My band with Celie and Marine, "Legs "and our Jay-Z & Alicia Keys inspired ode to Chongqing, "Chongqing State of Mind" have been featured prominently on blogs, newspapers and television in Chongqing and around other parts of China and Hong Kong this week after getting somewhere between 100,000 to 4 million hits on Sina Weibo, Youku, Tudou & other social media websites in China. It has also been shared with Chongqing locals abroad and expats who lived in Chongqing from all around the world covering such places as England, Australia, Singapore, Poland and of course, New York. All links are in Mandarin, so I will provide a loose translations based on what friends have told me. I recommend just copy and pasting the link into Google Translate and it gives you a pretty good idea of what they're saying about us.
This clip is from a television station somewhere in China or Hong Kong. I've been told that it's a "famous network" and that someone in Hong Kong said they saw it but I'm not sure because I can't tell if the translations are traditional characters or not, but basically, they just introduce the video and show a clip.
This article briefly discusses how Celie & I met last year and how the song was put together after we decided instead of doing a straight cover of Empire State of Mind, it would be cooler to do a "tribute" to Chongqing and change the lyrics. It talks about how I went to Osgoode and came to Chongqing two years ago and goes through some anecdotes of "crying because the hot pot was too spicy" as well as how thankful I was to my students and friends who helped me with such tasks as buying medicine when I was sick and how people would take pictures of me, everywhere I went. It says that the song has been seen by 1,000,000, which I was surprised to hear. It has some quotes at the end of fans about what they think about the song.
This article again talks about how Celie & I met and started doing music in Chongqing. It talks about how Celie helped translate songs because I don't know any Chinese "WO BU DONG!" and talks about how Ty further helped with the translation and how the production studios didn't charge us any money because they loved the song so much. The last part of the article is my personal favourite. It interviews two of my students who describe me as "black & chunky," (LOL) sounds "sick" every morning class and has a "fancy computer". On the bright side, they did say that I have "very special teaching methods", organizing a mock trial for them and taking the best students out for food. They like that the class picture was included in the video.
This article again talks about how we met, how the song was made and how we are ecstatic on how so many people love the song. It goes through the content of the songs and the lyrics promoting Chongqing and it tells us that careful watchers notice a number of errors in the translation. We admitted there were because we do not know Chinese but we do love hot pot. The last part of the article is a quote from a Deputy Minister of the propaganda department from the Chongqing Mayor's office, who says that "they will give us an opportunity" on a bigger and better "stage" for our song.
Another article detailing how we met and the lead up to how this song is so popular on social media around China. Even though we're foreigners, we're getting everybody "high" about Chongqing and our love shows in the songs as "authentic." It talks about how this video was meant to be a "memorial" about the times we've had in Chongqing since I've returned to Canada. The thing we both love is hot pot!
This article talks about how we've taken "Empire State of Mind" and made a RAP version of Chongqing, showing off it's beauty and lovely life to the world. The hash tag "I Love Chongqing" has become very popular and is trending on Wei Bo, and the video received over 20,000 hits within its first day just on the one link. It ends with some quotes of Chinese-Americans, including a professor who remarks that the song shows "the rise in online media attention and acclaim blazing, melody, rhythm and mood and Chongqing style, characteristics, temperament, spirit, state very match, the Chongqing passion, romance, harmony, colorful, vividly show out, can feel the two foreigners to home to cherish as Chongqing, Chongqing, which is the best city in the international image of free videos."
This last article I can't get translated onto Google Translate since it's just an image, but I would assume the content is similar to the other articles. There are additional articles if you search "Chongqing State of Mind" on Google! News and Baidu.com, including this article in "Chinglish" to promote Three Gorges River Cruises!
