Friday, February 15, 2008

This is a very typical kind of Thai/ Lao music video. Usually the performers are wearing very strange and skimpy clothing. But Jonny plays it up well.

The song translates as "A little bit." I like the refrain, with the older woman. Often Asians will say they want to do something, a little bit though. You don't know if what they mean is that they don't want to sound too enthusiastic - or in fact, they don't want to do it. Anyway, he really goofs it up, with all the trophs of 'Maw lam,' traditional Thai / Lao country music.

"You can sa-speak Thai?"
"Yes, but only a little"
"You can eat fermented fish sauce?"
"Yes, but only a little."
"Can you eat papaya salad?"
"Yes, but only a little."
"You would like to have a Thai wife?"
"Yes, but only a little."


3 comments:

Kay Wotton said...

I have trouble getting videos to play but I heard a bit and love it. I want to know how you put them in a blog. And I love your explanation of the phrase. Makes so much sense.

chanpheng said...

I really enjoyed the music. I've got to get Jonny's CD - probably have it for a good price at the morning market!

About embedding YouTube videos - when you're on the YouTube page, there's a section to the right, where it says, in tinier than small print, 'to embed video' or something like that, which is over a box with some html script. Just cover the code and past in the html frame of your post.

Sometimes, if the connection is slow, it takes a while for the video to load and the playback runs faster than it can load. I usually press the start button then hit 'pause' and then go do something else. In five minutes, the whole thing will be loaded, and then you just have to click 'play.'

You can also go to Jonny's myspace page and he's got a bunch of music videos. Also, there are parts of some performances on YouTube.

Play a lot of this stuff and you'll want to be back in Lao again.

Keera Ann Fox said...

I actually enjoyed the music, too. And the video. Jonny's interaction with the older woman was very sweet.