SING, LITTLE MAN, SING, SING!

As usual the songs on the karaoke machine at the dive where we have been going once a week for several years presented visions of love, lust, Michael Jacksonesque pretensions, and existenzangst. Mostly in Chinese, and this time mostly in Mandarin. I pay attention, because I can read the lyrics. The Bookseller doesn't, because he is illiterate in Chinese. Pilgrim pays attention, because he is sarcastic; he delivers the text in a cynical world-weary monotone while quivering and twitching.


Pop karaoke is just as bad as you want it to be. In any tongue.

There is little point in listening in on most conversations further down the bar, because they are repetitive, and punctuated by the word 'dew', which means something nasty and is used much like the 'f' word.

But, thanks to this regular adventure, I know now that there is a Mandarin-language version of "Nobody", a song by The Wondergirls.
A Korean girl group.


I WANT NOBODY, NOBODY, NOBODY!


[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS4MV3zNEnc.]


This datum adds precisely nothing to my life. On the other hand, the song in which the artist wonders how it would be to have her present life if she were her more innocent fifteen year old self from years ago enriches me.
She first speculates that she would be baffled or hurt at her office job, and then envisions telling her teenage persona (and classmates) something that they would find valuable.

Her fifteen year old self looks like a goober.
An uber super duper goober.


The Bookseller refuses to imagine himself as a fifteen year old Mandarin-speaking schoolgirl wearing a uniform. It is entirely beyond possibility.
His mind does not work in that manner.

I, on the other hand, welcome the wonders of my fifteen year old Chinese female ego, and will keenly explore this fascinating concepcion.
Without in any way looking gooberish.


I would probably be either a juvenile delinquent, or a knowing minx, with a switchblade somewhere on my person or in my schoolbag.
But exceptionally well-behaved either way.

Because the key to life is not pissing off the grown-ups, and always having plausible deniability. As well as a credible threat.

Especially if you are a schoolgirl.
Which I am.




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