Lyrics: I'm a Female Bodhisattva/ 我是女菩薩

This tune is an interesting one- the song is straight up 1930s nightclub jazz, but the lyrics are a female Bodhisattva's feelings for a pious Buddhist monk.  The term bodhisattva can have different meanings- it could be a person bound for enlightenment, or already enlightened, who chooses to make the enlightenment of others their life's work.  In the less formal practice many East Asian countries,  Bodhisattvas have forestalled their Buddhahood, their entrance to Nirvana, that they might use their powers to aid others.  They are then appealed to much in the same way that a Catholic might pray to a saint, for good fortune, good business, safe travel, protection from evil, successful pregnancy, or whatever.  Here in Taiwan the most famous bodhisattva by far is Guan-Yin, a statue of whom's  big-eared likeness can be found in most every temple.  There is also giant statuary- one in Bishan in Taiwan and a particularly impressive one in China's Hainan.  To supplicate a god, member of the celestial bureaucracy  or bodhisattva, one would light incense sticks, bow to their statue with a request in mind, and place an offering (usually foodstuffs) on a table in front of the statue; this song's pious monk goes a bit further than that, with gold and floral adornments.  There are a couple of spoken-word cynical comments that seem to imply that the monk's adoration is folly so the whole song might be a bit of a sneer at traditional piety-- but that's nothing I can be totally sure of.

Check out all the steamy-hot statue-worshipping action below the break:

fall cleaning

Anyone who has been in Taiwan in the summertime would know that it's quite a singular experience, weather-wise.  The humidity is such that the water saturated air is almost palpably thicker- and the slightest physical exertion in any room that is not carefully air-conditioned and dehumidified results in a sheen of sweat that covers your entire body.  You can take a shower and feel like you should take another within ten minutes.

My apartment is a bit of a mess.  I've been wanting to clean it, but we've no A/C, so it was rather hard to get motivated to move any more than absolutely necessary, unless that moving resulted in relocating to a blissfully cool coffee shop.

Anyway, Fall's here and the wind blows cool-  I've been doing some deep organizing and long neglected clean up- and in turn neglecting this site.  The lapse won't be overlong-  I've got several posts lined up and halfway done (translations, uploading and whatnot).  Expect a several posts posts of music and lyrics before the months end.

appo-polly-loggies, and check back later this week as we resume.

Lyrics: Eternal Smile/ 永遠的微笑

Here are the lyrics to one of Zhou Xuan's Signature songs- there's not much to say, it's a slow beautiful song buoyed by a lush string arrangement and strong melody.  Zhou Xuan's voice is never finer than it is here.  The video above is the best the web has to offer, a version that aired on MTV Asia; note that it has overdubs, likely because the producers wanted it to have a cleaner sound.  That said, they stayed true to the original style at least.   Lyrics after the jump.

Chinese Ancient Music Vol. 3- Dance Music of the Imperial Palace

Don't take the title to literally on this one- there's nothing on here that one would today call dance music. We have on offer meditations on and musical representations of natures phenomena.  The only real dance song per se (track 4) is a formal, slow and stately affair, and very brief.  It is surrounded by two spare solo qin pieces.  One,  "Li Sao", is an anxious bit of string music that oddly puts me in mind of some early acoustic blues.  Really, the whole disc is a somber, and often ominous affair, the second track is seen as the melody embodying the downfall of a dynasty, and the Tang Melodies almost sound ghostly.  The only unabashedly optimistic tune is "Birds Singing in Spring"  which is a pretty ensemble piece full of bright bells and wind instruments.   It's followed by a piece by a modern composer, "Vast Desert" which portrays the hard life of a soldier on the frontier using an instrument called the Bili, in a imaginary recreation of how Tang songwriters would have done it.   The disc ends out with bells, drums and a male chorus in martial mode, intoning the sounds of war for the Qin Emperor- and it's a pretty effective way to end the disc.

MP3@320
PDF Liners

Lyrics: Beautiful Taiwan/ 台灣小調

 Alishan

I’m not one for nationalism of any stripe, I don’t feel that a country as a political construct is something that should be loved so much as constantly scrutinized for the wrongdoing of its constituent members.  But a country in the sense of the land, the people and their accomplishments, this is something you can admire without becoming dogmatic or irrational.  

It’s almost 10-10,  Double Ten Day (雙十節), which is Taiwan’s national birthday.  Taiwan has it’s issues like any country does, but it’s a pretty friendly place and it modernized more successfully than any Asian nation save perhaps Japan and Hong Kong.   This song won’t mention the pollution, the hideous architecture that renders the cities kinda ugly or the harsh school and workplace regimens that the citizens endure for relatively little reward.  But, hey Taiwan, it’s your birthday, we can let that slide- Let’s look at the good things, and let’s do it in song!

Lyrics: Thinking of My Husband/ 憶良人

A simple and stately song by 周璇.  A woman looks out her window and thinks of her husband who is engaging in some endeavor in a distant place.  We are not given to know what it is, but it is something she apparently admires him for.  This admiration cannot completely stifle her sadness, and it ends on a wistful note.  It’s a beautiful song that captures a small moment perfectly- though if you want to see how many ways modern musicians have found to utterly destroy the mood with their electro-orchestra pop arrangements, do a google video search for the chinese title.  Otherwise, lyrics after the break.

Pathé 100: The Series #6- Zhang Yi-Wen and Dong Pei-Pei

This disc pairs to singers whose careers extended from the 40s to the 60s, beginning in Shanghai and moving to Hong Kong as many did at the beginning of the Communist Revolution.  Yi-Wen was more a  nightclub singer who made occasional movie appearances, while Pei-Pei was more a movie star whose records were generated by her films.  Why they share this disc is a mystery to me, but both have lovely voices and distinct styles.   Also a bit irritating is that the songs mentioned as their most famous are not included on this disc- no doubt put on an alternate compilation disc as purchase incentive.

