Greetings.

I've been thinking about songs that my sisters and I sung when we were children, and one of those songs is the one we called "The Little Baldheaded Chinese". (Read my 18 Jan 07 - 04:54 PM comment).

I agree with the comment that GUEST,Anonymous Date: 05 Mar 18 - 06:06 made in which they recalled hearing a concert performer "remove the anti-China slur" by changing the referent in that song to "The Dirty Old Man from Fresno". That commenter wrote "I fully approved of [this]. It doesn't really matter to the song where the old man came from--it just needs two syllables."

In a current post on my pancocojams blog I suggested that people could change the word "Chinese" to the word "neighbor"

Corresponding to my 1950s childhood memories of this song, people could sing:
"My mother she told me to open the door
The little baldheaded neighbor bor bor
I opened the door. He fell on the floor
The little baldheaded neighbor bor bor"
-snip-
For the record (no pun intended), the tune that my sisters and I used for what we called "The Little Baldheaded Chinese" song closely fits the "Blow The Man Down" shanty (not that we knew "Blow The Man Down" when we were 7, 6, and 5 years old).

I should also mention that repeating the end of the word "Chinese" was the way that my sisters and I sung that song, but I haven't come across that pattern in any other examples of that song. I only suggest it because I remember it being fun to do. (Regardless of how much fun it may have been, our mother didn't allow us to sing that song again because she said it was "nasty").

That said, I think that the word "neighbor" works pretty well as a replacement for the problematic word "Chinese" in that song because 1. the two syllable word "neighbor" isn't offensive and 2. the word 'neighbor" somewhat explains why the mother told told her child to open the door for that man who ended up doing those crazy things.

People teaching the "The Crazy Baldheaded Neighbor" could use it as a way of reinforcing the lesson that children should not only be aware of "stranger danger" but should also be alert to the possibility that people they know might cause them harm. Therefore, regardless of who asks them, children should always refuse to do something they know isn't right or they feel isn't right.

What do you think of that suggestion of replacing the word "Chinese" for that song?

Best wishes, Azizi