This time I will talk about the process of quickly learning Chinese by listening to music. I have been listening to pop music since I was 3 years old. Because I share a room with my sister, who is seven years older than me. At ten years old, she has already caught up with the trend. She often listens to Anita Mui (so many fast songs) and buys many cassette tapes, often listening to it late at night. When I was in the same room with me at that time, I would think: “Are you still laughing? It’s so noisy!” But because of listening to Cantonese songs, I already knew a lot of words when I was a child. It was quite boring to listen to them, so I had to sing along to find it fun.
Learn Chinese calligraphy in seconds while singing Cantonese songs
Of course my sister knows how to sing along, but I am too young to catch up. There must be an ultra-thin lyric paper in the cassette at that time. The lyrics of ten songs are all in it, and the words are densely packed and very thin. Alan Tam at that time (not now), “Love Trap” was really upright. I remember Alan Tam sang very fast, but how did I sing it when I was only 4 years old? It’s quite funny when I think of it, for example: “I’m looking for my way through the heavy fog silently” and I can only sing “the way out” and “show me the way”; the second line: “I want to see you again / I just want to express my feelings / love” can only be sung to “reveal” and “love”… many of them can only sing the two words at the end. The advantage of using Cassette is to keep pressing Rewind and Play until the player is broken, so you can practice two sentences. (But first you need a cassette machine)In this way, by reading the lyrics sheet and singing over and over again, my Chinese character recognition and pronunciation skills have greatly improved! The fine articulation is very clear!
The songs and singers I loved and sang over the years
In my era, I didn’t listen to Xu Xiaofeng and Jenny Yen. To my 4-year-old self, hairstyles, makeup, and clothing were a bit tacky. In my era, those like Principal Tan, Anita Mui, and Leslie Cheung were popular. Xu Guanjie is also very popular. Personally, I don’t like the style of “lirica”, but I prefer the free-spirited and unrestrained pop songs of Principal Tan and Leslie Cheung. In the later stage, there is Eason Chan, whose emotions and excitement can touch people’s hearts! On the contrary, I don’t really like Chen Baiqiang back then. He seems to work too hard to sing a song well and is not very good at singing true feelings. But “What I Want in Life” and “Loving You Deeply” are good to listen to, and he sang them very relaxedly.
Of course I have listened to “Phantom” and “Love in Late Autumn”, and I have also practiced singing “Lorelei” by Alan Tam. Looking back now, I still feel that the words used are very profound: “The wind is fierce, angry like a dragon, the dragon crashes and moves randomly”, “Thunder and lightning cuts through the world with rapid violence and cracks the sky, running wildly in the rain, the vision is hazy”, and I think the addition of “Lorelei” is so funny! Songs at that time were often mixed with English, such as Leslie Cheung’s “Monica”, Sister Mui’s Bad Girl “why why tell me why”, etc.
If today’s children listen to these songs and want to learn Chinese, I believe their Chinese will improve rapidly! I think English is a much simpler language than Chinese, so they must train their Chinese pronunciation more when they are young. Among my friends,Those whose speaking skills and pronunciation are the best, their parents rarely communicate with them in a mixture of Chinese and English.
The must-have karaoke song back then was “Wuxin Sleep”?
By the time I was in the first grade of elementary school in 1986, I had already learned a lot of words. In 1987, I had Lin Yilian’s “Grey”, “Wuxin Sleep”, “Red Lips of Flame” and so on. I think “Wantless Sleep” is very funny. First of all, it’s the dance steps; at the end, the last line suddenly pops up, “Melancholy running towards the cold weather.” I often miss it when singing karaoke (ha!)
The music scene of the 1980s flourished
After talking so much about Alan Tam and Leslie Cheung, in fact they are not my favorite singers, but they are a big trend. I like to watch “Golden Songs” or those award ceremonies instead of chasing stars. In 1986, Priscilla Chan suddenly said that she would go to the United States to study and leave the music scene after singing “A Thousand Thousand Que Songs” (I cried when I saw it! So sudden?) Later, from Beyond’s “Glory Days” in 1988 to 1989, Guan Shuyi, Hacken Lee, and Wang Jie emerged. Feitu “Karaoke” started in the 1990s, and Chiang Chi-Kuang, Wei Qishan, and Jacky Cheung were also popular for a while in the 1980s. “Love Is Gone” was very popular at the time, Andy Lau’s “Days We Walked Together”, and Lai Ming’s advertising song also became hits, and the Four Heavenly Kings began to take shape. “Song Girl” began to produce TV series and songs, Lin Yilian’s “Crazy”, and Faye Wong appeared in 1992. The music world was full of talents back then!
Before returning, he forced himself to create unlimited creations in the music and film circles.
There is a prominent song from 1991 that must be mentioned, which is “Queen’s Road East”, which reflects the hesitation and anxiety before the return. The time when the return was about to happen forced a lot of creativity, and the same goes for the movie. (Let me share this more) There were many cover songs in the 1980s, and many English songs were covered by Japanese and Winner. In the 1990s, Faye Wong also sang many English covers, including Cocteau Twins, Cranberries, and Bjork.
I was lucky enough to be born in Hong Kong during its creative climax.
The 1980s and 1990s were the time when local creativity was at its peak. British governance gave us a lot of freedom. Even if there was no democracy, we could live freely, make money, and our human rights and laws were protected. Movies are also selling very well in Hong Kong. Many people watch Hong Kong movies, and the whole of Asia also listens to Cantonese songs. (I think many people knew Cantonese back then.) After 1997, almost after 2005, both the music scene and the movie seemed to have entered a low period, and there were no masterpieces… In fact, if TV can replay hit songs in the late night period, it will definitely open up people’s wisdom!
