"Drei Chinesen mit dem Kontrabass" (Three Chinese or Chinamen With A Double Bass) is a popular nonsensical German children's song.
[6] The version featuring "Japanesemen" is still popular in some parts of Switzerland, and a particularly inventive variant attested in Ticino not only rounds off the song with a final yodel but has the Asians sitting on the street not with, but without a double bass.
[7] The reason for this could be that some of the oldest known variants do not feature any musical instrument at all, but rather have the Asians sitting on a street without a passport (German Pass), which would even lend some meaning to the lines.
The threefold repetition of the monosyllabic Bass was gradually replaced by Kontrabass, which in fact fits much better into the metric structure of the text.
The main reason for this is most certainly the standardizing effect of mass media, in this case the Schlager-inflected recording sung by the trio Medium-Terzett, which hit the German charts in 1968 and was then broadcast on television and radio countless times.
[8] A Hebrew version also exists, called "שניים סינים עם כינור גדול" (Two Chinese with a big violin).
Many hits of the age owed their comic effect on wellnigh dadaist meaninglessness and simple nonsensical rhymes such as Mein Onkel Bumba aus Kalumba ("My uncle Bumba from Kalumba") or Mein Papagei frisst keine harten Eier ("My parrot won't eat hard-boiled eggs").
The same vowel-exchange rule applies to the Spanish song-game La mar estaba serena (also: salada) and, with some differences, the Italian Garibaldi fu ferito.
In the following year, crime fiction writer Lisa Pei published a whodunit under the same title, in which a bass-playing teacher is a murder suspect.
In 1981, cartoonist Hans Traxler included the parody Anton Dvořak mit dem Kontrabaß in his volume Leute von Gestern.
Yueyang Wang, a Chinese audio artist living in Germany, dealt with a more delicate facet of the lyrics in one of her installations, namely its supposed affinity to xenophobia.
After the declaration of independence of the micronation Republik Freies Wendland sit-inners blocking the transportation of radioactive waste to the repository facility at Gorleben repeatedly intoned the tune, twisting the lyrics to a national anthem of sorts: "Zwanzigtausend mit dem Wendenpass / saßen auf der Straße..." (Twenty thousand with a Wendian passport/ sat on the street/ etc.).
In 1998 and 2000 two of German hip hop's most prominent acts mangled the song in their tracks, first Fischmob in Polizei Osterei and two years later Fettes Brot in Da draussen.
The song also appeared in TV ads, first in a campaign for Maggi instant ramen, and most recently in a spot for the dairy company Müllermilch.
The version used in the dairy ad, sung by Mia-Sophie Wellenbrink and entitled Fruchtalarm (literally "fruit alert") even reached #17 in the German single charts in September 2005.