新年好呀, Part II: Oh, My Darling

Along with other New Year's notes, I can now add that the mystery of why so many Chinese have "Oh My Darling Clementine" as a ring-tone has been solved. In China, it's better known as the "Happy New Year Song," to wit:

新年好呀. 新年好呀. 祝贺大家新年好. 我门唱歌. 我门跳舞. 祝贺大家新年好.
Xin nian hao ya. Xin nian hao ya. Zhu he da jia xin nian hao. Wo men chang ge, wo men tiao wu. Zhu he da jia xin nian hao.
Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you all (or "everyone"). We are singing; we are dancing. Happy New Year to you all.

"Opening and Reform: Guns n Roses"
Originally posted: 07:36, 2007-09-27

In the area I live, they have three-screened television displays with sound set up every hundred feet or so in the sidewalks, usually playing either the same cartoon that I see on the 369 bus or reruns of "America's Funniest Home Videos," both of which involve a lot of people falling down or getting hit in the head or the crotch. (The crotch-shot is very near the pinnacle of hilarity in China.) Two nights ago, though, something new was playing, an old video of a Western magician.

It took me about five screens to realize that I'd seen this magic act before. In the big finale, the magician gets locked into this peculiar box, where you can see his legs, arms and head but not his torso; his assistant then crawls through the box, and apparently through all the magician's vital organs. I'd crouched down on a shop's steps to watch the show, and was busy thinking how funny it was to see this on a street in China, when a Chinese kid singing along to the music made me realize what the soundtrack for the show was: Guns n Roses' "Don't Cry" (1991).

There are a number of such Western songs that I hear in an average week. Andes Cafe routinely plays Londonbeat's "I've Been Thinking About You" (1991) and Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" (1992). Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" (2000) is covered constantly in nightclubs, and Joan Jett's "I Love Rock and Roll" (1981) and The Cranberries' "Zombie" (1994?) are both popular with female singers. I constantly hear ringtones playing "What Child Is This?" and "Oh My Darlin' Clementine"; the latter has a few Chinese versions whose meanings are beyond my understanding. It's also very common for me to hear Chinese songs with familiar music that I can't quite put my finger on; Chinese lyrical rewrites are common. (The song "Bu Pa Bu Pa," it turns out, is the Chinese version of "Dragostea Din Tei," and it took me months to realize I was hearing "Oh My Darling Clementine" everywhere, even though I knew the song was familiar.)

Maybe this cross-cultural sharing is a good thing, though, at least for me. Most of the traditional music here (even the boy-band music that's a bit more modern) isn't that enjoyable to a waiguoren, but the heavily Western-influenced music can be quite good. Last year I felt a huge sense of relief whenever I got to hear "One Night in Beijing" instead of traditional Chinese or covered Western music, and this year I particularly like a song called "Zhu Xiaole" ("The Pig or Pigs Smiled"). I don't really understand it yet, but it's at least one song that's worth listening to while trying to figure out the meaning, unlike another song with "Wo ai ni, wode jia" ("I love you, my home") as a refrain; that one I can nearly understand all of, but it makes my skin crawl to hear it. Meanwhile, I've gotten far enough with "Zhu Xiaole" to get that each refrain starts with a variation of "Beijingren shuo" ("Beijing people say"), changing the locales each time to include at least Shanghai and Guangdong (my province).