23 January 2020: Latest News From Wuhan China.
The Wuhan virus will badly affect this year's exodus of the Chinese people when they go home to their provinces to greet the Spring Festival. What is this exodus? This article explains:
A Lunar New Year ang-pow to all.
A lovely Chinese pop-classic that tells much.
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It's a yearly affair where more than 200 million Chinese travel home to their various provinces in mainland China by plane, sea, train, road or on foot, to make sure they are present for the Chinese Lunar New Year family dinner.
It is a huge exodus. Some news media call it the largest human migration ever that happens yearly in a country of 1.412 billion people.
There are many reasons why they leave their hometown. Many of them leave to work in the city while some go away as students to study in another province or country. Then there are those who travel far and wide for their own personal reason. Some love to travel and explore the world while others have businesses abroad. But most of them come home for their new year family gathering.
Apparently it is also happening during the MAY DAY season, especially when May 1st falls on a Friday.
Similarly in Malaysia and Singapore. There's a mini-exodus here when Malaysians working on our island return to their homeland and vice-versa. Buses, taxis, cars, motorcycles, trucks fill the Johore Causeway days before Chinese New Year, resulting in huge jams and heavy traffic.
The theme of being away and to "wander so far", reminds me of this Chinese song by well-known Qi Yu who is a Taiwanese singer, best known for her lovely and melodious rendition of Olive Tree written by her composer/songwriter mentor in 1979. Qi Yu covers English songs too; she is just as popular in Singapore and was here in 2014 for a performance.
I heard this song when I was eating in a Chinese restaurant alone in Winnipeg Canada in the 80's. The music came from the owner's kitchen. The old gentleman came out and explained to me in perfect English what it meant. It's another form of migration, to another country but, never going back home. Which was what he and his family did.
Somehow the haunting melody connected, especially when I was sitting by myself in that empty restaurant (it was cold Winter and no student could afford meals in these places). I was giving myself a treat when the song came on and the thought of being a refugee never came to mind. It was the first time I heard it and I was thousands of miles away from home...
齊豫 Qi Yu (橄欖樹 Ganlan Shu). Video provided by Rock Records.
Olive Tree
Don't ask where I have come
My home is far far away
Why do you wander so far
Wander so far, wander so far?
For the birds in the sky
Wander so far, wander so far?
For the birds in the sky
For the clear mountain streams
For the grasslands green and wide
For the grasslands green and wide
I wander, wander so far
Then is there more?
Then is there more?
Yes for the olive tree in my dream
Far far away
For the olive tree of my dream
Far far away
For the olive tree of my dream
Far far away.
Enjoy your 2018 doggie Lunar New Year everyone.
Read Part 2. Click below:
According to zzenzero (youtube 2013), the song is from a 1979 movie, Your Smiling Face and written by a lady San Mao. It was interpreted as a song about refugees and a person's wandering ways.
The singer herself explained that Olive Tree represented an ideal but that if this ideal was unattainable then one needed to let it go, or the person became the Olive Tree and vice versa. Never pursue or look for it.
Images: Google.
YouTube: Acknowledged.
Connection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yhVNF6xw0Y