A pile of Chinese celebrities sing together in this (pretty cool, I think) Olympic welcome theme song music video (English subtitles). This is the impression millions of Chinese hope the world will have:
The (unofficial) subtitles on the video are a little Chinglish-y, but in an endearing, “so China” kind of way. Plus, Jackie Chan is so cute; how can anyone not like Jackie Chan? They even give Tianjin a few seconds of face ;) (we live right near where they took those TV Tower shots!).
And here’s the “live” (ahem) version, which was somewhat controversial, not because of the lip-syncing, but because of the they way they rather obviously avoided giving closeups to particular celebrities who had fallen out of favour. Our teachers thought it was stupid that they did that. But everyone still loves the song.
There are many different hopes, dreams, and worries associated with the Olympics, inside and outside of China, and everyone knows China’s had a rough time on the P.R. side of things. Despite all the conflicting messages, mutual suspicions, and controversy (conveniently outlined by a China-friendly foreigner here), we hope that when it’s all over, there will be a lot of satisfied 老百姓 in China.
Canada:
China:
Taiwan:
The States:
Brazil:
Thanks for the link!
and now, 2 words to the self-important critics of China’s heavy-handed, draconian PR methods: bah humbug. It should be a party, and the song says it all. Millions and jazillions of people here want the world to see that it’s a country worth seeing and speaking well of! Visitors have yet to show their manners. I hope we, 老外们 can be 客气点儿, and receive the welcome.
BTW, Happy Canada Day!
wow..just watched the clip. what a beautiful song! has great words and a wonderful message. china has a great opportunity with the olympics to change how the rest of the world views them. what a great chance for them!! i can’t wait to see what they do for the opening ceremonies. any idea who is going to light the flame for them?
sharon – the opening ceremonies are real hush-hush, but i’m definitely looking forward to it, too. No doubt they’ll go all out and it will be a huge deal.
Lee – I agree; the foreigners ought to behave themselves. If people have a legitimate point to make (and I think there are some legitimate points to make regarding China), I hope they do it respectfully, in the right time and place, rather than just being obnoxious about it.
wow, yeah, Canada Day! I almost forgot. My Chinese teacher reminded me this morning.
Wow, what a great song! I was looking for it on iTunes, but I couldn’t find it. :( Any idea where I can find an audio version of the song?
Word Lily – If you search YouTube for “北京欢迎你” or “Beijing Huanying Ni” you’ll find lots of version of this song, and some of them post download links in the video descriptions. Most of those are for movie files though. For an mp3, you can search on baidu.com, but you’ll have to navigate in Chinese. It’s not hard to find.
Thanks! I found it.
Where? Can I have it?
I pulled it off baidu, as well. Here’s one of many possible download links
请点击此链接： http://60.191.129.58/wlrd/北京欢迎你.mp3
hey thanks! got it. and scanned it for viruses, too!
Endearing, indeed ;-)
Yeah, since it’s just random people putting the subtitles, you can actually find a variety of subtitles for this video. There’re even ones in different languages (like Spanish) from “The Anti-CNN Voluntary Translation Team,” though they unfortunately spelled “video” wrong in their YouTube username ;)
Oh HO! Most interesting about the controversial closeups. I hen xiang zhidao shei fell out of favor and got ousted from the face-giving closeups. Great to see all the names of people I’ve seriously never heard of.
One conspicuously absent from the video was Jay Chou (周杰伦). Is he on the bad list these days or did I just miss him?
beats me. I thought English teachers were the ones with the inside scoop on the latest pop culture drama. I think it was either some of the Super Girls or the Happy Boys that for some reason weren’t in CCTV’s good books, but I don’t really remember. My teacher was telling me during an 8am class… that may have had something to do with it.