6 comments

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  danny

  1 year ago

  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
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  David

  1 year ago

  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
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  Hu

  1 year ago

  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.
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  David

  1 year ago

  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!
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  Hu

  1 year ago

  Ha. I see what is happening here. Let me point out that the translated English word "Chinese" can mean many different things. But the original word "Zhong Guo Hua" in mandarin, means "Chinese language" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language) only. It is the official language in both PRC (China) and ROC (Taiwan). Both people from Taiwan and people from mainland China share the love and "nationalism" towards OUR mother tongue. S.H.E. are all considered Chinese (from a culture perspective) to me b/c they speak exactly the same Chinese language as I do. Again, the love here is part of the "Chinese mentality" I mentioned before. I can understand why it is hard for people from the US to truly get it, given how the US is founded by people from all over the world.
  
  As to the reality, I have no say. I recommend reading an article from Time Asia. http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501060626/...
  
  Hope it helps.
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  David

  1 year ago

  Apologies that you comment took a while to appear Hu, it got stuck in the moderation queue! Thanks again for your comments, one correction - I'm not from the US (thank goodness) - I'm British from the UK!!
  
  The article you linked to was very interesting and I have no doubt that Chinese is becoming an ever more important language. I'd personally love to learn Mandarin but having tried my hand at Japanese and Korean at university have found learning Asian languages extremely hard. If I get another chance to live out there maybe I will take it up more seriously.
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