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Grandma can't sleep!"Taiwanese novelty song reaches global audience via Internet

September 25, 2008

by Dan Bloom

TAIPEI, TAIWAN (RUSHPRNEWS) 09/25/2008--- When an expat American living in Taiwan wanted to learn the local language, he turned to his friends in the music business and came up with a novelty song sung in the Taiwanese dialect and titled it "Grandma Can't Sleep". As you might expect, it's about a grandmother who cannot sleep at night because she is worried about her little grandson who does not have any presents for the Lunar New Year the next morning, so she spends most of the night tossing and turning while thinking about what to give the little boy.

Although the song is in Taiwanese, with a few words of Japanese thrown in for good measure, "Grandma Can't Sleep" has a universal appeal for listeners in every country around the world, according to the producers. The song has become so popular in just the space of a year on YouTube that it has already gotten over 11,000 hits, and blogs in over 25 countries have linked to it.

So if you want a good laugh in these strange, difficult times, check out the song at YouTube and give it a listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muTRj0GP5wU

What have the reactions been to the song? Although the song is sung in a rather slapdash fashion and uses the melody as Mexico's famous folksong "La Cuccaracha" as its mainframe, the sheer goofiness of the delivery is enough to known your socks off, even you are completely sober.

Says one Taiwanese woman living in New York: "I grew up with my grandma in Taiwan. I and my brother slept with her on a Japanese tatami bed when we were little. Sometimes we woke up during the night and found her sitting on the tatami. If we asked her why, the answer was always 'Grandma can't sleep', said in Taiwanese of course: 'amah koon beiki'. When I listened to the song on YouTube for the first time, I was laughing loudly."

Jeff Hsieh, a college student in California, who was born in Taiwan,
says: "The song is great! But I can't understand it that well because I grew up speaking Chinese. Bu I think that the song has a bright, happy connotation to it."

A music critic in Los Angeles, who caught the song on the Internet, sent in his appraisal as well: "The song is a real tour de force and a testiment to not only that goofy foreigner's talent, but also apparently to his genuine love of Taiwan and its people."

A secretary for an import-export firm in Taipei said: "The song put a big smile on my face, I love it. Thanks a million for the smile! I think foreigners will get a kick out of it, too. It's kind of like a Weird Al Yankovich song, no?"

A book publisher in Boston said: "I could not help smiling when I listened to that silly song. Happy to know that the song is childlike and fun, which also represents my best memories about Taiwan. My wife and I lived for ten years in the 1950s."

The words to the song in Roman letters are here:
http://amahsong101.blogspot.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan Bloom is a freelance columnist who has lived in Japan and Taiwan for several years, although he sheepishly admits he still cannot speak Japanese or Chinese or Taiwanese fluently. "It's all Greek to me," he says.

 

 

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