The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #107270 Message #3863026
Posted By: GUEST,Guest- Peller
26-Jun-17 - 05:15 PM
Thread Name: Song Req: 'There was China Man...'
Subject: RE: Song Req: 'There was China Man...'
When I was a small child my mother taught us a rhyme song about a China Man named Chan. There are a few similarities that I have found on this form, but none of them really match the song that we were taught.
I have tried multiple times to search for this songs lyrics on line, but only found this thread, which is the only I have ever found that came close at all, by typing in the last verse as I know it: "one day the chinaman did die, and in his coffin he did lie, they carried him back into Japan, and that was the end of the chinaman."
My mother was born in 1934 in northern Idaho, United States of America. She was the eleventh child to be born to my grandparents, who were both born to families who immigrated from Germany to the United States prior to the first world war.
The song that my mother taught my siblings and I was taught to her by her father, who was born in 1886 in Keuterville, Idaho, USA. My grandfather Schmidt's parents had came to the United States from the part of Germany which is now Poland in 1868, and settled in north Idaho with other members of their families who had already come to the US.
The area of Idaho where much of my mothers family still lives is known as the Camas Prairie in the Idaho panhandle. The industry in this area is mainly limited to timber, and my distant family continues to run multiple sawmills and logging companies in this area. It is a very close knit community of almost 100% descendants of German immigrants, who are predominantly Roman Catholic.
The lyrics of this song, as I remember them are as follows,(Please excuse the way that I spell words in the lyrics, as I am just guessing at how they should be spelled using phonics as my guide. I never saw the song actually written out, the song was taught to us from memory by my mother- God rest her soul!)
One day the Chinaman did die, and in his coffin he did lie, they carried him back unto Japan, and that was the end of the Chinaman.
(At this point the verses were repeated multiple times. If I remember correctly it was normally recited in entirety four times before it was considered to be finished.)
Have any of you ever heard of a rendition of this song which was close to this?
I really wish that I knew the source of the work, and the original song lyrics that this version morphed from.