Ching chong,ching chang,ching chang chong, andchung ching areoffensive phrases used to mock or imitate theChinese language, people ofChinese ancestry, or other people ofEast Asian descent perceived to be Chinese. The term is a derogatory imitation ofMandarin andCantonese phonology.[1] The phrases have sometimes accompaniedassaults or physical intimidation of East Asians, as have other racial slurs or imitation of Chinese.[2][3]
While usually intended for ethnic Chinese, the remark has also been directed at other East Asians.Mary Paik Lee, aKorean immigrant who arrived with her family inSan Francisco in 1906, wrote in her 1990 autobiographyQuiet Odyssey that on her first day of school, girls circled and hit her, chanting:
Ching Chong,Chinaman,
Sitting on a wall.
Along came a white man,
And chopped his head off.[4]
A variation of this rhyme is repeated by a young boy in John Steinbeck's 1945 novelCannery Row in mockery of a Chinese man. In this version, "wall" is replaced with "rail", and the phrase "chopped his head off" is changed to "chopped off histail":
Ching Chong, Chinaman,
Sitting on a rail.
Along came a white man,
And chopped off his tail.
In 1917, aragtime piano song entitled "Ching Chong" was co-written by Lee S. Roberts andJ. Will Callahan.[5] Its lyrics contained the following words:
"Ching, Chong, Oh Mister Ching Chong,
You are the king ofChinatown.
Ching Chong, I love your sing-song,
When you have turned the lights all down."
In December 2002,NBA starShaquille O'Neal received media flak for saying "Tell [NBAcenter]Yao Ming, 'Ching chong yang, wah, ah soh'" during an interview onFox Sports Net.[6] O'Neal later said it waslocker-room humor and he meant no offense. Yao believed that O'Neal was joking but said a lot of Asians would not see the humor.[7] Yao joked, "Chinese is hard to learn. I had trouble with it when I was little."[8] O'Neal added, "I mean, if I was the first one to do it, and the only one to do it, I could see what they're talking about. But if I offended anybody, I apologize."[8]
On January 24, 2006, comedianDave Dameshek created an audioparody of theAsian Excellence Awards forThe Adam Carolla Show. The premise of the parody was using the words "ching" and "chong" to mimic the awards show.[9] Branding the segment as demeaning and racist, several Asian American organizations threatened to ask advertisers to withdraw their support from the show if the station did not issue an apology.[10][11] On February 22, 2006, Carolla read a brief apology for the segment.[12] On April 26, 2006, Carolla had the head of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans,Guy Aoki on his show. Aoki opined that "ching chong" is equivalent to "nigger".[13][14]
On December 5, 2006, comedian and co-hostRosie O'Donnell ofThe View used a series ofching chongs to imitate newscasters in China.[3] O'Donnell made a comment in reference to people in China talking aboutDanny DeVito's drunken appearance on the show, "You know, you can imagine in China it's like, 'Ching-gong-hu-gong, ching-chang-kong. Ching-chong. Danny DeVito. Ching-chong-chong-chong-chong. Drunk. The View. Ching-chong.'"[15] TheAsian American Journalists Association said her comments were "a mockery of the Chinese language and, in effect, a perpetuation of stereotypes of Asian Americans as foreigners orsecond-class citizens ... and gives the impression that they are a group that is substandard to English-speaking people".[16] Cindi Berger, O'Donnell's representative, said: "She's a comedian in addition to being a talk show co-host. I certainly hope that one day they will be able to grasp her humor." On December 14 onThe View, O'Donnell said she was unaware thatching chong was an offensive way to make fun of Asian accents, and she was informed it was on par with the "N-word". She apologized to "those people who felt hurt".[17][18]Jeff Yang, who tracks Asian and Asian-American trends for a market research firm, said O'Donnell shouldn't have apologized for people's hurt feelings. "She should have apologized for spreading and encouraging ignorance."[3] O'Donnell warned, "there's a good chance I'll do something like that again, probably in the next week, not on purpose. Only 'cause it's how my brain works."[19]Time called it a "pseudo-apology".[20] O'Donnell later wrote in her autobiographyCelebrity Detox: The Fame Game that "I wish I had been a bit more pure in my public apology."[21]
