How a Hit Chinese Song From the 80s Became a Global Meme
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“The snowflakes are fluttering and the north wind is blowing,” serenades singer-songwriter Fei Yu-ching in his 1983 classic, Yi Jian Mei. The melancholic love song compares the singer’s undying love to a blossoming plum tree in the middle of winter.
“雪花飘飘，北风萧萧”，演绎这首歌的创作型歌手费玉清在他1983年的经典曲目《一剪梅》中这样唱道。这首忧郁的情歌将这位歌手忠贞不渝的爱情比作隆冬盛开的梅花。
It’s also an apt metaphor for the song that has found a second life in the unlikeliest of circumstances nearly four decades later, shooting to the top of music charts… in snowy Scandinavia.
对于这首歌自身而言，也是一个恰当的比喻，它在近40年后在最不可能的情况下焕发出第二次生命，在冰雪覆盖的斯堪的纳维亚半岛音乐排行榜上位列榜首。
Yi Jian Mei has occupied the top spot on Spotify’s Viral 50 charts in Norway for over a week now, and it’s second in Sweden and Finland over the past few days. It also reached the top of the charts in New Zealand, where it remained at the time of publishing.
“一剪梅”在挪威Spotify的“流行歌曲50强”排行榜上占据榜首已经超过一周，而在过去几天里，它在瑞典和芬兰排名第二。这首歌在新西兰也登上了排行榜的榜首，并在发行之初一直保持这个记录。
Interest in “Xue hua piao piao” has surged since the beginning of May, peaking in early June, according to Google Trends.
Google Trends的数据显示，5月初以来，人们对“雪花飘飘”的兴趣激增，6月初达到顶峰。
Just how did a 37-year-old Chinese song capture a global audience all of a sudden? The earliest clues can be found on Kuaishou, one of the most popular video apps in China.
一首歌龄有37年的中国歌曲是如何突然吸引全球观众的眼球的呢?最早的线索可以在快手上找到，快手是中国最流行的视频应用之一。
On January 6, actor-turned-director Zhang Aiqin posted a 10-second video of himself doing what many others regularly do on short video apps: He sang a song.
1月6日，由演员转型为导演的张爱勤发布了一段10秒的视频，视频中他唱了一首歌，这是很多人在短视频应用上经常做的事情。
While not quite a household name, Zhang has starred in supporting roles in several domestic blockbusters, turning his unusual appearance into an asset that has earned him the endearing nickname of “duck egg.” He calls himself “Brother Egg” in his Kuaishou account.
张并不是一个家喻户晓的明星，他在几部国产大片中担任配角，他与众不同的外表为他赢得了一个可爱的绰号“鸭蛋”。他在自己的快手账户中称自己为“蛋兄”。
In that clip, he did a brief rendering of Yi Jian Mei while outdoors, surrounded by bare branches and heavy snow. The video has since been viewed more than 3.2 million times by Kuaishou’s primarily China-based users.
在那段剪辑中，他在户外，被光秃秃的树枝和大雪包围的情况下，对一剪梅做了一个简短的渲染。该视频被快手的中国用户浏览了超过320万次。
It might have just stopped there if not for the power of the internet in 2020.
如果不是因为2020年互联网的强大，它可能就会停在那里。
In a string of events detailed by Know Your Meme, a website documenting the origins of memes, a user discovered Zhang’s video in February and shared it on YouTube.
据Know Your Mem网站(一个记录模因起源的网站)介绍这一系列事件的细节，今年2月，一名用户发现了张的视频，并将其分享到了油管上。
In late March, another user reposted the clip on Instagram and replaced Zhang’s voice with the original performance by Fei. From then on, the clip gradually gained momentum, circulating widely on global social platforms like Twitter and TikTok.
3月下旬，另一位用户在Instagram上转发了这段视频，并用Fei的原创表演替换了Zhang的声音。从那以后，这段视频势头逐渐壮大，在Twitter和TikTok等全球社交平台上广泛流传。
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