Tin Pan Alley songwriters Jean Schwartz and William Jerome began their partnership in 1901, and collaborated successfully for more than a decade.

They composed many popular songs together, including million-sellers "Mister Dooley" and "Bedelia".

The melody of the song uses pentatonicism, while the harmonies employ many parallel fourths and fifths, a common exoticist technique of the time based on Western stereotypes of Chinese and other East Asian musics.

[b] Through these musical techniques as well as racist lyrics, the song participates in the history of Orientalism.

[12] Subsequently, the accordionist John Serry Sr. also recorded an easy listening arrangement of the song for RCA Thesaurus in 1954.