Showing posts with label sa dingding 萨顶顶. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sa dingding 萨顶顶. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Sa Dingding - Shen Xiang (Holy Incense, Chinese Version)

This song is all about Tibet, so I'll just go through it at the top here instead of as footnotes:
Lingkor is the name of the major pilgrimage route in Tibetan Buddhism. Lake Manasarovar on Wikipedia. Mount Kailash on Wikipedia.
I have no idea what hong ma ni bei bei hong means. The Chinese characters are onomatopoeia. It's a good guess that it's representing Tibetan sounds or possibly Sanskrit.

This was a request. I'm always willing to fulfill requests if I can.

林廓的人啊人山人海the people on the route of Lingkor, ah, a multitude
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
可我的人儿啊怎么不见了but how is it my person, ah, is now unseen
怎么不见了how now unseen
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
玛旁雍错啊波光粼粼Lake Manasarovar, ah, light shining through its clear waves
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
是不是那丢失的人is that the person who was lost
为我点起的圣灯lighting a incense lamp for me?
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
  
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
(repeated)(repeated)
  
林廓的人啊人来人往the people on the route of Lingkor, ah, arriving and leaving
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
可我的人儿啊怎么不见了but how is it that my person, ah, is now unseen
怎么不见了how now unseen
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
冈仁波齐啊云雾茫茫Mount Kailash, ah, surrounded by boundless clouds and mists
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
是不是那丢失的人is that the person who was lost
为我燃起的神香lighting holy incense for me?
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
  
弘嘛呢呗呗弘hong ma ni bei bei hong
(repeat)(repeat)

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Sa Dingding - Ha Ha Lili (The Story of Heaven and Earth/Tian Di Ji)

In the album's English tracklisting, this is called "Ha Ha Lili", in the Chinese, it is called 天地记, tian di ji, which is a... conceit? motif? whatever, in titles of stories, to end with ji which means "record". So for example, one of the titles of the story usually called Dream of the Red Chamber in English is shitou ji, "stone record", or, "The Story of the Stone". The word is also found in the title of Journey to the West in Chinese. So, a sense of ancient stories in this choice.

The music video is quite a trip.


传说中天与地连在一起 永不分离legend has it that heaven and earth were connected together and never separated
勤劳的人们和那些神奇的动物生活在山洞里 啊咿the hard-working people and those mystical animals lived in a cave, ayi
下过雨的清晨 一束光照着树神on an early rainy morning, a shining dryad1
远处传来隆隆的鼓声from a distant place sent the rumbling of drumbeats
沉沉的鼓声 阵阵震醒山洞里的人wave after wave of heavy drumbeats shook the people in the cave awake
墙上的预言这就要发生according to the prophecies on the wall, this would happen
沙啦啦啦啦 伴着节奏急促的脚步sha la la la la, quickened footsteps following the rhythm
沙啦啦啦啦 人们的心在跳 跳sha la la la la, people's hearts jumping, jumping2
沙啦啦啦啦 金色公鸡带来了传奇sha la la la la, a golden rooster brings about the legend
分开了天地the parting of heaven and earth
  
ha li li ha li etc.ha li li, ha li etc
  
从那天起人们走出了山洞beginning that day, people walked out of the cave
和山神和树神住在一起and lived together with the oreads and dryads1
从那天起人们走出了山洞beginning that day, people walked out of the cave
和大自然完美的在一起and were perfectly together with Nature3
1. I'm choosing to translate the literal "mountain spirit and tree spirit" as oread and dryad because... I can? LOL. IDK, I always liked the "fairy" translation of xian too, rather than the more common "immortal".
2. The word for heartbeat in Chinese is xintiao, "heart jump", and the tiao can also mean dance. I think the insertion of the tense marker makes it more forceful and pushes it from "heartbeat" to "heart jump".
3. Nature with a capital N. Like earth (soil) versus Earth (the planet). This is almost like Mother Nature, but without the personification of the English idiom.