Booklet bios and links after the break:

Chinese Classical Instrumentals

Here's an old extended play single recorded in San Francisco in 1950, when the music therein would have been surely considered premium exotica.  It represents an early attempt to recreate the music of 11th century China, a time when the tradition was flourishing, and large orchestras of 100 or more players were possible.  Chinese music wasn't fully notated in the Western sense however,  so the music is a mix of modern and mellenium-old sensibilities.  It's one of my favorite classical recordings- for me, the sound of the record static adds to a sense of it's age and makes it all the more charming.  Even if you're skipping the "China Ancient Sounds" discs, give this one your time.

MP3@192kbpsVBR w/PDF liners

supplementary reading after the break.

Pathé 100: The Series #15: Grace Chang

This is a pretty danceable disc, right here.  A good half of it would have held up well in andy 1950s/60s dance hall in the US.  Grace's voice is a rich and versatile instrument; she belts out emotional ballads, hula twists, and Chinese classical with equal aplomb.  She was only active for a decade in popular music and movies, but she's got her fans to this day and it's easy to see why- she was a star through and through---

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From the Liners:  

Grace Chang, AKA Ge Lan (葛蘭), real name Zhang Yu-Fang (張玉芳), was born in the city of Haining (海寧) in Zhejiang province (浙江), and grew up in Shanghai. She immigrated to Hong Kong with her family in 1949. In 1952 she passed a screen test for the Taishan Movie Company (泰山影業公司), and dropped out of school to star in the movies. Her screen name Ge Lan comes from the English name Grace, selected by a studio director Bu Wan-Cang (卜萬蒼). In this year she starred in her first movie, Love in Spring (戀春曲) which was released in Singapore in 1953. In 1954 she had a cameo in a Clark Gable film, Soldier of Fortune.  By 1957, after starring and co-starring in several more movies, especially Mambo Girl (曼波女郎) her popularity soared, and she was considered for a brief time the queen of musicals. In 1959 she was invited by NBC to sing on US television, on the Dinah Shore show. She was married to a wealthy businessman in London in 1961, and then retired in 1964, having starred in over thirty movies.

Between 1950 and 1960 she made records for the Pathé (百伐公司), the most popular songs being, "I love the Cha-Cha" (我愛恰恰), "Carmen" (卡門), "I Want Your Love" (我要你的愛), "I Want to Fly in the Blue Sky" (我要飛上春天), and "Unspeakably Happy" (說不出的快活).  In 1973 she began to study Beijing Opera, and when the state-sponsored Beijing Opera Troupe visited Hong Kong in 1979 she was allowed to perform one song with them, a considerable honor. In 1989 she recorded an album of famous songs of the Chinese Opera. In 1994 she performed in an a-capella commerative concert for the 100th birthday of one of Beijing's most famous opera performers, Mei Lan-Fang (梅蘭芳). In retirement, she continues to make occasional appearances.

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Lots of other photos and video can be found at Soft Film, including clips from her Dinah Shore appearance.  Further, many of her films are available at Yes Asia, though virtually all cds of her recordings are OOP.

AAC@320kbps

PDF liners

This share was previously posted at "What's In My Ipod".  If you got it there, there's no real need to re-download, though if you're on the fence, note that the tracks are encoded at slightly higher quality and are bilingually labeled.  The liner notes are being posted for the first time.

Chinese Ancient Music Volume 2: High Mountains, Flowing Water

Here is the second in the series of recreations of historical Chinese music;  this volume, like the first, focuses on music dating back to the "Six Ancient Dynasties" from the Qin to the Han (220 BCE to 220 CE).   The imagery evoked is of majestic, serene nature, and of those souls who forsake a materialist's life in order to be one with it.  It's lofty, peaceful stuff on the whole, but if you take a cue from the title, "Calling Spirits Back From the Dead" is a bit spooky, and regardless of the title "Dragonboat" is full of tension and excitement.  It's a brisk and hectic song depicting a boat race and played on solo pipa (琵琶).  I've heard that the pipa is one of the world's most difficult instruments to learn, and you'll hear why.  


Tracks are bilingually tagged and MP3@320kbps, pdf liners are also available to download.

Lyrics: Full Moon, Beautiful Flowers/ 月圓花好

This song has the distinction of being the first one I ever translated, and three years would pass before I did another.  I heard this song in Zhang Yimou's (張藝謀) movie Shanghai Triad (摇啊摇，摇到外婆橋) as sung by Gong Li (鞏俐).  I'm still partial to that version's music, but even though Gong Li has a pleasant singing voice, Zhou Xuan is in another league, really.  

Not a lot to say about the song, really- it's a famous classic, a formal and beautiful picture of a reuniting couple and some nicely worded natural imagery.  Should any Chinese students wander by this song is short but packed with good vocabulary, especially if you want some novel ways to talk about love.  I post this song today, as today is the holiday of the full moon, 中秋節.  

Lyrics: The Wandering Songstress/ 天涯歌女

This song appears twice in the movie Street Angel (馬路天使), Zhou Xuan's favorite of her own movies.  In the first instance she is with her love, in poor circumstances, but happy.  In the second she is far removed from him and is singing under coercion, and the song transforms into a lament-  as seen in the video above.  This song was massively popular in it's own day, and is an acknowledged classic unto the present.  It got another shot the arm when Ang Lee had his lead sing it a cappella in his film Lust, Caution. (色，戒).  It is one of the great songs of tragic romance and one of the best known songs of 時伐曲.  There are other translations about on the web, and they read a bit more fluently than mine, but mine stays truer to the original Chinese.  Judge for yourself, below.