Mack a Witch

I love listening to Chinese songs. Growing up in a Chinese primary school and continuing onto secondary education in a school populated by 99% Chinese, naturally my pop idols included Aaron Kwok (don't laugh), Andy Lau, Leslie Cheung, Emil Chow, to name a few. All my collection of Chinese songs are built through the years, mixing old and new and some songs really do bring back some fond memories.

I like putting my Ipod on shuffle mode because you'll never know what you're going to get and sometimes it can be an old, old song that really melts your heart. Other times, however, it can be a funny song you've never heard of before and you wonder how it ended up being stored on the Ipod to start with. I recently encountered such a song on my way to see Beatrice in Reading on the train.

One common trait of Chinese songs is that most often than not, you find an English phrase or two thrown into the middle of the song, especially the chorus part, for god only knows whatever reason. This song started off being normal (in Chinese) and true to form, in the chorus section, the guy started singing 'Mack a witch, mack a witch' (must say out loud for the effect)..... so I was trying to decide if he was saying that Mack is a witch? or that Mack wants to be a witch? or could he be asking people to Smack the witch? or perhaps Mack should be the witch?

Then it suddenly made sense to me.... he's telling the girl to 'Make a wish'...................

Seriously, if your English is that bad, why bother? Just stick to Chinese, which you're good at?!!

Another classic example, unfortunately, is in one of my all time favourites.

It's a Happy Birthday song and when it comes to the chorus part, naturally, the guy wants to show off his English talent and started singing 'Happy Burstday..... happy burstday to you...... '

I dooooo love my Chinese songs dearly... but I can't help but laugh each time I hear something like that....

It doesn't make me love my Chinese songs any lesser though :)