My colleague and I are putting on a Mid-Autumn Festival program at the end of the month, to celebrate a holiday that is celebrated in countries throughout Asia, and by people in Asian communities around the world.
To finish the songs and stories portion of our event, we’ll be singing a bilingual version of a much-beloved pop song by the late Asian “Eternal Queen of Pop” Teng Li-chun (Teresa Teng). Teng sadly passed away young, at the age of only 42, but the impact she left on popular music cannot be overstated. To quote from her Wikipedia page:
Teng recorded more than 1,700 songs throughout her career, starting when she was 14 years old, not only in Mandarin, but also in Hokkien, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Japanese, Indonesian, English, and Italian.[15] To date, Teng’s songs have been covered by hundreds of artists all over the world.[16]
One of Teng’s most enduring songs is called, in English, The Moon Represents my Heart, which has been called “one of the most famous and beloved Chinese songs of all time”, again quoting from Wikipedia.
The song itself is absolutely lovely, and the idea of the moon as a metaphor for love is beautiful. True love is like the moon – it might wax and wane through the seasons, but it is always present and always constant.
Blogger Donn Lee has written a great blog post about the song, where he goes deeper into the metaphor of the moon representing love, noting that even on cloudy nights, when you can’t see the moon, it’s still there – just like true love.
If you get a chance, I do recommend you listen to Teresa Teng perform the song, it’s lovely!
Here are a few lines from the song, translated from the original Mandarin into English.
You ask how deeply I love you,
And just how great my love is,
My affection is real,
And my love is true,
The moon represents my heart.
You ask how deeply I love you
And just how great my love is
My affection does not waver
And my love doesn’t change
The moon represents my heart.
Have you heard of, or do you celebrate Moon Festival / Mid-Autumn Festival?
Jane, Teresa Teng’s voice is beautiful. The song reminds me of a love song from the 60s era. I’ve listened to it several times. Thanks for sharing this and your Mid-Autumn Festival which I have never heard of. I hope your festival is successful.
It’s one of the amazing things about living in this city – we celebrate so many different cultural events and festivals from around the world, I’m always learning something new!
Jane, my comment did not appear after I penned it. This is the 2nd time I shall try to add it here.
Teresa Teng’s voice is beautiful. I can see why she was a beloved pop star. Her song reminds me of a love song from the 60s. Thanks for the links. I hope your Mid-Autumn Festival is successful.
And now I get two lovely comments from you!
This is all new to me, so thank you for it! Will search a little further about Teresa Teng!
I love all the different festivals and cultural events we get to celebrate here at the library!
Thank you for sharing this, Jane! I’m familiar with the Moon Festival but hadn’t known about Teresa Teng and her song. How cool that you’ll be performing it! Your Sept 15th post https://www.raincitylibrarian.ca/?p=23575 has some great resources