Song – I Love Malaya

Here’s an interesting video, a snapshot form AlJazeera English, about the communist that couldn’t return home. Although most of what the program presented is already a well known fact, most of the people’s understanding (especially in M’sia and to a certain extent S’pore) are still fairly immature. For example, what is fundamentally different between a “communist” (or an ex-communist) and a “non-communist”? Or, what is the significance of a Thai citizenship? Or, what is the difference between the official Malaysian version of Chin Peng vs the communist version of Chin Peng (or his own version of himself?) Ok with some of these thoughts in mind, here’s the video:

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/bNwyCeJw7xY” height=”425″ width=”350″ /]

What caught me particularly (as usual, is an audio cue… hehe) is the song sung by the star of the video, entitled “I Love Malaya”. I went to dig the Internet for the lyrics and guess what, I found a snippet!

我爱我的马来亚 (I love Malaya)
马来亚是我的家乡 (Malaya is my home)
日本时期不自由 (We were not free during the Japanese occupation)
如今更苦愁 (and now we’re in greater misery)
谁知狗去猴子来 (Little did we know when the dogs left the monkeys came)
马来亚成苦海 (and Malaya became a sea of misery)
兄弟们啊姐妹们 / 同胞们啊快起来 (1x: Dear brothers and sisters / 2x: Comrades please stand up)
不能在等待 (wait no more)

etc. Now I wonder if anyone know where to find that song book that she’s holding…

It is interesting isn’t it – we tend not to find these kind of songs (I’ll qualify later) readily available nowadays, whereas, say, in US, you can still readily find Negro “deliverance” from slavery kind of spiritual music everywhere (for example myself, at the age of 7 would have come across some elementary piano book like John Thompson that contain songs like “Deep River, my home is over Jordan..” and other negro spirituals), or, say, now playing in Singapore, one of the greatest musicals every written, Les Miserables, about the French Revolution (take for example, “Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry man etc.”) These music, written to describe a period of suffering and difficulty or a race, religion or nation, always have deep emotional attachment to the race, religion or nation who’s singing it, and continues to provide connotation and context to our everyday decisions as a race, religion or nation.

Project anyone?

Part of the Golden Merdeka Series.