On January 19, 2011, conservative political commentatorRush Limbaugh mocked Chinese presidentHu Jintao during his visit to theWhite House on his radio show. "Hu Jintao—He was speaking and they weren't translating. They normally translate every couple of words. Hu Jintao was just going ching chong, ching chong cha," said Limbaugh, who imitated Hu's speech for 17 seconds. RepresentativeJudy Chu ofCalifornia said that Limbaugh's words were the same ones that Chinese Americans have heard in the past 150 years as they faced racial discrimination while "they were called racial slurs, were spat upon in the streets, derided in the halls of Congress and even brutally murdered".[22]New York AssemblywomanGrace Meng said it was Limbaugh's prerogative to attack Hu, "but at the same time he offended 13% ofNew York City's population".[23] California State SenatorLeland Yee also criticized Limbaugh for his remarks: "His classless act is an insult to over 3,000 years of cultural history, and is a slap in the face to the millions of Chinese Americans who have struggled in this country and to a people who constitute one-quarter of the world's population."[22] Yee demanded an apology from Limbaugh for what he and others view as racist and derogatory remarks. He also organized with civil rights groups—includingChinese for Affirmative Action,Japanese American Citizens League and theCalifornia National Organization for Women—to boycott companies likeProFlowers,Sleep Train andDomino's Pizza that advertised onLimbaugh's talk show.[23][24] Yee received threatening messages and also received a fax from an unknown sender which made racist comments and called him aMarxist. "Rush Limbaugh will kick yourChink ass and expose you for the fool you are," part of the memo said.[25]
In March 2011,UCLA student Alexandra Wallace uploaded aYouTube video entitled "UCLA Asians in the library", ranting about the "hordes of Asians" in UCLA who don't "use American manners".[26][27] In a rant about Asians speaking loudly on a cellphone in the campus library, she mimicked one as saying, "Ohhh! Ching chong, ling long, ting tong! Ohhh!".[28][29] Her rant inspired heated criticism, not only because of her use of the "ching chong" stereotype but also because of the timing: amajor tsunami had just occurred in Japan, leading her to complain, "I swear they're going through their whole families, just checking on everybody from the tsunami thing."[29] Over 40 percent of the school's 36,000 students areAsian American andPacific Islanders.[30] MusicianJimmy Wong uploaded the video, "Ching Chong!: Asians in the Library Song" to YouTube, in response. The video received national coverage.[31][32][33][34][35]The Sacramento Bee wrote, "The students [she] mocked can inspire resentment, jealousy and fear—the kindling of ethnic slurs—because their success is about achievement and a pathway to status."[30] Additional responses included a line of T-shirts featuring the "Ching-chong" slur, with all proceeds going to Red Cross relief for the tsunami.[29] UCLA deemed the video offensive and called it "repugnant". The student later wrote toThe Daily Bruin, issuing an apology to "the entire UCLA campus".[36][37][38][39]The New York Times published an editorial criticizing the video, but supporting herFirst Amendment right tofree speech.[40] Several days later, UCLA announced it would not discipline the student, but she withdrew from the university.[41][42]AsianWeek wrote that "any negatives [the student] experienced are just a fraction of what Asian Americans have experienced since coming to America".[43]
AColbert Reporttweet, in March 2014, brought the slur back into the limelight. The program was lampooning thecontroversy surroundingthe name of theWashington Redskins football team. The team's owner,Daniel Snyder, had announced that he was dedicating a charity for Native Americans called "Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation". In the March 26, 2014 episode of theReport,[44][45]Colbert satirized a charity to Native Americans using the offensive word "Redskins" in its name, and stated that he would be starting his own similar charity called "Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity toOrientals or Whatever", adding "I owe all this sensitivity to Redskins owner Dan Snyder. So Asians, send your thank-you letters to him, not me." The following day, a Twitter account for the program run by Comedy Central tweeted, "I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever" but did not link to the episode or provide context for the statement.[46] This quickly led to people creating a #CancelColbert hashtag, which lasted until the following Monday's episode (March 31, 2014)[47] when Colbert described the sequence of events, scolded Comedy Central for the poorly contextualized tweet, and criticized the offense-takers' haste in their CancelColbert campaign, also noting that Dan Snyder's charity named after Redskins was ironically not being protested.
