Hokkien Songs for Dummies

Ok who haven't seen 881 better go and see now. Who never see means who is chao cheebye. Actually the movie is a bit boh liao. But the songs really make me feel my Hokkien roots.

Anyway, so I go and listen to all the 881 songs. And then I went to ross reference with the real Hokkien oldies for comparison. Then I realise actually Hokkien songs quite meaningful one. But very hard to understand because uh.. its in Hokkien, and last time my O-level Hokkien only got B3. But after listening for more than 100 times, I found that Hokkien songs are peppered with a few recurring elements. If you can master these elements, you basically can understand any Hokkien song. So in order to help promote this genre of music, I have compiled some basic ubiquitous phrases that can usually be heard in most Hokkien songs:

1. Cham. Meaning tragic, down in the dumps, unlucky, etc.. you get the picture. Every Hokkien song is cham. In the Hokkien song industry, the success or failure of your songs is almost entirely dependent on how cham the protagonist in your song is. The more cham the better. Born in a dumpster? Is your mother a beggar and your father a rubbish collector? Did you everyday fight with wild dogs for food and when you grow up already your mother sold you to a brothel for a meal ticket only to be bullied by your fellow prostitutes and later kena cancer and have to go hospital everyday, endure injections that make you drop hair and eat medicine that make you want to vomit and every night you pray to your dead parents to come and bring you to heaven to keep them company? Ah.. then you are perfect candidate for Hokkien song. There is a perfect example in Twelve Lotus Flowers by the Mingzhu Sisters, the lyrics go something like "qi cham toh teng dio si wah". Which means "the peak of cham is me", thus exemplifying the central theme of most Hokkien songs.

2. Kor lian. Kor lian means pitiful, poor thing. Slightly different from cham which usually is used in reference to a more macroscopic state of the protagonist's life. Kor lian is usually used in more intimate references. Got kor lian lotus flower, kor lian begger which nobody wanna give money to, kor lian mother whose daughter left her and never come home, kor lian 40 year old woman who kena very cham illness (see the distinction?) and alive also not like alive, dead also not like dead, kor lian scholar who kena bonded for six years and get offered a job in McKinsey but have no money to pay off the bond. The list goes on and on. There's also kor lian dai which is a variation I assume means "poor thing person". This is usually used when the characters in the song speak to each other Like when the towkay's wife decides to take pity on the kor lian beggar, she says "wah.. I see you kor lian dai.. ok la... I buy less groceries today and give you some money for you to eat lunch la".

3. Ao bu. Stepmother. In Hokkien songs, stepmothers are always bad and don't love their stepchildren. Always don't give them enough to eat, make them go out to beg for money while their real children get to enjoy big fish for dinner, next time the stepchildren grow up already make them go and become prostitute. No matter how cham your life is, if your mother is not your biological mother, your cham-ness automatically times ten. Some characteristics of ao bu are, they prefer money over their stepchildren, they like to barter their stepchildren to brothels in exchange for ridiculously cheap items (usually food-related) like meal tickets or a plate of mee kia or some cheap rice wine. Also, if you are an ao bu, you must be drunk most of the time. This is the number one rule of ao bu. If you are a self-respecting ao bu, you will go to great lengths to maintain your state of drunkedness. If not, you will be sleeping because the last defining characteristic of an ao bu is that you must be lazy. You'd rather sleep or drink than do any real work. So much so that you sponge dry your family which leaves them in the cham state that they are always in, hence, fulfilling the prerequisite state of affairs that sets the stage for a classic Hokkien song.

4. Sim tiong. Literally means "within the heart". Anything and everything that means anything in any Hokkien song is said from sim tiong. Only from your sim tiong, you can tell your girlfriend you love her. From sim tiong, a prostitute can pine for her favourite client to one day save enough money from his small Hokkien mee business to buy her out of her bondage. If you really love someone, then your sim tiong bo pak lang. i.e., there is no one else inside your heart. In the world of Hokkien song, sim tiong means everything. Even if you go downstairs to order kopi-o but you never order from your sim tiong, the kopi tiam uncle will not serve you. Conversely, if you go and see a prostitute and then you tell her that from your sim tiong, she is the only one for you, there is a good chance that she will give you free of charge. Or at least next time half price. Remember. Sim tiong means everything.

