Monday, November 4, 2013

I Love You, China

It's like America the Beautiful, except different. Compare and contrast:
A lark flies across the blue sky:
"I love you, China!"
I love you, China,
I love you, China,
I love your exuberant seedlings in spring,
I love your bountiful golden fruits in autumn,
I love your temperament of green pines,
I love your character of red plum flowers,
I love your home-grown sugar cane,
That nurtures my heart like milk.
I love you, China,
I love you, China,
I will dedicate the most beautiful song to you,
My mother,
My motherland.
I love you, China,
I love you, China,
I love your blue waves rolling across the South Sea,
I love your white snow flakes flying over the North Land,
I love your endless forests,
I love your grandiose mountains,
I love your vivacious streams,
That flow through my dreamland with clear sparkles.
I love you, China,
I love you, China,
I will dedicate my prime youth to you,
My mother,
My motherland.
Ah ......
Ah ......
I will dedicate my prime youth to you,
My motherland,
My homeland.
The song first appeared in a film, Overseas Compatriots, but has since been taken up as a stand alone piece for its beauty. It is written for soprano. In the film, the heroine sings this song on an entrance examination for a music school. It attracts the attention of men outside who gather at the window to watch the woman they hear singing. It happens.
There are more palatable sopranos than that, in my humble opinion.
Random
Better than random.
It is achingly slow, and frankly, I find it annoying.
It is considered a patriotic song, jingoistic, if you like, but people love it. Millions and millions of people love this song. That makes it a bit of an odd choice for a talent contest. It would be like singing America the Beautiful for a talent show. Reading through the 3,270 comments it appears the judges did not select this man because they say they have nothing to teach him. He blew them away so solidly they have nothing to add to his training. He should be training them. The woman said she already has six so cannot press her button anymore. One judge said he believed the other judge would be better. Chinese viewers think the judges are averse to adopting the singer due to the song being patriotic and Chinese. This singer is well-known in China.
Everyone agrees he sings the song very well. It does not sound like the same song the women are singing. 




nice hair! i mean your eyebrows :D

Actually he isn't naturally bald, he has curly hair and thought it wasn't easy to tidy up, so he tried to shave his hair in 2004 and thought it's more suitable for him to stay bald.

6 comments:

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

You can go ahead and make fun of China all you want, but the simple fact remains that there is not one single Chinese person alive who couldn't take your dining room chairs, and build a tower by stacking one atop the other, and then climb to the very top, and then do a handstand to thunderous applause.

edutcher said...

More like "God Bless america", but he ain't no Irving Berlin.

YoungHegelian said...

If I've got to listen to Chinese patriotic songs, I'll stick to the classics, thank you very much.

"My Motherland" is patriotic sentimentality meets Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky" meets the Five Year Plan, and features one of those traditional, Chinese, nasal-toned singers who somehow didn't get sent to the rice paddies for re-education through labor.

Known Unknown said...

I thought this was a Tom Friedman post. Darn.

ricpic said...

The extreme killing air pollution in most Chinese cities makes for some really beautiful atmospheric effects -- so it's all good.

Synova said...

If Kung Fu movies are any hint, curly hair probably signals that one is part of a less desirable minority. Less civilized.

It might not be a big deal, but bald probably is better if he can't get it to lay flat.

Unless that's just not a "thing" anymore in China even if it was in Kung Fu movies. ;-)