My friend Terry Whelan, of Manchester, UK would have loved this thread(sadly, Terry died last October). He used to sing this song and learned it from his young son, Connan, back in the 1970s. Apparently Connan, who was about 7 or 8 at the time, came home from school one day with the song. Terry attempted to explain to him that there were other songs like it ('An Old Man Came Courting Me', 'Old Grey Beard A'Wagging etc.) and about the oral tradition. Connan would have none of this and insisted that 'The Crazy Old Man From China' had been "written by a girl in his class". Anyway, Terry was always proud of the fact that he had actually learned a traditional song from a (younger!) member of his family.