Archives For Chinese

My Life in Music

August 2, 2015 — Leave a comment

Will keep this list updated here.

I’m trying to wrap my head on the fact that Mario Testino photographed these Chinese perfections- (From Left to Right) Zhao Wei, Liu Wen, Carina Lau, Fan Bingbing, and Tang Wei. Li Bingbing, Du Juan, Zhang Ziyi, Chris Lee (Li Yuchun), and Zhou Xun.

Celebrating 10 years of Vogue in Mainland China.

vogue-china-10th-anniversary-mario-testino

Note, though, that Carina Lau (sitting in gold on the far left) is turning 50 this year. I’m just saying. She’s at least 8 years ahead of Li Bingbing (sitting in gold in between Tang Wei and Zhang Ziyi) and 10 years ahead of Zhou Xun and Zhao Wei. And Carina is sitting below model Liu Wen, who is 27. I’m just saying.

Carina Lau deserves our respect.

Perhaps Love~

July 12, 2015 — Leave a comment

I, of course, also ended up finally watching Peter Chan’s Perhaps Love (如果·爱), which is China’s -possibly- only formal foray into the musical genre. They were probably so into Moulin Rouge! and Chicago at some point, they got Farah Khan to whip some of her Bollywood 90s magic. You can see all the influences.

But, of course, Chinese people don’t believe in happy endings… even in musicals! Farah Khan probably watched this and was bored out of her mind because she probably doesn’t get us tortured East Asian souls. I did buy into all the grown-up lamenting love story.

ru-guo-ai-perhaps-love-zhou-xun-takeshi-kaneshiro

To misquote Ron- I want to suffer, but I want to be happy about it.

I’ve been hearing Ellen Loo’s name very often for the last three years, but I never ever really took the time to sit down and listen to her albums until this weekend… and wow- I’ve just finally gone through her 2nd album You Quietly Hide Away (你安安靜靜地躲起來), which is a tremendous improvement from her debut Ripples (掀起), which isn’t all that bad either. I particularly liked Wait (等等), Hey Boy, Summer of Love, and Satellite Lover (人造衛星情人).

Ni An An Jing Jing De Duo Qi Lai comes as a surprise. I’m also surprised she sings in Mandarin so much, since my Hong Kong friends are the ones talking about her, I expected to listen to a lot more Cantonese.

Here’s some links: YouTube, Xiami, Spotify, iTunes.

Feels like I haven’t posted a trailer in ages on here, but since it’s already been like a month- this is more of a personal note to watch this coz it looks so damn funny.

Cast: Vivian Sung (宋芸樺), Darren Wang (王大陸), Dewi Chien (簡廷芮) and Dino Lee (李玉璽).

I thought I could hate Sonam Kapoor and Fan Bingbing with a passion, but hey! Look at Mainland actor Huang Xiaoming or Japanese actor Masaki Okada, they never fail to make me want to punch them in the face. While Masaki Okada does have a sizable fandom of girls, I’ve yet to find someone (ANYONE!?) who likes Huang Xiaoming and his smug face. LOL

huang-xiaoming-vs-masaki-okada

Battle conceded to Okada, I guess. xD

One go, not much thinking and over-thinking. Yup, this looks about right.

amys-15-years-of-oscar

  • 2000 – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
  • 2001 – Moulin Rouge!
  • 2002 – Gangs of New York
  • 2003 – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (because I have to)
  • 2004 – Finding Neverland
  • 2005 – Munich
  • 2006 – Letters from Iwo Jima
  • 2007 – There Will Be Blood
  • 2008 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  • 2009 – District 9
  • 2010 – Toy Story 3 (because you HAVE TO)
  • 2011 – Midnight in Paris
  • 2012 – Life of Pi
  • 2013 – 12 Years a Slave
  • 2014 – Boyhood

I struggled a little with LotR and (maybe) Toy Story, but I’ll give it to them anyway~ I’m also a bit lukewarm about Finding Neverland and Midnight in Paris, and I totally warmed up to Life of Pi… though I don’t mind Argo. With Boyhood over Whiplash (despite me liking the other one better xD), it makes the list a lot more larger than life.

I’m currently basking myself in the beauty that is Henry Huo’s (霍尊) first full-length album Heavenly Song or Tianyun (天韵). He was the winner of the first season of Sing my Song (中国好歌曲) when he cause a ruckus with his song Rolled-up Pearl Curtain (卷珠帘) [1], which he ended up performing at the 2014 CCTV Spring Festival Gala.

henry-huo-zun-tianyu-heavenly-song-album

You can listen to the album over at Xiami or Migu Music (for US locked).

Lyrics, English/Español translations and song embed below the break~

Once again, all Chinese translations by me to be taken with a pinch of salt. xD

Continue Reading…

I randomly ran into this amazingness of 2013 that I had never heard a peep from. Why wasn’t this viral? It’s weird for people, it’s super funny, and it’s got dancing Ahyis~

I couldn’t find much info on it, a search for Puffy Peng heeds no results, so I’ll add the Chinese characters in. The song is… I suppose in Taiwanese (?) and has some bits of dialog in Mandarin, and is possibly your dance routine next time you hit the (super)market.

It also spawned this mash-up of Beyonce’s Single Ladies.

… and you gotta wing it like a ninja with all these geoblocking business.

zhao-wei-tiger-mom

Actually- I don’t think Tiger Moms would approve of winging something, but Chinese skills would need to be improved forcefully because Tiger Mom (虎妈猫爸) ain’t getting subbed nor fansubbed alright, because that’s how C-fans deal. You want to enjoy all these fancy movies, cdramas and cmusic, you better learn Chinese alright~

I feel Zhao Wei encouraging claps.