Songs in other languages
Finding songs about social issues in a language you don't know
Thank you for joining me for this Sunday commentary.
Comments and questions are welcome. Please be respectful of others’ opinions if they should differ from yours.
For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below.
Musings (my thoughts)
(417 words)
I had a few minutes today to sit down, breathe, and think. I write about, songs and history. I’m guessing (but I could be wrong) that if I were in the U.S. and told folks that I write about songs that deal with social issues, I imagine their response would be, “Oh, like 60s protest music?” Yes, but there is much, much more to it than that.
These songs are from all over the world. Granted, I’m limited to the languages I know, but now, with so many online translation services, it’s fairly easy to get an English translation. The trouble is, how do I do research on a song from, say, Bolivia in the Ayamara or Quechua language, or Tunisia in Arabic? I guess I need to study more. Ah, so many beautiful languages. So little time.
There is a haunting song from Vietnam from 2016, ĐẤT NƯỚC MÌNH NGỘ QUÁ PHẢI KHÔNG ANH_THƠ TRẦN THỊ LAM. I don’t understand Vietnamese, but years ago I came across an article on the Asia Times website, Vietnam’s mass fish kill isn’t simply an environmental disaster . According to the article, the fish were dying in mass numbers, possibly due to runoff water from a steel plant, though the article did not say that was the definite cause. The event did cause public outcry and demonstrations. In that article, there was a link to a song about the disaster. Without that link, I would never have heard this song:
And without an online translation, I would never have understood it!
I’ve lived in several places on our tiny planet, and I’ve observed that people are people wherever you go. They all want the same things: safety, a clean environment, education for their children, healthcare, a good job, and the ability to retire with dignity. People are also mostly concerned with their local communities rather than a community in the next state or prefecture, much less another country.
But what happens in that other prefecture, state, or country affects us all - or could. Ocean water from Vietnam doesn’t stay in Vietnam. Air pollution from Chad, Tajikistan, or Bangladesh doesn’t stay within their respective borders.
We’re all in this together. Maybe through these songs we can come to understand each other a little more, to better understand each other’s culture, history, and struggles. And finally come to realize that, although our values may differ, as human beings, we’re not that much different from each other.
One song at a time.
VOCABULARY
runoff water 流出水
outcry 非難
retire 引退する
Oops, thought I posted twice. In my best moments, I say keep trying through the best means available; in my worst, I lose faith that all the destructive cycles can be effectively halted.
Beautiful song. I listened and watched first to absorb the emotional power of it and then read the translated words. The words carrried it beyond lament into something more complex—a lament blended with indictment. Yes, people are people around the world and are the same in terms of our deepest desires and hopes, and our ability to work together to solve problems. Yet we—power structures and those of us who support it either passively or actively—are also collectively stupid in the same ways. There are too many stories like this around the world. I hope some relief has come to Vietnam since 2016 when this song was performed.