chinese re-education

i spent friday night with a couple of friends at k-box
and man, that was truly a first

apart from singing spice girls' wannabe.. and feeling horribly out of breath after chanting 'you wanna, you wanna' over and over again with pep and energy
i found myself sitting back and listening to some friends croon to chinese songs (many of which i still don't know the title to) and feeling very much in awe of them and their bilingual abilities.

like seriously, i feel kind of deficient with my effectively monolingual skills. i'll make self-deprecating jokes about my horrible attempts to communicate in mandarin, but the truth of the matter is, sometimes i would really like to get what some people are saying in my mother tongue.

saya tak tao cikup melayu ... or mandarin for that matter

well, if anything, i can still read the language, not being familiar with the songs required me to stare at the highlighted words on the screen and scrutinize their meaning. i discovered that chinese songs are very romantic and somewhat angsty. especially great to croon to and be all dramatic on the mic with.

and after today's conversation, g has proven that even a little effort can aid you further in mastering a song that doesn't quite belong to your dialect.

g: (listening to a phone recording of the Wong Fei Hong theme song and fastidiously jotting down the words to the song)
long sannnnn...
(pauses and plays recording again to check the next line)

it can be done :)