[1] The song was composed in the 1950s, in the Pijin language of Solomon Islands, by Edwin Nanau Sitori, Rone Naqu and Jason Que.
Subsequently recorded and aired by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service, it "immediately became popular"; its popularity was increased when it was recorded by Solomon Dakei, and sung to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh during the Duke's visit to the country in 1958.
It then "became an international hit when Fiji's most famous entertainer and musician [...] Sakiusa Bulicokocoko transformed it from a laid-back island country tune to a rock-and-roll number".
After the Second World War, at a time when Honiara was barely a small town, young men would -according to the song- cross Honiara's Chinatown on their way to hospital staff's accommodation on the far end of the town, hoping to meet nurses there.
[1] The song and its title have, at times, inspired academic works, such as M. Bellam's "Walkabout long Chinatown: Aspects of urban and regional development in the British Solomon Islands" (1969),[5] or Clive Moore's "No More Walkabout Long Chinatown: Asian Involvement in the Solomon Islands' Economic and Political Processes" (2007).