There’s been quite a bit of talk about the nursery rhyme lately Hanky Panky Shanghai. I didn’t know it. At first I thought it was a corruption of Hansje Pansje beetle (which, in turn, is a free translation of Itsy Bitsy Spider; a beetle on a fence is different from a spider in a drainpipe, but both animals perform the same sysifus work, and are therefore undoubtedly a cruel metaphor for human deficiency.)
Hanky Panky Shanghai turned out, on inquiry, to be sung in the manner of Happy Birthday to You. The eyes are drawn to slits, to the understandable bewilderment of the children of Asian descent present.
Yes, all well-intentioned, but imagine: you ended up at a Chinese school as a Dutch child. Then you would also be shocked if you were sung to in a circle with Grutje muttje, Den Bosch or Beautiful eighty, Gouda by a classroom full of Chinese children who open their eyes wide with their fingers?
When is that offending Hanky Panky Shanghai actually sneaked into Dutch kindergartens? It must have been after my infancy (when the very few non-blonde toddler was conveniently referred to by his friends as ‘poo Chinese’), but not much later. Some searching led to the late 1970s. At the time, the song was undoubtedly regarded as a symbol for the enlightened multicultural society in which we thought we lived at the time. That human deficiency again.
What to do? Banning songs usually backfires. Before you know it, something like that spreads like an oil slick, and we get there, just think what, Macaroni, ciao ciao at, or Thick döner, kebab, Nice and tasty, couscous and no me gusta, tapas.
I searched further and involuntarily opened a huge cesspool. What turned out? There are already several versions of Hanky Panky Shanghai! I came across four ‘Russian’ variants alone: Balalaika, boom boom, Great luck, njet, njet, Wladiwostok, njet njet and Kofnof sandwich, bof bof. I’m definitely not making this up. In addition, when singing, the knees are beaten chattering, as in a Slavic folk dance.
Just think: those poor Ukrainian and Russian refugee children! Then you have escaped Putin’s bombing raids, finally safely in Holland behind a sprinkle of sprinkles (with poignant nostalgia for your trusted kofnof sandwich), and then you get ‘big Bofnof’ hurled at your head!!
And that while of course there is only one big Bofnof. He’s in the Kremlin. It can’t hurt to have him, at a safe distance, every now and then Great Bofnof, njet, njet to sing to. If that doesn’t help: Balalaika, boom boom!