Talk:ching chong

Wade-Giles & Hanyu Pinyin
This phrase/term is clearly rude, impolite and absurd; do note that it is considered funny/humorous by many Americans, and in that frame of mind it will be pronounced with strange emphasis, cadence, and timing. Anyway, exploring the origins and uses of the phrase/term is inherently meaningful and important. The editor who wrote the etymology for ching chong here: seems to believe that ching chong is a Wade-Giles derivative; however the j and zh origin is absurd to me:. In that theory, zhing-zhong (low quality products) makes sense as a corrupted Hanyu Pinyin form- there's no "zhing" in Pinyin. However, equally note that there is no "ong" final in Wade-Giles for ㄨㄥ- it would be "ung"- see Ch'ung-ch'ing, Chungking, etc. But East of Eden in 1952 does indeed use "ong". So if this were Wade-Giles-derived, it would be a corruption as well, unless this was some kind of variant I don't know about- compare to variant Wade-Giles at Talk:Yilan, Talk:Yangtze, Kuomintang/Komintang, etc. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 19:56, 18 July 2022 (UTC) (Modified)
 * The earliest sources that mention "ching, chong" as Chinese syllables are pure pronunciation spellings of generic Mandarin syllables in the 19th century: e.g. (from an author who is familiar with systematic transcription, see the next page). (The fum there is probably a joke from fee-fi-fo-fum, not intended as an actual syllable.) I doubt it has anything to do with a particular system. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:01, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that the "_ɪŋ(ɡ) _ɒŋ(ɡ)" pattern makes it sounds more "Chinese". ("t͡ʃɪŋ(ɡ)" sounds more Chinese, so that's why it's so "popular".) There are some variations of this word that fit the above pattern. For example, here's a segment from a YouTube rant on Asians at UCLA, published in Raciolinguistics: "[W]hen I'm about to reach an epiphany, over here from somewhere: '...ching-chong? Ling-long? Ting-tong?'" cf (talk) 20:19, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree the rest of the syllable is more relevant than the initial. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 20:21, 6 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Incidentally I also note the current etymology of wingwang says "possibly pseudo-Chinese". —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 20:39, 7 August 2023 (UTC)


 * (Sorry to keep pinging you.) I've changed the en-PR you added because it said the word is pronounced with the same vowel as "wolf" or "put"; as far as I know it is always pronounced with the vowel in "hot", as the IPA indicates. The pronunciation given at Chongqing was also a mess which I've corrected. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 08:54, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Cantonese, Hokkien, Mandarin, etc.
Has touched on an interesting question- is the origin of the evil word 'ching chong' with any one Chinese language, or is it a general mimicry of various Chinese languages? I would say that these three languages, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Mandarin are good to propose as candidates for either a specific or generalized origin. And as to "etc." (presumably meaning other Chinese languages like Shanghainese and Xiang had an influence/effect on this word), it feels inexact, but it makes sense to say "etc" for now. I would love to find out the earliest origins of the term- I assume this is from the 19th century- am I right? And truly, the "chong" just could not come from Mandarin until Hanyu Pinyin was created unless it was a non-standard spelling from Mandarin, so that's some kind of clue to what's happening here. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 09:40, 20 December 2023 (UTC)


 * @Geographyinitiative 👍 yup, I've encountered this expression as well in some dictionaries of Philippine languages by authors like John U. Wolff in (1972) ‎‎‎‎A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan, where he used "Ching chong Chinaman, eat and shit." as a definition for one of the derogatory expression taunts to insult people of Chinese (usually Hokkien) ancestry among people in Cebu or generally Bisaya-speaking areas in Central Visayas to Mindanao. The expression he was defining is also of Hokkien origin, because the Chinese Filipinos living in Cebu are mostly usually of Hokkien-speaking heritage. There's even a song a local singer in Cebu made called and one of the words in the lyrics became a Cebuano Bisaya expression as well, . The people surnamed  in the Philippines though, despite usually being of Hokkien-speaking family background, get their surnames from  because their family usually has history from cold war hokkien migrants from British Hong Kong (usually ) and the British Hong Kong authorities there romanized their surnames from Cantonese when they migrated to the Philippines around the 1960s-80s. The surname  tho among Chinese Filipinos is usually from . It's also spelled  sometimes. My maternal grandma is surnamed Ching and I had multiple classmates and schoolmates before surnamed Cheng, Ching, Chong, Chung, Chang, etc. I understand that in the US tho, there are more Chinese Americans of Cantonese origin, which there are a few Chinese Filipinos of Cantonese origin too in Baguio City who came during American colonial times, but I put etc. cuz maybe there are also people of Foochownese/Hokchiu or Teochew or Taishanese or Hakka or Hinghwa or etc background in the US or Singapore or Malaysia or Indonesia to factor in. Mlgc1998 (talk) 10:21, 20 December 2023 (UTC)