Songfacts®:

• "Man From China" is one of the most whistleable songs of the New Wave era. It's the first single from Vivabeat, a Los Angeles group that made synthesizer-driven music with a punk influence (in other words, New Wave). The lyric revolves around a mysterious man from China and how he affect the local climate, but really the song is a showcase for those synths and that whistling.
• Vivabeat was led by Marina Del Rey and Mick Muhlfriedel, who told Songfacts the story behind this song:
  
  "Man From China" originated in the band Audio Vidiot, a forerunner of Vivabeat, which keyboardist Marina (del Rey) Muhlfriedel and guitarist Alec Murphy played in. The song was written by Robert Garman (later Robert Windfield), the lead singer of Audio Vidiot. He also contributed the whistle refrain. The song was built around a sort of blues/boogie groove that grew out of that band's late-night jamming on the organ riff from ? & the Mysterians classic, "96 Tears."
  
  At the time, a lot of people in the L.A. music scene were using heroin. Although we didn't openly discuss it, the lyrics referred to a Chinese heroin dealer that Robert and Alec met at Filthy McNasty's, a Sunset Strip bar that later became the Viper Room.
  
  After an early demo of "Man From China" captured Peter Gabriel's attention, the song became a catalyst for Vivabeat coming together, and we had the bright idea to reinvent the song with a dance groove. Drummer Doug Orilio and bass player Mick Muhlfriedel came up with a four-on-the-floor kick drum and bass beat.
  
  Mick wrote a bridge, and Connie DeSilva contributed the sequencer part, using a sound she discovered on her Mini-Korg, one of only two synthesizers we had at the time (the other was a Roland SH-3). The trick was for everyone to lock in with the sequencer. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn't. The song took on the lush, more mysterious tone, reflected in the recorded version, and the band signed to Charisma Records in the UK, the same label as Peter.
• Vivabeat made a video for this song even though MTV wasn't on the air yet. Marina Del Rey and Mick Muhlfriedel explained:
  
  MTV hadn't yet launched, but by 1978, music clubs, nightclubs, and discos were playing music videos on TV monitors and screens. Tony Stratton Smith, who owned Charisma Records, hired Jon Rosemon Productions, which, along with Simon Fields, Bruce Gowers, and Paul Flattery, produced many early music videos. We still cringe at the overactive fog machine they deployed and how our Italian-American drummer, Doug, was outfitted in a Chinaman costume, complete with a Fu Manchu mustache.
• In 1979 Charisma Records released this song as the first Vivabeat single. It got some play in dance clubs in Europe and the US, and in 1980 it was included on the first Vivabeat album, Party In The War Zone.
• A lot happened to Vivabeat after they released this song. They shifted lineups as band members dropped off due to drug addictions and creative conflicts. In 1982 they released a song called "The House Is Burning (But There's No One Home)" with a video that got a few spins on MTV. Robert Dean, formerly of the band Japan, was their guitarist on that one. They toured on bills with R.E.M., Depeche Mode and The B-52s but had trouble expanding their audience, and they broke up in 1984. A 2001 compilation called The Good Life got them on streaming services, and in 2025 the Party In The War Zone album was reissued in an expanded edition.
• Peter Gabriel may have gotten the idea for the whistling "Games Without Frontiers" from this one. His song was released in 1980, a year after "Man From China."