YES, YOU ARE ALL 衰人!

Once a week the bookseller and I head into the dark heart of the city to engage in manly festive behaviour and talk politics. Our first stop involves a place serving a rare vintage (this year's) of repulsive landwein, after which we have a pint of beer elsewhere to get the taste out of our mouths. We always end up at a nearby Chinatown inn, where the whiskey is generous and the singing nightmarish.

Nightmarish, because it is done entirely be white folks.
Young, stupid, and enamoured of karaoke.
Good lord almighty.

"Tell me again why karaoke is a good thing."

At this point, I'm denying I ever said that. You see, my first exposure to karaoke was around the corner from my house, where a bunch of young Chinese would do Cantopop on Friday and Saturday evening, while drinking sodas or coffee. Utterly endearing, very nice, and a jolly good time was had by all.
There was also a piano bar where elderly homosexuals would belt out classics from the golden age of musicals, and later a karaoke bar on California where drag queens did show tunes.
Almost all of these people, from teenage Cantonese to aged gentlemen and royalty, could sing very well, wanted to do credible renditions, and wished that listeners would enjoy the show.

Modern karaoke is NOT like that, dammit. Nowadays, the Marketing Department from a start-up goes out and gets drunk, as part of a team-building exercise, then heads into the yellow part of town to make fools of themselves and scream at the top of their lungs. Because whatever you do in an ethnic enclave stays in an ethnic enclave.

They can't sing, they're blotto, and their egos will not accept that they are insufferable drunk, as well as thoroughly horrible people when sober.

The proprietor of said Chinatown inn is raking in money hand over fist, while her loyal patrons -- that being the bookseller and myself, as well as several Chinese gentlemen about whose livelihoods it is best not to ask too many questions -- suffer, and can barely have conversations for the racket.

Stupid white people should not sing.

Please accept that as a verity.

A rule by which to live.


"Tell me again why karaoke is a good thing."


Errm. Because it keeps these damned fools off the street?

For the past several weeks, before we meet for drinkies, I have been pausing a while outside an opera club located in a basement enjoying the music. Cantonese opera uses more archaic language, stylised physical movements, and an aesthetic that hearkens back to Sung and Ming times. It is one of the great Opera traditions.


唐伯虎點秋香 ～ 書生真系過份!

Let us now join Uncle Tong as he comes upon a lovely servant girl while at the Quanyin temple. You will note that he is quite brash, not at all the reserved literary type that normally he represents, what with being literate and educated enough to make all men green with envy.

He is quite smitten, even more so when he discovers that the young lady is actually cultured and well bred.


TONG PAK FU DIM CHAU HEUNG


[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOUw7vM-m_o.]

For someone who is so fong lau ge (風流嘅), our scholar (唐伯虎先生) is quite the seui yan (衰人), eh?

"I'm just here to pray, honestly! Whatever were you thinking?"

As a result of his encounter with the lovely miss Autumn Fragrance (秋香 'chau heung'), mister Tang (唐伯虎 'tong paak fu') ends up being servant in a rich household, in order to get closer to the maiden.
The opera is famous. The allegedly comedic spoof by Stephen Chow perhaps less so, one would hope.

This scene is, not surprisingly, a personal favourite.

Leslie Cheung (above) does the role well.

[Chow Yun-fat and Anita Mui also.
But as a halberd fight scene.]


I can fondly imagine the drunken white twenty-somethings falteringly trying to interpret this passage in particular at a karaoke event. Whether as Chow Yun-fat's cousin, suspicious of his motives, or as a romantic duet.

Wouldn't any one prefer to be Tong Pak Fu?

Or like Leslie Cheung?

Surely yes!


Here he is singing another piece, The Fragrant Sacrifice, from Flower Princess:

帝女花之香夭


[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsRQexThSx8.]


Yep, that's a damned sight better than self-impressed e-commerce yuppies screeching rock and roll anthems.


And lastly, as a lagniappe, Alan Cheng (鄭少秋) and Liza Wang (汪明荃) doing a duet from The Purple Hairpin:

紫釵記


[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQpw1JVj1OQ.]

The most famous interpretation of The Purple Hairpin was by Pak Suet-sin (白雪仙) and Yam Kim-fai (任劍輝). Both were active during the forties through the sixties. A movie was made of the opera in 1960.

Please note that for many years I thought that Yam Kim-fai was a man, because those were the roles that she often played.


If I had to chose between Cantonese Opera and egomaniac jerks singing karaoke, there is no question which one I would take.

Cantonese Opera would win hands down.

Not the pickle heads.

衰人!




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