DailyDirt: Hmm.That's Not Really Chinese
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The Chinese get credit for a lot of things: fireworks, the printing press, bird flu (do not want).... But some things that everyone thinks are Chinese, aren't really Chinese. Here are just a few examples.- There's a nine-note melody that immediately signals a Chinese (or generic Asian) stereotype, but where did it come from? Prof Charles Hiroshi Garrett and other curious internet detectives try to track down the origins of this oriental riff, finding that it's not actually Chinese and could be heard in 1847 in a show called The Grand Chinese Spectacle of Aladdin, or The Wonderful Lamp. [url]
- Chinese food in the US frequently comes with a fortune cookie, but those little desserts actually originated in 19th-century Japan. Fortune cookies were once sold in Japanese confectionery shops in San Francisco before WWII, but then, uh, Japanese Americans were taken away and Chinese businesses took over the fortune cookie industry. [url]
- The common knowledge is that iPhones are made in China, but technically, the devices are mostly just assembled there. Of the estimated $178.96 wholesale cost of an iPhone, only about 3.6%, or $6.50 of assembly is done in China. The iPhone is obviously sold (and designed) by an entirely US company, and its components are made in several different Asian and European countries. [url]
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Filed Under: asian, chinese, chinese food, fake, fortune cookies, iphone, japanese, melody, oriental riff, stereotype
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Soy Sauce
Another one: 90% of the world's Soy Sauce is made in tiny Walworth, Wisconsin.Subscribe: RSS
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1847? That's early enough that it's in the public domain now. And see how it's been enriching our culture ever since? ;)
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Re:
Anyone know the origins of that bit?
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There's no need to sugar-coat it, and good reasons not to, just state the truth: they were ordered to abandon their homes and businesses and thrown into internment camps.
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Apple
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Re:
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iPhone
Err no - the design is also sourced from across the world. The processors and graphics system are based on designs from two British companies ARM and Imagination Technologies.
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Soy Sauce
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Re: Apple
Apple is a multinational just like all the others. It can't really be called an "American" company.
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Re: Re:
Anyone know the origins of that bit?"
Read "Devil in the White City" -- the origin of that melody is recounted there (and is very interesting!)
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Re: Soy Sauce
True Kikkoman has a factory there - to serve the US market - but I severely doubt that 90% of the worlds production is there.
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