Translated lyrics

Here are English translations of some of my Chinese song lyrics.

民工 Migrant Workers

我每天都遇到民工

I see migrant workers every day

对他们的生活什么都不懂

I know nothing about their lives

今天我不忙

Today I have nothing to do

所以问一个民工最近怎么样？

So I ask a migrant worker about his life

他很少看老婆或儿郎

He seldom sees his wife or son

从早到晚在街角上发传单

From sun-up to sun-down he hands out fliers on the street

我说那很辛苦

He seems to have it really hard

另外他每一天吃含地沟油的食物

And every day he eats food made with gutter oil

但是连民工也有自己的梦想

But even migrant workers have their dreams

他某一天会成为欺负员工的老板

Some day he'll become a boss who bullies his workers

他明年春节回不去

He can't make it home next Spring Festival

他在网吧才能上qq

He has to be in an internet bar to go on QQ

他真有压力

He really faces a lot of pressure

而且他被很多吃货的人看不起

And he's looked down on by a lot of useless people

现在这个民工活得非常狼狈

Right now this migrant worker has a life full of hardship

但他将会成为养三个二奶的色鬼

But some day he'll be a playboy with three mistresses

他每天都遇到不接受传单的人

Every day he meets people who don't accept fliers

但他某一天会用宝马撞死他们

But one day he'll run them all over in his BMW

好男人 Good Man

以前我不是好男人，我没结婚但养过二奶

In the past I wasn't a good man, I've never married but I've kept mistresses

那时我爱喝酒泡妞抽烟吃快餐还有打牌

At that time I loved drinking, chasing girls, smoking, eating fast food and playing cards

我爱说脏话，我也常爱挖鼻孔

I loved swearing, I also often picked my nose

我就是与众不同

I was a non-conformist

现在我的唯一爱好是在家帮姐姐看宝宝

Now, my only hobby is staying at home and looking after my sister's baby

晚上我看电视例如《绝望主妇》和《非诚勿扰》

In the evenings I watch TV such as "Desperate Housewives" and "If You Are The One" 

越来越喜欢更擅长换尿布

I'm getting better and better at changing the baby

我就是家庭主夫

I'm a house husband

哎呀呀也哎呀呀奥

Aiyayayeah Aiyayaoh!

我越无聊生活越好

Being boring makes me happy

哎呀呀也哎呀呀恩

Aiyayayeah Aiyayaen

我渐渐的变成

I'm slowly becoming

都市的男人

An urbane man. 

因为怕有色情思想所以我全天戴安全套

In case I have dirty thoughts, I keep a condom on at all times

因为怕被黄色网站影响所以我家里没有电脑

Because there's porn on the internet, I don't allow computers in the house

当我在酒吧我也只会喝七喜

When I'm in a bar, I will only drink 7-Up

偶尔也会喝雪碧

On occasion I'll drink Sprite.

哎呀呀也哎呀呀奥

Aiyayayeah Aiyayaoh!

我越无聊生活越好

Being boring makes me happy

哎呀呀也哎呀呀恩

Aiyayayeah Aiyayaen

我渐渐的变成

I'm slowly becoming

都市的男人

An urbane man. 

Baby baby 我真爱你

Baby baby I love you

但是结婚了后才能牵手

But we have to wait until we're married before we can hold hands. 

道别 Farewell

道别前

Before parting

我想告诉你

I would like to tell you

我经常捧着你的脸

I often caress your face

在我白日梦丽

In my daydreams

你是我最喜欢德已婚女人第三

You are my third favourite married woman

我永远忘不了你， 我暗恋的老板。 

I will never forget you, the boss I had a crush on

道别后

Since parting

我后悔不告诉你

I regret not telling you

我要跟女友分手

I intend to break up with my girlfriend

你是否要跟老公分离?

Do you intend to leave your husband?

