Chinese nationalism... from a Taiwan pop group?!?!
Just got recommended this song by my girlfriend... watch it here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnszYWDkyDc (somehow youtube doesnt recognise my blog)
Translations are here for all those (like me) who couldn't get the words clearly: http://www.chinesemusicblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2906&action=new
Basically song is gloating about how, after the long years of chinese people having trouble with learning english, now the rest of the world has to learn chinese! Which is true, but the tone of the song rubs me up the wrong way. You don't hear any songs extolling the virtue of the english languange over chinese, french or malay, do you?
Another interesting thing is how S.H.E, a Taiwanese female pop group, is singing it. True, the chinese language is called pu tong hua in china, but the title, zhong guo hua, translates literally as China's Language, where the China refers to the PRC rather than the ROC. Pro-unification feelings perhaps?
Back to the tone of the song rubbing me up the wrong way. As I said before, you don't often hear of songs in one language promoting that language and denigrating other languages. The whole thing smells to me like Chinese nationalism raising its ugly head. Only now, the propaganda is even more subtle and designed to reach out to chinese all over the world (esp. Taiwan perhaps?) through a popular pop group. I mean, the feeling I get from the song is: Mwaahahahahaha, now you have to learn MY language. Bow down to me!
Its for reasons like this, among other things such as the news almost every other month that some chinese have been caught stealing US military technology that really makes me wonder:
How truthful is the chinese government when they say that all they want is to grow peacefully?
Translations are here for all those (like me) who couldn't get the words clearly: http://www.chinesemusicblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2906&action=new
Basically song is gloating about how, after the long years of chinese people having trouble with learning english, now the rest of the world has to learn chinese! Which is true, but the tone of the song rubs me up the wrong way. You don't hear any songs extolling the virtue of the english languange over chinese, french or malay, do you?
Another interesting thing is how S.H.E, a Taiwanese female pop group, is singing it. True, the chinese language is called pu tong hua in china, but the title, zhong guo hua, translates literally as China's Language, where the China refers to the PRC rather than the ROC. Pro-unification feelings perhaps?
Back to the tone of the song rubbing me up the wrong way. As I said before, you don't often hear of songs in one language promoting that language and denigrating other languages. The whole thing smells to me like Chinese nationalism raising its ugly head. Only now, the propaganda is even more subtle and designed to reach out to chinese all over the world (esp. Taiwan perhaps?) through a popular pop group. I mean, the feeling I get from the song is: Mwaahahahahaha, now you have to learn MY language. Bow down to me!
Its for reasons like this, among other things such as the news almost every other month that some chinese have been caught stealing US military technology that really makes me wonder:
How truthful is the chinese government when they say that all they want is to grow peacefully?
posted by edwin at 9:03 pm
1 Comments:
The same comment has been made on the french Chinese forum:
http://www.chine-nouvelle.com/forum/read.html?q=6,380
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