Addressing Japanese Boy

Aneka's greatest triumph and shame

This article is a paradox. It entirely is not to do with Japan, and also very much involves Japan. It is based on a song that I had never heard of, yet now cannot get out of my head. Confused yet? So am I.

Today’s post is entirely about hit 1981 song Japanese Boy by Aneka. Please familiarise yourselves with the song before proceeding with this post.

What just happened?

You have just been transported back to 1981 UK. The hit song of the year is blaring from your radio, a female British singer describing youth abroad. That’s right, Kids in America by Kim Wilde is a runaway hit single. Slightly behind in the year-end charts is Aneka.

Aneka, as seen above, is not Japanese, despite her best efforts. Aneka has succeeded in a rare enough feat, reaching number 1 not just in the UK, but in Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, and Belgium. But you may be asking, who is Aneka?

Lead and only singer Aneka is the stage name of Scottish folk artist Mary Sandeman. Let us try to deconstruct that sentence. Mary Sandeman is not at all Japanese. While that may be a surprise given her liberal use of chopsticks and famed usage of the kimono, she has never claimed any Japanese heritage. In fact, her main success as a recording artist prior to recording Japanese Boy was in singing traditional folk songs in both English and the native Scots in her debut album Introducing Mary Sandeman.

So it isn’t like she doesn’t understand cultural nuances. Perhaps she had her heart broken by a Casanova-eque Japanese adolescent, and has chosen the most high profile way to expose this deceit. Or perhaps not.

You see, Aneka didn’t write this song. No, it was a hit song devised by fellow non-Japanese Scot, Bob Heatlie. As a favour to the then Mary Sandeman to find a clubbier, dancy song, that wasn’t so folk, Bob fished around discarded lyrics from other songs to cobble together the core of Japanese Boy. At first, Mary thought, “hmm, I’m not sure about this whole Japanese thing” but ultimately relented. She just needed a more ethnic name.

Luckily, a phone book (old timey search engine), was laying about and she saw the name Anika. Still sounding too non-Japanese, the dynamic duo workshopped to get to Aneka. Finally they had a name for the stage. They had the song. Now to debut THE BIG HIT.

Here comes the Big Boss

It is fair to say that Aneka would not have scored the same success in current times as she did in 1981. Luckily for Aneka, it was 1981 when she released her debut. And Japanese Boy did tremendously. Everyone loved the Asian chords introduction, that felt like at any moment a giant gong would ring out. They loved the tinge of put-upon Japanese accent. They especially loved the kimono and chopstick get up.

The plan to become an overnight sensation actually worked for Aneka, and launched her to superstardom. So, why haven’t you heard of them? I mean, unless you are a reader in your late 50s from the Northern end of Europe (if so, thanks for reading!), you probably have never encountered Aneka’s work. The answer is pretty straightforward.

Justifiably, the song Japanese Boy does not get playtime these days on your classic radio station. It was perhaps naive to think that this song would continue for decades with its less than authentic-sounding hooks. Yet curiously, it didn’t have the staying power of fellow Orient inspired music as Carl Douglas’ Kung Fu Fighting.

After all, Kung Fu Fighting released in 1974, and was only a few years older than Aneka’s one hit. The song still stands tall as a “classic” in the novelty realm. Carl Douglas was very much not Chinese or a Kung Fu Fighter, as a Jamaican Disco Star. Perhaps like his song, he had expert timing. Released at the height of Kung Fu films in the West, Carl Douglas rode the wave of excitable Kung Fu sentiment, and parlayed that into global success.

The demise of Karate

So why did one Carl Douglas remain an iconic figure in music, and Aneka entirely relegated into obscurity?

My theory is not that funky Chinamen from funky Chinatown is such a strong set of lyricism that it transcends our current squeamishness about race-based songs. I believe it may just be timing. Naturally 1974 is earlier than 1981, but it captured a large swath of popular culture. The song was a true snapshot of that moment in history where almost everyone really was Kung Fu Fighting. It made itself a cultural marker over generations and is still one of the best selling singles of all time. The song would receive new life across multiple iterations of Jack Black’s Kung Fu Panda, and become a karaoke mainstay.

Sadly 1981 was not seen as the Golden Age of Japanese Boys. The Aneka song did not have any greater meaning in the cultural zeitgeist. It was lapped up by masses thanks to the novelty, then as soon as the song got annoying (maybe two and a half times in), became old news.

While both Carl Douglas and Aneka tried to capitalise on their moment in the spotlight, neither really got much traction. In this regard, I think Aneka tried a little harder to expand her horizons. She had follow-up singles in 1981 with Little Lady (Top 10 in Finland and Austria), and Ooh Shooby Doo Doo Lang (No further charts), trying again with Heart To Beat in 1983 and Rose, Rose, I Love You (Brackets not necessary here). With these, there was at least the intention of moving away from this very specific image she painted of herself. In fact, after her involuntary departure from the charts, Aneka once again found Mary Sandeman. She since released Gaelic and Scots language music, even singing Gaelic translations of Mozart’s arias for concerts. It is fair to say that Aneka’s Japanese Boy is no longer a part of her life that she embraces.

On the other hand, Carl Douglas did not want to move away from his hit. The less than creatively titled Dance the Kung Fu, still somehow made the UK charts, but he mostly coasted from the original hit in the subsequent years.

What is the conclusion to all these Oriental Riffs? Well, firstly that this subgenre of music isn’t Asian. As investigated by Swedish web-designer and hobby historian Martin Nilsson, the nine note tone “whose first four tones are identical that usually uses a pentatonic scale” was just how Westerners thought traditional Asian songs sounded like.

The prototypical base for the Oriental Riff

The pentatonic scale is the main base that Western listeners just instinctively associated with the Asian world. Following usage at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair for a exhibitions on Asia (mostly not put on by Asians), the scale was forever linked with Asia. Now, that simple hook became the one source that let everyone know that this is an Asian item, so treat it accordingly.

It became used in popular cartoons from Betty Boop in the 1900s, Disney’s Aristocats (in a now infamously racist scene), and even the Lady and the Tramp.

So how should we interpret music that tries to reduce billions of people’s cultural and musical heritage to nine notes? Perhaps the best way to deal with this is to follow the lead of the Japanese population to Aneka’s superhit. The radio stations who heard the song all took one listen and.. decided it sounded too Chinese. Maybe now if mysterious new artists decide on using this riff to depict Asian music, we can say try harder?