Is it just me or are the lyrics to this rather tacky pop song a bit sinister?
People of every skin colour, People with hair of every colour
What they’re reading, what they’re saying,
Chinese is becoming the new trend
How many years did we painstakingly practice English pronunciation and learn their grammar?
For a change, now it’s their turn to get their tongues all in a knot
How smart the Chinese are! And how beautiful our language is!
The whole world is learning Chinese
Confucius’ words are becoming world culture
Our language makes the people of the world listen up
The first question this raises is exactly who in the world is learning Chinese other than a handful of business men and language students at university? An audacious statement perhaps but doesn’t quite represent the whole world to my mind, although they got the part about it being a ludicrously difficult language to learn correct!
Aside from being a little naive what’s perhaps more worrying is that this was one of the main performances at the 2008 Chinese New Year gala broadcast on CCTV (the state controlled TV network in China). If there was ever a subtle way to try and get your message across about intentions of world domination then this sure isn’t it!
Ironically the group (S.H.E) are from Taiwan and were formed in a talent contest, rather than having any artistic ideals. Just another cog in the propoganda machine?
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While English is today an important language, Chinese language, history and culture continues to be a fascinating discipline, which remains at the forefront of our changing world. You said it! We has to admit it is significant to learn Chinese if we want to be international. http://www.hellomandarin.com
I’d never disagree that it’s a good endeavor to learn a foreign language other than English but I seriously doubt the whole world will be speaking Chinese any time soon.
Well done for plugging your business! haha
First of all, I have been reading your blog and love it. Good job.
I lived in China for 20+ years as a native speaker. I can tell the message of the song is being read and interpreted very differently when it is translated into English, which is understandable. (When Chinese lyrics are translated into English word by word, it doesn’t make the lyrics English, because you need the “Chinese mentality” to get the message behind the surface.) They are not being sinister or anything close to that at all.
The original message (the Chinese version) is all about how the Chinese-speakers love Chinese as a language. (That is why it has all the crazy rhymed poems in it.) It is also happily stating the trend that more people are realizing Chinese is or will be important and are starting to learn the language. Also, they are trying to be cute, in case people didn’t get that.
One thing you have to understand is that the Chinese people have been suffering for years trying to learn English. Just- too- much- pain-. (Assuming your mother tongue is something in the Latin family, and if you have tried to learn Chinese or Japanese, any eastern Asian language, you will know what I mean by pain.) Shouldn’t they be a little proud, happy or relieved when they see other people are learning Chinese instead?
Another thing is Chinese is spoken by more than 1 billion people and English 400 million people as the first language. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language). We just have to face the fact that if we want to international, we learn English, as well as Chinese.
S.H.E. is hot in China because people, not CCTV, love them. The sales of their albums have been #1 or #2 in China for years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.H.E.). So no worries there. I understand their music is not as artful as is in the US, but it is the taste in China. Again, we have to face the fact that people chose this taste.
Anyway, I am just trying to look at the song from a different perspective. Hopefully it helps the non-speakers to understand the good intention behind this song.
Hi Hu, Thanks for your insight - I’m happy to stand corrected although I still think its a bit to much of a coincidence that this song was chosen to be performed on the CCTV gala given its lyrics.
What worries me here is that wrapping nationalism up in a “cute” package could be seen as a veiled form of brainwashing in so much as millions of people will have watched this for entertainment but the message being put across seems to be a bit out of sync with reality.
Perhaps I am wrong and misinterpreting because of the literal translation as you say but a group of Taiwanese singing about how great China is on state TV is a little to much for me!