黄品源 - 小薇

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This is a very nice and popular song. To avoid confusion, the name of the singer is 黄品源 (huáng pǐn yuán) while the name of the song is 小薇 (xiǎo wēi). The song talks about a the girl Xiaowei, whom all the boys are in love with, and with whom the singer is in love and together. Only that she is, uhm, very difficult, what you will see in the music video!
Here are the lyrics first. Furthermore, I will try a translation this time. Feedback welcome!
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郑伊健 - 心照

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Another Cantonese song by Cheng Ekin (郑伊健). The song is called 心照 and will certainly put you in a good mood. It talks about having happy moments and sad moments, optimism and just life in general. In Cantonese they tend to use the character 亦 (yì) instead of 也 (yě), but both mean “also, too”. Here are the lyrics:
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坐怀不乱 zuò huái bú luàn

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成语:坐怀不乱
发音:zuò huái bú luàn
解释:形容男子在两性关系方面作风正派。源于春秋时鲁国的柳下惠将受冻的女子裹于怀中,没有发生非礼行为。

I was just browsing through the book 古文观止 and I found this chengyu: 坐怀不乱. It’s hard to make sense of it, so I’ll tell you the story behind it first: It was during the spring and autumn period, where a man named 柳下惠 (liǔ xià huì) stayed in a hostel overnight. At that time another girl with little clothing came to spend the night, too. Instead of showing some, ehm, inappropriate behavior, he was a real gentleman and gave her his cloak and even held her in his arms the whole night, without harassing her. Hach, what a nice guy ;)

坐怀 in this context means to sit and hold tight. Just picture him sitting and holding the girl in a protective manner. 不乱 means not confused/ not disordered. In this context it means that he doesn’t have all kinds of thoughts. Maybe you have heard of the chengyu 胡思乱想.
So the chengyu 坐怀不乱 is used to describe a very gentleman-like guy, who shows very respectful or appropriate behavior to girls. Since it is hard to make sense of the separate words, I hope it was helpful to hear the story behind it.

Finally some examples:

  • 不知道世上真的有像柳下惠那般坐怀不乱的男人吗?
    I wonder if there are really gentlemen that are as handsome and kind as Liu Xiahui.

Similar sounding Chinese idioms:

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陈奕迅 - 单车

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Here is a very catchy song by Eason Chan (陈奕迅). It’s called Bike (单车) and talks about a couple on a bike or the memories of it. If you’ve ever been to China, you probably know how many people are riding bikes, and often it’s in couples…
And by the way, did you ever notice how visual the traditional characters for bike look: 單車
This is a Cantonese song again, so I only have the Chinese lyrics without pronunciation:
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Pinyin converter

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Today I want to share a very useful online tool which I use to convert the lyrics from Chinese characters to Hanyu Pinyin. I’ve been searching all over and this link is definitely the best I found: http://www.hotea.com/py.asp There you just write the Chinese characters in the first form, and then it gives you the converted pinyin version.

Many thanks to www.hotea.com for this useful tool!

Link:

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S.H.E - Ring Ring Ring

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Another song by S.H.E. This song is so catchy! It’s called “Ring Ring Ring”. I’m sure you know this situation, waiting for a call from someone else, but that person is just not calling, and this is driving you crazy. Well, that’s what this song is talking about. It’s very fast and upbeat. So the lyrics are quite long and hard to understand! Enjoy:
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S.H.E - 爱来过

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Here comes the second song by S.H.E. It’s called 爱来过 (ài lái guò) which approximately means love was there/ love has come. This song appears in the Taiwanese television series: 斗牛要不要. Here are the lyrics:
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人山人海 rén shān rén hǎi

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成语:人山人海
发音:rén shān rén hǎi
解释:人群如山似海。形容人聚集得非常多。
翻译:mass of people

人山人海 is a common Chinese idiom. Its literal translation would be “people mountain people ocean”. It means that there is such a big mass of people like a mountain or an ocean. So this chengyu describes a huge congregation where there are people everywhere around you. This can be during a sport event, a concert or a special holiday. For example:

  • 元旦时外滩那边人山人海,可热闹了。
    At New Year’s Eve there were so many people at The Bund; it was really exciting!

For those who don’t know, 外滩 (wài tān) aka “The Bund” is a central area next to the Huangpu River in Shanghai. It’s very famous and offers a magnificent view on the skyline of the Pudong district. The typical pictures that we see from Shanghai are usually shot there, too.

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