望春风

I love Melaka food, particularly Tian Chee's mother in-law's superb nyonya food. I love the old charm of Melaka building architectures. I also love Jonker Street.

During one of my many trips to Melaka, I went to a second hand LP shop at Jonker Street to look for LPs. When I reached the shop, there was no other customers and the shop owner was sipping Chinese tea relaxingly with his 3 friends.

After I flipped through the stacks of records. I finally selected just 1 EP titled "Staring at the spring breeze (望春风）. All the songs in this EP are sung in "Hokkien", a Chinese dialect. When I handed the LP to the shop owner for quotation, he became so excited and took this EP to his friends. He explained in such excitement to his friends and me about how did he first listened to this song and how good could he sing the song.

He quickly offered me a cup of Chinese tea and started his rendition of 望春风. Wow, he could really sing well! His friends and I clapped along as he was singing. At the end his grand performance, he offered me this EP for free. Anyway, I put some money on his table, thanked him and bade goodbye to him.

蔡琴 - 遇见

I am a big fan of CaiQin. I am also a loyal fan of CaiQin. I have been listening to CaiQin since early 80s. I still can't get enough of listening to her.

CaiQin started her career as a folk song singer who performed in folk song pubs in Taiwan. She possesses a natural and magnetically rich vocals. I am totally swept off my feet whenever I hear her sings. When I saw this album displayed at a music shop, I just could help but to fork out almost RM200 to take possess of this album.

Chris Barbida arranges all the songs in this album. As usual, CaiQin belts out song after song effortlessly.

I would like to highlight song number 2 on side B - Leave Your Worries Behind ( 张三的歌) in this album. Whenever I was driving with my wife and kids in the car. If this song was played, all of us would sing along. At the end of the song, one of the kids would call out, "Daddy, please replay the song", then we would start singing the song all over again.