On Chinese Language and Chinese Songs (Now playing Intimate Relationship by Sammi Cheng. You can listen to this lovely song here.)
It is quite remarkable when I sit back and realize how many Chinese/Cantonese songs I have been listening to nowadays. I guess my Chinese teachers from ACS and ACJC would have been pleasantly surprised. But I also felt that it was a great pity that this appreciation of Chinese songs did not take place earlier when I was still a student then. If it had, I guess I might have turned out to be very different in my Chinese Language ability.
I do not know how the present culture is in ACS at present, but during my time then, 1986-89, it had a very 'unsuitable' culture for the learning of Chinese. I never recalled hearing any ACSians talking in Chinese in the canteen in all my four years there. In fact, one key reason that led to yours truly deteriorating in Chinese is that there is never any shame in not doing well in Chinese; in fact it was almost the opposite, you feel a sense of pride in not doing well! It was not much different in ACJC although I do remember some of my schoolmates regarding me with 'one kind of look' when I keep failing my Chinese (I took the 'AO' exams 3 times, with grades of E8, F9 and D7 respectively. Whew, thank God I managed to 'clear' Chinese at the very last hurdle J).
Well, from the law of comparative advantage, one benefit I did recall from my failures in studying Chinese is that I spent a lot of time reading English newspapers and magazines, especially the Straits Times, Reader's Digest, Newsweek and Time Magazine. I guess I wanted to prove to myself and others then that, I can be good in language if I put my heart and mind into it.
My exposure to Chinese songs started during my NS times. The song that started it all for me must be Jacky Cheung "Wen Bie" or Kiss Goodbye. All my campmates kept singing that song day and night and it got 'worse' when Jacky's Cantonese Song, 'I only wanted to follow you forever' came out; its infectious long chorus had everyone trying to master in one breathe to sing in karaokes.
Sammi Cheng
You know, when you keep liking songs from the same singer without even realizing it, it usually means that singer fits your taste perfectly. Sammi is perhaps the first female singer that falls into this category. Although I certainly think she is pretty, I personally am glad that she is not really 'extraordinarily beautiful' in the showbiz sense because, to me, it shows that it is the songs that matter
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The
first song that I heard was when I had the chance to work as a waiter in a
Canto Pub back in East Coast. The band, "Blackjack" danced
and sang to this very hip song, "Chotto
(Wait Wait)". At that time, I did not know it was by Sammi
Cheng of course. During my NUS days, I attended a friend's birthday
where some of her relatives were singing 'Betrayed'.
I found that song memorable, although I still did not realize its from
Sammi, because from the way those people sing, the
chorus sounds like a funeral song with the constant 'weiiiiiiiiiii' at
the end of each sentence J. Obviously,
not all of Sammi's songs can be easily sung in karaoke, you can judge for
yourself here. Later the song that finally endeared Sammi to my taste was the majestic, "Worth it"; every ah beng and ah lian kept singing that song throughout Singapore then J. Once I realize it was Sammi Cheng I have been listening to all this while, I started to listen to her regularly.
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(Aside, I think the bengs and lians are now rapping constantly to the China Doll song, Muay Nee Ka, the Chinese chorus translated in English means, "Please cooperate, do not come near me, you only insult my beauty. I am not your type so why do you keep bothering me". Trust me, the Chinese version sounds much more catchy J. You can listen to this song here.)
Coming back to Sammi, after that, songs like Old Necklace, Intimate Relationship, Never Enough, Soundtrack and Arigato became my favorite Sammi songs. Indeed, what I like most about Sammi is that she is very versatile, both in fast and slow numbers, and I like her cool attitude.
It also helps that Chinese artistes tend to release albums much more frequently than American ones, sometimes even two or three times a year. However, I do notice that their songs tend to have one verse, then chorus, then the same verse and chorus until the end. I guess it is okay for me.
Kelly Chen
The song that endeared Kelly Chen to me must be the song "Care too much about you", with its romantic tune and Kelly's sweet voice. Another one is the song Automatic, you can download this high quality real-video here. (Warning: The high quality real-video comes with a trade-off, its about 7.8 MB. Thanks to Kelly Concerto for this link)
It is quite amazing, Kelly is my age actually, being born in 1973. In the past, my favorite singers like Madonna and Michael Jackson are all older then me. Now they are all the same age; maybe I cannot deny that I am getting old J. Kelly's songs provide a very good alternative for me whenever I had too much of Sammi's songs.
Recently, Kelly's comments towards MP3s caught my eye, as seen in the following comment taken from EOLHK. (Note: The passage below can be viewed properly only through Internet Explorer; it will be in a garbled form using Netscape. Sigh, I hate all these platform incompatibility problems J.)
陳慧琳指MP3對歌手好壞參半
陳慧琳昨日獲邀出席由MTV
Billboard所主辦的«亞洲音樂研討會»，其他一同出席的歌手包括有張學友¡B謝霆鋒及王力宏¡C四位歌手參予討論的題目為¡u互聯網如何幫助(或傷害)歌手¡v，而當中以MP3對歌手的影響為討論重點¡C
Kelly認為，MP3對歌手來說是有好亦有壞，她說：¡u我認為歌曲可以透過互聯網讓全世界也可聽到，對歌手來說是有很大滿足感，但另一方面也會有盜版情況，會令唱片公司的收入構成很大影響¡C¡v
Omigosh, reading the first paragraph reminded me very much of my numerous Chinese oral exams in my secondary school days. I remember there was one particular year when the examiner asked me a question about the passage, I just sat there without saying anything. She was puzzled and asked me whether I heard her. With a smile, I told her, "I know what your question is and I know roughly where in the passage I can find the answer. The problem is, I do not know how to recite the answer!" She then replied, "Just point to me where the answer is." J The second paragraph is much easier to read. From my rudimentary Chinese ability, what Kelly is saying that MP3 can be good or bad for the artist concerned. On one hand, it brings a great sense of satisfaction to the artiste personally on the thought that, through MP3, people all around the world have the opportunity to listen to their songs; on the other hand, the record companies' profit would be heavily hit. It is something that is quite in synch with what I am wrote here, that it is the clash between the artistes' interests and their promoter's interests.
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You can see and hear her speaking in full about this issue here. (You can hear it quite smoothly even on a 33.6 kps modem) From listening to her, besides her lack of awareness of MP3s, it should be obvious to all that she feels very much constrained by her record company, at least that is my interpretation.
Kelly's latest Cantonese Album sounds very cool. I cannot say the same for Sammi's latest Chinese Album though. Such a pity Singapore still have problems with allowing the usage of Chinese dialects, since I think their Cantonese songs flows much better than their Mandarin ones even though I don't understand Cantonese.
Conclusion
Well, I did not mentioned others like enigmatic Wong
Fei, the cute Tarcy Su
or even the hip-hop Zhang
Huimei (file not working), but all these singers have blessed me very much with their
songs. Although I am against the politicization of the language issue here
in Singapore, especially the Annual Speak Mandarin Campaign, as expressed here,
I am certainly contented to be a Chinese. I think I will continue striving
towards improving my second language skills in order to enjoy these songs.
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