So, this is the logical consummation of my vacillating obsession with Chinese pop: passing off Jay Chou as "the arts of Southeast Asia" at SEA night, ordinarily a display of cute pre-colonial romantic ritual and rural charm. Instead, we have two girls in Singapore Girl tops and jeans, plus an aloof act-cool Jay Chou lookalike. Heheh. How Singaporean is this playlist: Sun Yanzi, Chen Xiaodong, Jay Chou, David Tao, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lam Yishan.
From the program, my mischievously drivelly-blurb-subverting blurb:
Singapore is, strictly speaking, culturally rootless, extending its tentacles to appropriate any number of foreign influences, giving rise
to an almost exclusively derivative youth culture. We have no ethnic or national music per se, patriotic anthems excluded. How many times have students been forced to endure "cultural" performances, wistful mother-country legacies which a nation of pop-culture adulators has now largely abandoned? These songs, therefore, are Singaporean in the way that Dance Dance Revolution, instead of noh theater, is 'Japanese', or karaoke, instead of wushu, is 'Chinese'. These are songs by Taiwanese pop poster-boys and Cantopop queens. Not your typical sappy love songs, though. Mandarin can accommodate lots of maudlin imagery and trite metaphors before it merits being called sappy. (That's why we've decided not to give translations of the lyrics). Asian languages get away with things like that.
Hen Hao (Very Good)
originally by our very own Singaporean Stephanie Sun Yan Zi
It would be pointless to attempt to describe this song in English. Briefly, and literally, love is compared to the steadfastness and
constancy of a fortress. Less a love song than a pledge to solidarity and mutual support.
Hui Dao Guo Qu (Return to the Past)
originally by Taiwanese pop poster-boy, Jay Zhou Jie Lun: "ni diao bu diao?"
This song is a misty-eyed look at lost innocence, simpler times, the dizzy pre-sexual bliss of puppy love. The original MTV featured a courtship conducted via SMS, atop a Vespa, aloof bad-boy posturing on Jay's part, and super act-cutesiness by the girl.
Goodbye (Goodbye)
originally by Daniel Chen Xiao Dong aka "Dongdong"
A guy and a girl at an alfresco cafe. They're sharing earphones. She smiles sweetly. He bids her farewell (do they break up? Is
he moving to Mongolia? It's not clear).
From the program, my mischievously drivelly-blurb-subverting blurb:
Singapore is, strictly speaking, culturally rootless, extending its tentacles to appropriate any number of foreign influences, giving rise
to an almost exclusively derivative youth culture. We have no ethnic or national music per se, patriotic anthems excluded. How many times have students been forced to endure "cultural" performances, wistful mother-country legacies which a nation of pop-culture adulators has now largely abandoned? These songs, therefore, are Singaporean in the way that Dance Dance Revolution, instead of noh theater, is 'Japanese', or karaoke, instead of wushu, is 'Chinese'. These are songs by Taiwanese pop poster-boys and Cantopop queens. Not your typical sappy love songs, though. Mandarin can accommodate lots of maudlin imagery and trite metaphors before it merits being called sappy. (That's why we've decided not to give translations of the lyrics). Asian languages get away with things like that.
Hen Hao (Very Good)
originally by our very own Singaporean Stephanie Sun Yan Zi
It would be pointless to attempt to describe this song in English. Briefly, and literally, love is compared to the steadfastness and
constancy of a fortress. Less a love song than a pledge to solidarity and mutual support.
Hui Dao Guo Qu (Return to the Past)
originally by Taiwanese pop poster-boy, Jay Zhou Jie Lun: "ni diao bu diao?"
This song is a misty-eyed look at lost innocence, simpler times, the dizzy pre-sexual bliss of puppy love. The original MTV featured a courtship conducted via SMS, atop a Vespa, aloof bad-boy posturing on Jay's part, and super act-cutesiness by the girl.
Goodbye (Goodbye)
originally by Daniel Chen Xiao Dong aka "Dongdong"
A guy and a girl at an alfresco cafe. They're sharing earphones. She smiles sweetly. He bids her farewell (do they break up? Is
he moving to Mongolia? It's not clear).
posted by D at 14:15
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