Everyone likes a quickie, don't they?

Ok, just a quick little post as I only have half an hour and I type slooooow.

I just realised the other day as I was having a flashback from my youth that we (my family) used to have certain little songs that we sung together. I loved them and found myself randomly singing one. As the words bounced from my lips along with some rice cracker crumbs, I listened to them for the first time and realised it just might be a little racist. It's about a chinaman who can't walk. Here are some of the words:

There lived in China a very old man whose name was Chicaraca ching chong chan (typical chinese name, wtf?),

his legs were long and his feet were small,

this lil fella couldn't walk at all.

and here's the chorus, very inventive...

chicaraca ching chong cha chicaroni, ala fala fat man, o co coni, itchy itchy caterpillar, ickabye ickabye o co coniiiiii...

Now, is it just me, or is this song a bit racist? Is it also quite stupid? yes. Where the hell do caterpillars come into it? At least it speaks the truth there, they are pretty itchy.

Thinking on this issue led me to recall many racist things that were 'ok' cos we 'didn't really mean anything by it' or the song or verse was 'so old that when it was written everyone was racist, and it was not as bad as it is now' Not as bad? My Nana (rest her beautiful soul) still called black people 'darkies' til she died! Now, old habits do die hard and she honestly was not racist, she treated everyone with respect, but she had that habit, which was still a bit weird (although kinda funny).

So... the point of this rant is not actually racism. It's going towards religion (wait, don't click me closed yet) in the fact that it's similar to these family habits we have. I grew up as a 'Christian', officially C of E cos my Mum was. Recently, I've been taking a good hard look at religion, reading stuff, watching docos. I have come to the realisation that I beleived it all cos I was basically steered that way and now that I think of it, I don't like it. I'm not here to preach. I hate it when people push 'god' onto me, so in my opinion, it makes me just as bad as them if I push 'not god' to to others, so that's all I'm going to say about it. If you're in the same headspace as me and wanna give your brain a treat, push it outside its boundaries and get a hold of 'Religulous'. It's an awesome doco and heaps funny too.

It might change the way you think, it did me. The only bad thing is that it's carried over to songs I like and now I don't think I can really sing that in public anymore. Oh well. Chicaraca ching chong can be reserved for special shower performances only, that's where I do my best work anyway.

Out,

Tx