你比我的女友成熟，还有赚更多钱 

You are more mature than my girlfriend, and you make more money

我依然想做你免费的小白脸 

I still want to be your free toy-boy

也许我不道德

Maybe I'm immoral

不过我有房有车

But I have a house and a car

湖南 Hunan

东北的女孩不美

Northeastern women are not beautiful

台湾的歌手都gay

Taiwanese singers are all gay

新疆人的国语比我还烂

Xinjiangese people speak Chinese even worse than I do

我最不讨厌湖南

I hate Hunan the least

香港男人都养二奶

Hong Kong men all have mistresses

重庆人不够腐败

Chongqing people aren't corrupt enough

我也很讨厌河北和河南

I also hate Hebei and Henan

我最不讨厌湖南

I hate Hunan the least

我不是很热爱长沙

I don't love Changsha

我也吃不了酱板鸭

I can't eat soy duck

我也想打死汪涵

I want to beat up Wang Han (a Hunan TV star)

不过不过不过

But, but, but

我最不讨厌湖南

I hate Hunan the least

云南有好的空气

Yunnan has nice air

上海没有家庭暴力

Shanghai has no domestic violence

我也不讨厌四川

I also don't hate Sichuan

但最不讨厌湖南

But I hate Hunan the least

北京的学者很笨

Beijing scholars are stupid

他们也看不起深圳

They look down on Shenzhen

深圳人看不起自己的老乡

Shenzhen people look down on their own hometowns

我最不讨厌湖南 

I hate Hunan the least

我不是很热爱长沙

I don't love Changsha

我也吃不了酱板鸭

I can't eat soy duck

我也想打死汪涵

I want to beat up Wang Han (a Hunan TV star)

不过不过不过

But, but, but

我最不讨厌湖南

I hate Hunan the least

不过不过不过

But but but

我非常讨厌

I really hate

我非常讨厌

I really hate

我非常讨厌岳阳

I really hate Yueyang

外国国歌 Laowai National Anthem

我每天都吃匹萨

I eat pizza every day

我经常说 “Hey man”

I often say "hey man"

恐怕我没有qq号码

I'm afraid I don't have a QQ number

我只有MSN

I only have MSN

我把啤酒当饮料

I drink beer like it was juice

我不能吃辣椒

I can't eat spicy food

我胸部上很有毛毛

I have a hairy chest

我早上不洗澡

I don't shower in the morning

我不喜欢打麻将

I don't play Mahjong

我没有黑头发

I don't have black hair

我有时挺佩服李阳

I quite admire Li Yang

但害怕被他打 

But I'm afraid of being hit by him

我讨厌被叫老外

I hate being called Laowai

中文发音很奇怪

My Chinese pronunciation is very strange

我姐姐的皮肤白

My sister has pale skin

她也有大眼睛 

She also has big eyes

我每天都吃匹萨

I eat pizza every day

我经常说 “Hey man!”

I often say "hey man!"

我国家比中国发达

My country is more developed than China

但需要你们的钱

But needs your money

current blog

I do my blogging at http://blog.sina.com.cn/kmcgeary now.

The English is on the lower half of every post.

The Wisdom of The Simpsons

Below is another post relating my all-time favourite TV show to some life-experiences I've had.

When I was 14 and underperforming in school...underperforming is too weak a word, the kind of word that parents use to deflect talk of their problems. I was failing and frequently being called "a disaster" "a failure" "a fuck-up" from all directions.

In an attempt to get me focused on my studies, my parents first banned me from playing the guitar, then banned me from watching the Simpsons.

Of course I was angry, but this is just the kind of thing that would have happened in The Simpsons, and if it did, it wouldn't be portrayed judgmentally, but portrayed with equanimity.

Two such scenes from the Simpsons reflect my situation well. In the first, Homer and Marge are called in to meet Bart's school counselor, and when asked for his opinion the counselor declares "Bart needs to learn to be less of an individual and more of a faceless blob." In the other, Homer first meets Marge in a detention. When explaining why he is there, Homer says "they put me in detention for being me. I come here every day and be me, and they punish me for it."

Directly after graduating from my Bachelors, I took a summer job. It was a job in which some students make a lot of money, but most make a net loss. The company that ran this summer program were excellent at taking credit for the successes and dodging responsibility for the failures.

In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer gets sponsored by the Power Sauce Energy-Bar company to climb a mountain. When the company loses faith in Homer, they start looking for other people to blame. On reaching the top， Homer scraps the plan of planting a Powersauce flag on the top, and instead places a 'Simpsons' flag. For me, this symbolizes a rejection of the pseudo-collectivism that some companies cultivate for their own self-interest.

