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. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
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Filed Under: asian, chinese, chinese food, fake, fortune cookies, iphone, japanese, melody, oriental riff, stereotype


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  1. icon
    Mason Wheeler (profile), 4 Sep 2014 @ 5:10pm

    [The oriental riff is] not actually Chinese and could be heard in 1847 in a show called The Grand Chinese Spectacle of Aladdin, or The Wonderful Lamp.

    1847? That's early enough that it's in the public domain now. And see how it's been enriching our culture ever since? ;)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Mason Wheeler (profile), 4 Sep 2014 @ 5:12pm

    Re:

    Oh, and speaking of Aladdin, in the Disney version, right at the beginning, at the intro to the first song, they play a similarly-stereotyped "Arabian riff". You know the one. Nine notes on an oboe, going up, then down, stretching out the last note.

    Anyone know the origins of that bit?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 4 Sep 2014 @ 5:19pm

    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.

    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Andy, 4 Sep 2014 @ 5:51pm

    Apple

    Is Apple really an entirely American company when they are headquartered overseas for tax purposes?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    got_runs? (profile), 4 Sep 2014 @ 8:10pm

    Found a new iPhone setting on the sidewalk two weeks ago. I picked it up and through it in the garbage bin.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Rudolph Bledsoe, 4 Sep 2014 @ 8:36pm

    Re:

    thats so awesome. thanks for doing your part!!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    James Jensen (profile), 4 Sep 2014 @ 9:36pm

    Re: Re:

    From what I've been able to find, that sounds a little like the Hijaz scale played partway up and back down. It's a common scale in Turkish music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKZYlFrgub8

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Mason Wheeler, 5 Sep 2014 @ 4:44am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Interesting. So that one really is Arabian?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    Richard (profile), 5 Sep 2014 @ 5:13am

    iPhone

    The iPhone is obviously sold (and designed) by an entirely US company,

    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Joel Coehoorn, 5 Sep 2014 @ 6:31am

    Soy Sauce

    Another one: 90% of the world's Soy Sauce is made in tiny Walworth, Wisconsin.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 5 Sep 2014 @ 11:15am

    Re: Apple

    No.

    Apple is a multinational just like all the others. It can't really be called an "American" company.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    michael, 5 Sep 2014 @ 11:48am

    Re: Re:

    "Oh, and speaking of Aladdin, in the Disney version, right at the beginning, at the intro to the first song, they play a similarly-stereotyped "Arabian riff". You know the one. Nine notes on an oboe, going up, then down, stretching out the last note.

    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!)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. icon
    Richard (profile), 6 Sep 2014 @ 1:35pm

    Re: Soy Sauce

    I doubt it.

    True Kikkoman has a factory there - to serve the US market - but I severely doubt that 90% of the worlds production is there.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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