During the2014League of Legends World Championship group stage inTaiwan,Team SoloMid junglerSvenskeren registered an account by the name TaipeiChingChong on theGarena servers and was subsequently fined and suspended byRiot Games.[48] The incident was also criticized by the Taiwanese version of the newspaperApple Daily.[49]
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In August 2018, voters reported that Michigan state representativeBettie Cook Scott urged her supporters, "don't vote for the ching-chong" in the primary election, referring to her opponent,Stephanie Chang.[50] She later issued an apology through a representative.[51] She would lose the election andde facto defaulted her seat after the apology until Chang's inauguration to a Michigan House office charged with representing the district's affairs in the interim period in her place.[52]
In November 2018, FilipinoDota 2 player Carlo "Kuku" Palad was banned from attending the Chongqing Major after typing "ching chong" during a live match against Chinese players. He eventually apologized, but did not get his ban lifted.[53] This followed an earlier event when another Filipino player Andrei "Skemberlu" Ong used the same term during a match with a Chinese team a few weeks earlier.[54]
In December 2018, American rapperLil Pump was criticized after using the term in a teaser for his then-upcoming single "Butterfly Doors", which also contained the lyric "They call meYao Ming 'cuz my eyes real low" with him slanting his eyes. He later was chided by several Asian and Asian-American rappers such asChina Mac andAwkwafina. Lil Pump subsequently released an apology and edited out the lyrics from the official music video.[55][56][57]
In November 2022, German former professionalfootballerJimmy Hartwig was criticized after using the term in his commentary about theJapan national football team onWELT-TV for the2022 FIFA World Cup.[58] The WELT management company removed the video fromYouTube and Hartwig posted an apology on hisInstagram.[59]
In 2025,Queenstown, New Zealand hamburger barFergburger apologised for identifying a customer on a shop receipt with stereotypical labelching chang.[60] The employee was later fired.[61]
In July 2025, the English singerLiam Gallagher ofOasis used the term "ching chong" in a post on the platform days before the kickoff of theOasis Live '25 Tour. This led to much backlash, especially from Asian accounts. He has since deleted the post and apologised.[62]
Also in June, Shaq announced that he would test Yao's toughness by taking an elbow to Yao's face. This comment, combined with Shaq's racist taunts are particularly disturbing, as Asian Pacific Americans often suffer racial taunts while being assaulted or physically intimidated.
Those words once accompanied violence and lynchings. "Ching-Chong Chinaman" rhymes dating to the 19th century weren't just schoolyard taunts. To be ignorant of that, as O'Donnell was, doesn't eliminate the history. Americans also mock Chinese Americans such as calling them by their Chinese name, Such as "Hon Man" or any other name
Perhaps we should put it in terms Shaq might understand: If a white comedian imitated Shaq by making monkey sounds while eating fried chicken and watermelon, would the point be clearer?
Yao quickly said: "The world is getting smaller, and I think it's important to have a greater understanding of other cultures. I believe Shaquille O'Neal was joking, but I think that a lot of Asian people don't understand that kind of joke."
"Chinese is hard to learn. I had trouble with it when I was little," Yao joked.
Though Carolla said he should have checked the routine before it aired, Aoki and Teddy Zee, the producer of the awards show who accompanied Aoki to the program, said that Carolla seemed to be dodging responsibility for the routine.
I had no idea. "Ching chong" to most "round eyes", as we call ourselves, are just a simple nursery school, whatever, make-fun-of ryhme. It means nothing to us. We don't know certain things and I'm glad you have enlightened us.
"The View" co-host is in hot water for using the expression "ching chong" to describe Chinese people talking about Danny DeVito's drunken appearance on her show.
We feel strongly that it is our responsibility to call attention to what we consider a mockery of the Chinese language and, in effect, a perpetuation of stereotypes of Asian Americans as foreigners or second-class citizens.
So apparently 'ching-chong,' unbeknownst to me, is a very offensive way to make fun, quote-unquote, or mock, Asian accents. Some people have told me it's as bad as the n-word. I was like, really? I didn't know that.
But I'm also gonna give you a fair warning that there's a good chance I'll do something like that again, probably in the next week -- not on purpose. Only 'cause it's how my brain works.
She added: "He was, in his own way, trying to attack the leader of another country, and that's his prerogative as well, but at the same time he offended 13% of New York City's population."
In recent days, the state lawmaker has rallied civil rights groups in a boycott of companies like Pro Flowers, Sleep Train and Domino's Pizza that advertise on Limbaugh's talk show.
State Sen. Leland Yee said at a San Francisco news conference today that threatening messages sent to his office via fax, text message and email need to stop, and that the messages have made him disappointed in the country.
