THE 'CHEAP CHARLIE' SONG

This song became famous among Australians in South Vietnam. There is hardly an Aussie who served there that did not know it, but these days most only remember the first verse.

It is sung to the tune of The Children's Marching Song (from the film, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness – 1958 starring Ingrid Bergman as English missionary, Gladys Aylward and Curt Jurgens as Eurasian Colonel Lin) and is based on the traditional nursery rhyme, Nick Nack Paddy Wack (which are sound words with no actual meaning) that was originally adapted by Malcolm Arnold for the Mitch Miller Orchestra.

An introduction to a few basic meanings of some of the words is necessary to enjoy the sardonic humour of the piece:

• Charlie: Should be pronounced char-lee
• Cheap Charlie: a 'round-eye' who was stingy or unwilling to spend money
• Uc-dai-loi: Vietnamese term for an Australian (pronounced 'ook da loy'); purportedly meaning, "big rat" because there is no word in Vietnamese for Kangaroo.
• Saigon Tea: served to bar girls as whisky and coke at inflated prices when a 'round eye' was paying. It was never alcoholic and was usually just cold tea.
• Round eye: Asian slang name for any non Asian person.
• MPC: Military Payment Certificates which replaced American dollars. It was an American attempt to get US currency out of the system. MPC was of no use to the NVA or VC and could be changed by the authorities regularly to maintain currency control. All Allied troops had to use it.
• P: Piastre – the major unit of currency of French Indochina and South Vietnam. MPC was equivalent to about 1,000 Piastre (or more) on the black market. The official Vietnamese currency was, and still is, the Vietnamese Dong (VND).
• Mamma-san: Female bar/brothel owner.
• Baby-san: Baby.