The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #71726   Message #4202412
Posted By: GUEST,Samantha R
11-May-24 - 10:57 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Ching Chong Chinaman Song
Subject: RE: Origins: Ching Chong Chinaman Song
In the mid-1980s in New Zealand, my grandfather bought me and my two siblings ukuleles and taught us the following short ditty whilst strumming along:

Ching chong Chinaman,
All very sad
All his cabbagies
All gone bad.

I don't remember any other verses. My parents weren't pleased at all with the lyrics and told us not to sing them at primary school and so we didn't. My grandfather was born in 1923 in central NZ and had learnt that ditty as a small child.