled "Qing" in Pinyin romanization) Dynasty origin.
While usually intended for ethnic Chinese, the slur has also been directed at other East Asians. 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 tail off.
A variation of this rhyme is repeated by a young boy in John Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row in mockery of a Chinese man. In this version, "wall" is replaced with "rail", and the phrase "chopped his tail off" is changed to "chopped off his tail".
In 1917, a ragtime piano song entitled "Ching Chong" was co-written by Lee S. Roberts and J. Will Callahan. Its lyrics contained 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 the United States, Asian Americans have historically been slow in responding to negative speech.
Read more about this topic: Ching Chong
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or usage:
“Some minds are as little logical or argumentative as nature; they can offer no reason or “guess,” but they exhibit the solemn and incontrovertible fact. If a historical question arises, they cause the tombs to be opened. Their silent and practical logic convinces the reason and the understanding at the same time. Of such sort is always the only pertinent question and the only satisfactory reply.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)