Sunday, October 26, 2008

Dark Nursery Rhymes

Found an interesting article. The first paragraph reads:

「太陽當空照,骷髏對我笑。小鳥說,早早早,你為什麼背上炸藥包?我去炸學校,老師不知道。一拉線,趕快跑,轟隆一聲,學校炸飛了。」不知道從什麼時候開始,像這樣的「灰色童謠」在新疆烏魯木齊中小學生之間已經成為一種流行。

The beginning is a nursery rhyme, and it roughly translates to:

The sun shines in the great sky,
Skeletons smile and say hi,
Small bird chirps,
"Morn! Morn! Morn!"

Why do you carry bags of dynamite?
I'm going to blow up the school, alright,
Teachers all have no clue about my might.

Once I pull the cord,
Running fast - Oh Lord!
After the deafening roar,
My old school is now no more.


The article states that it's not sure when it all got started, but these dark nursery rhymes have become quite fashionable in Ürümqi, Xinjiang amongst elementary school kids...

Original Article (中文):
http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/081025/4/1892h.html

Random Observation: Chinese poems seem to be much more concise than English ones. Or maybe that was just me adding in extra words to match the meter and trying to make it rhyme.

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