For the last three years, I've been working as a teacher. In an episode of the Simpsons where Lisa meets a particularly inspiring teacher, the teacher explains: "One day you'll miss your brother's antics. When your life takes you to far away places, places where your itelligence is an asset, not a liability. " I've always been aware that I'm a pawn in this education-system (same as I would be back home), but I've always striven for this level of connection with my students. As for the substance of what he says, "places where your intelligence is an asset, not a liability." The (as I then thought) exam-orientated, spirit-crushing, secondary schooling system I went through, was an innocent child compared to the one I'm working in now.

And the last scene I'd like to reference, Bart sits down with his fallen idol Krusty the Klown. Bart explains to the impoverished, crestfallen clown "My mom says God never closes a door without opening a window." Krusty prompty replies "No offence kid, but your mom's a dingbat." In Empire of Illusion Chris Hedges writes eloquently about how positive psychology can strangle creativity and moral autonomy. I also have experience of the tyranny of mindless optimism, and Krusty the Klown so eloquently defends my position here.

Three Years in China

I got to China on 7th of May 2007. It's been an interesting three years. Below I've listed five of the most memorable moments.

1. Monster Face
The first year, I lived in a wealthy part of a coastal city called Huizhou. At the time, I lived in a dormitory with other westerners, and I'd started learning Chinese from scratch. China was a bewildering, exotic, unknowable place.
Needless to say, the teaching presented some challenges. In one lesson, I had to teach Kindergarten students the vocabulary: nose, eyes, mouth, ears. In order to do that I used a song called Monster Face, which climaxed with all of the boys making Monster Faces, and chasing the girls around the classroom: anarchy.

2. Children's Day 2008
Children's Day 2007 had been bad. Our Head Teacher had just died. I hadn't yet learned how to channel students' restlessness into positive energy, so had some pretty lousy lessons.
By the summer of 2008, I was teaching HIgh School in a village in Northern Guangdong. I was into my last lesson by the time I'
d been reminded that it was Children's Day.
Instead of proceeding with the prepared lesson, I let them play some party games. Not a vintage piece of educating, but something that allowed them to momentarily forget their (to us, unimaginable) exam pressure.

3. Singing on the Train
IN January of 2009, I traveled through the Guangdong province. On a train from Huizhou to Longchuan, my ticket was standing and the carriage was crowded. After 2 hours of idly looking at some song lyrics I was trying to memorize, a stocky Northerner asked me:
"What instrument's that you're carrying?"
"A guitar"
"Can you play us a song?"
SO after some persuasion, I played and sang a children's song called 让我们荡起双浆 “Let's Sway the Oars Together”

4. 5.12
On 12th of May 2009, in order to commemorate the wenchuan earthquake, I got together with a class from the music department of the University I was teaching in, to sing a song called 让世界充满爱 a 1986 song that is roughly the Chinese equivalent of "WE are the World."

5. Busking
As a Caucasian in China, it's always easy to get attention. BUt it's never easy to get attention for anything other than being a Caucasian,and all of the baggage that comes with it. So performing on the street must have been a much stranger experience for observers than it was for me.
http://bbs.city.tianya.cn/tianyacity/Content/47/991085.shtml

我是2007年05月05号到中国的。 这三年真过得很奇怪。我写下5个很深的回忆。

第一 扮鬼脸

头一年我在惠州教了小学生。 那时候， 我住在外教的宿舍， 而且只懂一点中文， 所以我认识的中国人不多。那时候一切都有异国情调 。

本来教那里的学生确实很难， 但是他们有时候很搞笑。 有一节课， 当我教小一的学生nose, mouth, ears 那些单词，为了让他们记住， 我让了他们扮鬼脸。 课堂里的学生都扮鬼脸挺难忘。

第二 08年儿童节

07年的儿童节过得不好。 我们的校长刚去世了。 学校的气氛很不好。

08年暑假我在龙川的两所高中学校上班了， 儿童节晚上，我不给学生们上课， 我在课堂里， 让大家在教室里玩自己想玩的游戏。 这样确实不负责， 但是做高中学生能让人家失去童心。 那天晚上， 班上的学生能让他们一时忘记外面的压力

第三 火车上演唱

09年一月我在广东省旅游了。 我从惠州到龙川坐火车了。我的票是无坐的。 车很拥挤。 在我对面的一个北方人问了我“你的乐器是什么？”

“吉他”

“能不能弹一个曲子给我们听？”

我就边弹了边唱了 《让我们荡起双桨》

第四 5.12 的纪念日

在文理学院唱 《让世界充满爱》

第五 街头上表演

深圳这座城市能让人家失去想象力。 看我在街上应该会给人一个奇怪的感觉

http://bbs.city.tianya.cn/tianyacity/Content/284/1/163977.shtml

The Kindness of Strangers

The most intricate Chinese lyric I've written so far is the song <把我当家人>（Treat Me As One of Your Own） it's about the kindness of strangers and dependence thereon.

