CÉLINE DION: "My Heart Will Go On"

近悦远来 (jìn yuè yuǎn lái)

“Make those who are near happy, and those who are far will come”.

QUYNH ANH: "Bonjour Vietnam"

Vietnam

QUEEN: "We Will Rock You"

A bullet-proof mind, a head held high, a rock unmovable. Seasoned, weathered, firm. But weak in the knees.

MICHAEL JACKSON: “I’ll Be There”

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved in return”.
Happy For Ever.

CARLA BRUNI: "La Possibilité d'une Île"

Would it be a coincidence if the first song you play randomly from your MP3-player is written in the language of the place where you just arrived at that very moment? The place is called Mauritius and the language is French. The mystical lyrics are a poetic welcome note to this tropical holiday island, a cultural melting pot where also English and Creole is commonly spoken.

I always get some joy from having the chance to converse in a language I have been studying before. As a child, you can’t foresee any of those situations in your life where that language knowledge will effectively be used. You struggle with vocabulary lists and always seem to forget that third category of exceptions on one or another grammatical rule. You don't realize yet that a language is a drawer in a cabinet, which you can open any time at your convenience, and pull out what you thought you no longer had. You may not find every piece you ever put in, but it should be sufficient to get dressed and move around.

MADONNA: "La Isla Bonita"

Mauritius

YIRUMA: "River Flows In You"

Even if you don't have a voice, you can still sing. Perfection is not of this world, and conviction matters more than anything else. We can rise above expectations, like seagulls above rough seas. They float in the sky and cry like babies hungry for food. There’s the strongest bond in loneliness and a walk on a deserted winter beach will clear your mind like frost kills the most persistent bug. A countless number of people each doing something else and yet so many doing the same at the same time, somewhere. So many afraid to die, and therefore they never start living. We are haunted by our own fears, invisible like the winds that whistle unheard songs over the sand. We set footprints and follow others. There are things we learn along the way, and things we never will. How to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, for instance. Or miles to kilometers. Only approximately, in the region, somewhere about. But proximity is good enough at times. Exactness offers false security; it’s merely a religion like any other. There’s no esthetics in mathematical graphs; there’s no beauty in chemical formulas. Nostalgic fools like me capture the world in pictures, rather than videos. We describe history in moments, rather than timelines. We write stories and poems, not shopping lists or software.

Look back upon your life with the belief that there’s always something to look forward to. A foreign language you want to master. A love to love forever. Music you had never discovered before. Yurima, for instance. He came to me unexpectedly. With satin hands, he poured this mesmerizing melody, in the utmost elegant and gracious way, devoted like a sommelier to his favorite red wine. I taste his music with the ears of a blind man. We are never too old to learn. I savour life with the eagerness of a teenager who believes life will start at 20. And yet I hold my share of wisdom between my teeth the way an old man in a rocking chair bites his pipe as he watches the sun set from a forgotten porch in a Tennessee village. Do you need to go somewhere to know how it’s like? Do you have to fall before you know how to stand?

YIRUMA: "Kiss The Rain"

A slice of fresh life, with every bite I take. It’s all in the eyes; like the sun, the day makes. A drop of black ink on a virgin-white page. A song, some steps. And ever more, inseparable.

COLDPLAY: "The Hardest Part"

The quest for the right track is pointless. It’s an invention of mankind to structure what can not be structured. Roads have no meaning in the desert. A person will never walk the same path twice, for sand and wind will have mastered any illusion of directions. And you never find a stick to lean upon when you need one.

Certain events eventually turn out to have been the “last time” they occurred, but you don't always realize that when they happen. You shake a person’s hand and never see him again. You go to your favorite restaurant and it closes down weeks thereafter. You run a marathon. A mother has her first baby. These farewells are easiest to deal with, for they revel in ignorance and lack expectations about what’s coming up.
Sometimes, however, we are very well aware that it’s the “last time” we do something. The last day of secondary school, for instance. Driving home the day before you move out to another place. This awareness makes us live these moments more intensely, as wanting to savour an expensive delicacy on our plate. They are not too hard to handle either though’ Sure, it's hard to be neutral or indifferent towards them, since they bring a certain period in your life to a close, and this may fill you with either joy or sadness. But there’s time in advance to anticipate that things will be different afterwards, and this enables you to be prepared.
The hardest part, no doubt, are those occasions where you intuitively sense that it could very well be the "last time" they ever take place, without totally being sure. There’s no way to possibly deal with these thoughts in a serene manner. Some smile, some stay silent, some pray if they believe in a God, some fill their glass of wine once more if they don’t. There’s no single answer for questions that have yet to be raised.

How dare you miss the past if you haven’t seen the future? Why are we afraid of change, if it has been our most loyal companion ever since we were born? It follows us like a shadow, it fits us like a skin fits a body, firm and tight. By holding on, we hold back.

SECRET GARDEN: "Swan"

不鸣则已，一鸣惊人 (bù míng zé yǐ, yī míng jīng rén)

It literally means to amaze the world with a single, brilliant feat; to set the world on fire.

The Story:
Duke Wei of Qi, during the Warring States Period, neglected state affairs for the first three years of his reign, giving over to dissipation. One of his ministers who had a good sense of humor, said, "There is a big bird which has neither taken wing nor sung for three years." Upon hearing this, the duke answered, "Once that bird starts to fly and sing, it will astonish the world." After saying this, the duke devoted himself to his duties and built his state up into a powerful one.