Listen to the Fairies

 

五分鐘的愛情    四界去探聽

三分鐘的戀歌　雙人唱一段

有時我照鏡　有時鏡照我

一个人　就有一个人通做伴

Five minutes of love

To four ends of world I seek

A three-minute love song

We two sing one part of it

Sometimes I reflect the one in mirror

Other times she mirrors me

I have myself a partner all alone

**********

Dear Kate,

Do you have the habit to pay attention to strange tongues?

If not, listening to songs in a language you don't know is, I believe, an easy and enjoyable way to start. 

If you can't read a language of course there is no point to pick up a book in it.  The cover sometimes does strange magic, but, as we all know, one can't judge a book by its cover---though the matter is not about judging.  And I mean "judging" not in the way we usually judge how we use the word.  I digressed.

Here's another song that I haven't looked up the words until very recently, after years of listening to it.  It is in Taiwanese Hokkien, which I don't pretend to understand a spoken word of, though the written words are mostly mutually intelligible to Mandarin and Cantonese.

I don't think I resisted looking the words up: I just found no reason to.  Actually I had my reason not to.  The song is a beautiful mystery to me since my younger years, the power of its spell hasn't grown old since.  So why should I?

Here I invite you to join me in my youth, which happens to be now.  I envy you like I do someone who's reading Romeo and Juliet or watching Lawrence of Arabia for the first time.

You don't need this unnecessary tour guide, but let me draw your attention to one of the endless ways to dwell in this mystery: let the voice speak to you.  You don't need to understand exactly what it is saying, not yet, maybe not ever.  Just listen.  Let your ears listen to, search for, play in a beautiful world beyond words.

For fun, look/hear for three little fairies: Kau, Khai and Khuah.  They are sisters.  They like to sit together, in a row, in that order.  They do magic to your ears, send a lethal enchantment right to your heart, by doing just that: sitting together, in a row, in that order.  Twice.  What are they saying to you?  Pay attention.  How does the singer summon her wizardry?  Listen.  And listen again.

Now stop reading until you've met them.  Then come back here and I will formally introduce you.

(Here's a picture I took yesterday when wandering aimlessly in the morning, one that whispers more loudly to me than the others I took.  I am putting it here as a visual deterrent so that you won't continue reading until you have done listening.)

The three fairy sisters are called 較, 開, and 闊.  Sitting together, in a row, in that order, they are beckoning you to be More Open Wide.

Yours, Alex