In my first two years in China, I had some amazing experiences meeting strangers: including getting my guitar out and giving a mini-concert in a train-carriage; getting a lesson in local history from a veteran of the Sino-Japanese war; having a meal with a group of 18 year-old builders; and playing my earliest Chinese songs by a lake in a campus, letting curious people come and go.

Often, as a foreigner in China, when in public, one walks into a wall of friendliness: as expressed in introductory questions, light conversation, and the taking of photographs. I have no reason to believe that there is a sinister side to all this attention we get, but, if I were getting racially abused, I wouldn't take it personally, so as it is, I don't take it personally.

In November last year, I was ordering a meal in an expensive restaurant, and the young waitress was being exceptionally friendly, exceptionally friendly. I'm told she was a beauty, but I didn't make eye-contact, I'm told she was into me but I only gave one word answers to all of her questions. My companion at the time assures me that it was a missed opportunity for a one-night-stand, but I have long since developed a distaste for Chinese people who single westerners out for special friendliness, it would have been like spending the evening with a talking Linda Lovelace.

There's a difference between kindness and friendliness, and I don't believe there is any correlation.

Anybody who knows what a cliche is knows that cliches are a bad thing. But it takes education and experience to develop a distaste for cliche. The friendliness I encounter in China is always a cliched kind of friendliness. After a while, it ceases to matter that most of the time, it is motivated by sincere kindness.

My biggest fear in life is not being used (being used means that I must be useful). It is living in a world where conversations follow a formula; individuals adhere to stereotype; and self-expression is trivialized.

Just as a one-night-stand is no substitute for a romance. Reflexive friendliness is no substitute for learned and leisurely hospitality.

The Unofficial National Anthem of Northern Ireland

The author and original performer of the song is Phil Coulter. But I have linked to the Luke Kelly version of the song, because Luke had a much more powerful voice than Phil Coulter.

Some would react to this song as 'corny'. As if expression of raw sentiment and civic pride is a sign of naivety. Our culture tends to look down on innocence, associating it with stupidity, but if you think your superior cynicism makes you smarter than Phil Coulter, I'll bet you that you're wrong.

Here it is
The Town I Loved so Well
In my memory I will always see
the town that I have loved so well
Where our school played ball by the gasyard wall
And we laughed through the smoke and the smell.
Going home in the rain, running up the dark lane
Past the jail and down behind the fountain.
Those were happy days in so many many ways
In the town I loved so well.

In the early morning the shirt factory horn
called women from Creggan, the Moor and the bog,
while men on the dole played the mother's role
fed the children and then trained the dog.
And when times got tough, there was just about enough,
and we saw it through without complaining.
For deep inside was a burning pride
For the town I loved so well.

There was music there in the Derry air
like a language that we all could understand
I remember the day that I earned my first pay
when I played in a small pick-up band.
There I spent my youth and to tell you the truth
I was sad to leave it all behind me
For I'd learned about life and I'd found a wife
In the town I loved so well.

But when I've returned, how my eyes have burned
To see how a town can be brought to its knees
With the armoured cars, and the bombed-out bars
and the gas that hangs on to every tree
Now the army's installed by the old gas-yard wall
And the damned barbed-wire gets higher and higher
With their tanks and their guns, oh my God what have they done
to the town I loved so well

Now the music's gone but they carry on
for their spirit's been bruised never broken
They will not forget though their hearts are set
on tomorrow and peace once again.
For what's done is done, and what's won is won
And what's lost is lost and gone forever.
I can only pray for a bright brand new day
In the town I loved so well

My All Time Favourite Film Soundtracks

None of the choices are daring or off-the-wall but fuck you they're mine.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1969)
The Guns of Navarone (1961)
To Kill a Mocking Bird (1962)
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Schindler's List (1993)
On the Waterfront (1954)
The Mission (1986)
Some Like it Hot (1959)
Vertigo (1958)
Double Indemnity (1944)
The Great Race (1965)