5. Huay. Flower. In Hokkien song, it is taboo to mention a girl by name. This is to protect her modesty. So a popular literary device is to use a flower as metaphor for a (usually kor lian) young girl. So there's lian huay which is lotus flower, then there's kek huay which is chrysanthemum flower, and suay huay - small flower. More modern Hokkien songs sometimes eschew mentioning the specific type of flower for brevity and resort to the less classy ah huay which can be simply translated into "Miss Flower" which, frankly, sounds slightly crass. Refering to girls as flowers allows the Hokkien song writer to extend the metaphor of the flower to the girl's life. So, in keeping with the theme of cham, the budding huay will fall to the ground and get swept away by the wind before it has a chance to bloom. In another instance, a girl tells her lover not to pick the "wild flowers" by the side of the road even though the spring wind is blowing flower petals all over the young man. Pure genius.

6. Kum cheng. Means "feeling". Perhaps somewhat analogous to the Western concept of "soul". Kum cheng can refer to the feeling of sisterhood or togetherness between two prostitutes or the true love that a girl feels for her soulmate (but usually unrequited due to the cham effect). As beautifully expressed in one of the more frequently heard songs in 881, "jit lang jit pua, kum cheng buay sua. Jit lang jit su ku, kam cheng jia eh gu", meaning "one person one half, then our kum cheng won't be scattered. One person one quarter, then our kum cheng will last long". Sheer poetry.

7. Robert Lee. If you are a brothel client, your name must be Robert Lee. This is largely because Robert Lee rhymes perfectly with "ke yi" which means "can" or "sure thing". For instance, one of the songs goes, "Robert Lee, Robert Lee, yao wo mummy ah ye ke yi" which means, "Robert Lee, Oh Robert Lee, even if you want the brothel mummy, sure thing". Robert Lee is usually described as a suave, well-dressed and rich client whose visits all the prostitutes look forward to (which calls into question why he even needs to go to a brothel, but this is Hokkien song world where logic sometimes takes a backseat). In fact, this is probably why statistically, if you were a Hokkien male born during the period of 1960 - 1970, there is a 39.8% chance that your parents decided to name you "Robert". Robert Lee is the man. You better remember that.

8. Seh kai. Meaning "the world" in general. This is usually used in the context of "yiu sek kai" or travel the world. In Hokkien song, when a poor young man dreams of having a lot of money in the future when he is washing his boss's car, he invariably dreams of yiu seh kai because this is something that only rich people do. If you're rich, you will automatically have travelled the world. It is simply a sign of affluence. In the more modern Ji Pa Ban (or "One Million Dollars"), the protagonist sings "nah si wah wu ji pa ban, wah beh jeh puay ki, wah ki yiu seh kai, Hawaii sai tai yang, ji bun jia sushiii" or "if I had a million dollars, I go and sit aeroplane, travel the world, go sun-tanning in Hawaii, go Japan and eat sushi". And in "Hang Cheng Pai" ("Times Are Bad"), the singer wonders how he can "chua kia chua boh yiu seh kai" ("bring my children and wife to travel the world") if he doesn't even have a steady job. Travelling the world is an important status symbol in Hokkien songs. If you haven't travelled the world, you are nothing.

9. Ji. Money. Having very cham lives, most Hokkien song protagonists worry about ji a lot. The stepmother in Twelve Lotus Flowers loved ji more than her stepdaughter (the "lotus flower"). Another songs laments "boh ji kai" or "no money to spend". On a happier note, in Ji Pa Ban, the singer merrily tells his friend that if he had a million dollars, "nah si li wu kiam eng ji, kui chui mian keh ki" ("if you owe someone money, just open your mouth and ask me for money, no need to be shy"). Ji makes the world go round. And its dearth is the key to the success of a Hokkien song.

So there you have it. Nine phrases you must know in order to understand Hokkien songs. Even if you can't understand most of the lyrics, just look out for these nine phrases and you can more or less guess the meaning of any song. For instance, if there is "cham" (most probably), "huay", "ao bu" and "kor lian", the song is probably about some pitiful girl who was ill-treated by her stepmother and had more or less a tragic, shitty life. Or if there is "kum cheng", "Robert Lee", "ji", and "seh kai", then it could be about a prostitute thinking about her feelings for Robert Lee who will one day come to rescue her with his money and bring her to travel the world.

Of course, I am but little more than a dilettante when it comes to Hokkien songs. You are welcome to email me or leave your comments if you discover any new Universal Hokkien Song Phrase that I should know.

In the meantime, I wish you all strike lottery and get a lot of ji so that you can donate to my MV Agusta fund. HUAT AH!!!