Core 'ngrato (Ungrateful Heart)

Today I am going to blog about something less serious.

Core 'ngrato (Ungrateful Heart) is a Neapolitan song written in 1911 by Salvatore Cardillo. Neapolitan songs are sung in Neapolitan dialect, which it is originated in Naples in South Italy. The song was originally written for the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. This is a video of Plácido Domingo singing the song:


Tenor: Plácido Domingo
Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Eugene Kohn
Recorded in 2006

CORE 'NGRATO S. Cardillo / R. Cordiferro Catarí, Catarí… pecché me dici sti parole amare, pecché me parle e 'o core me turmiente, Catarí? Nun te scurdà ca t'aggio dato 'o core, Catarí, nun te scurdà! Catarí, Catarí, ché vene a dicere stu parlà ca me dà spaseme? Tu nun'nce pienze a stu dulore mio, tu nun'nce pienze, tu nun te ne cure… Core, core 'ngrato, t'aie pigliato 'a vita mia, tutt'è passato e nun'nce pienze chiù. Catarí, Catarí... tu nun 'o ssaje ca fino e 'int'a na chiesa io só' trasuto e aggiu pregato a Dio, Catarí. E ll'aggio ditto pure a 'o cunfessore: "Stó' a suffrí pe' chella llá... Stó' a suffrí, stó' a suffrí nun se pò credere... stó' a suffrí tutte li strazie!" E 'o cunfessore, ch'è perzona santa, mm'ha ditto: "Figliu mio lássala stá, lássala stá!..." Core, core 'ngrato, t'aie pigliato 'a vita mia, tutt'è passato e nun'nce pienze chiù. Tutt'è passato e nun'nce pienze chiù!

UNGRATEFUL HEART Catari, Catari… why do you speak to me such bitter words, Why do you speak only to torment my heart, Catari? Do not forget that I have given you my heart, Catari, do not forget! Catari, Catari, why do you speak just to put me in agony? You never think of my sadness, You never think, you never seem to care… Ungrateful heart, you took possession of my life, and now it's over, you no longer think of me. Catari, Catari… you do not know that even in church I bring my prayers to God, Catari. And I recount my confession to the priest: "I am suffering from such a great love! I am suffering, I suffer from not knowing your love, I suffer a sorrow that tortures my soul!" And I confess, that the Holy Mother Spoke to me: "My son, you must never forget, never forget!…" Ungrateful heart, you took possession of my life, and now it's over, you no longer think of me. And now it's over, you no longer think of me!

© Casa Ricordi / BMG Recordi Spa

Lyrics and Translation is found in a page about an album of Andrea Bocelli: http://www.abmusica.com/viaggio.htm#Track%209.

There are a few more versions in Youtube. Some versions have different set of lyrics and arrangement. For example, in Domingo's version, "mm'ha ditto: "Figliu mio lássala stá, lássala stá!..." was actually sung "Figliu mio lássala stá!..." Some versions don't have the second verse. Here is a listing of some remarkable recordings in Youtube:

Let's get started with charisma

Being charismatic is quite important in social life. A charismatic person can always persuade people to do various things to solve problems. When you have something you really can't handle, you should really ask for help. It is something extremely normal that we may face different hairy situation which we can't really handle it ourselves. We get help from other people. And asking for help would really require charisma. Mastering charisma can not only help with your daily life, but also boosts your performance in school, work and everything.

Like any other skills, knowing where you are would be the first step to start improving. Let's set it into 10 levels, with level 0 a completely odd-talking person, to level 10, historical legendary speakers, like Adolf Hitler and Chairman Mao. A normal politician would be rated as level 5 or 6, while an international superstar would be rated around level 7 to 9. As this rating is arbitrary, one should always evaluate himself frequently to seek improvements. Here's a recommended list of charisma levels:

Level 0: Retarded people
Level 1: People who can communicate efficiently in daily lives
Level 2: People who can perform in front of their friends or family
Level 3: People who can perform in front of an audience of around 10 strangers, or giving a presentation in a public exam
Level 4: People who can perform in front of a large group of strangers
Level 5: People who can perform in front of a large group of strangers without any discomfort
Level 6: Normal Businessmen and politicians
Level 7: Successful Businessmen, politicians and celebrities
Level 8: World class politicians and celebrities
Level 9: Faction leaders, Large global organization leaders and legendary celebrities
Level 10: Legends

Now lets look at these people. Take the president of the United States, Barack Obama, which I would rate him level 9, as an example. That, for most people who adores him, he is rarely considered to be handsome. However, it is his gesture, his sense of humour and his choice of words, that attracts people. And here we can quickly come up with three important things for charisma. They are: Gesture, Sense of Humour and Language Skill.

We will first watch a video of Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY9793NCGxI. In the video, there were mainly two people specking: John Corpus, who asked the question, and Obama. When John could somehow see this blog, I hope he won't mind me talking about him.

John gave his speech quite well but not as good as Obama. Starting at 0:25, he started holding his right hand with his left hand. This was an indication of him being nervous and inferior. And at 0:34, he started mumbling something completely useless. He was also staring at Obama without moving his sight away. Everything added together, we would not say his speech to be persuasive nor effective. Although in that particular circumstance, being persuasive would not be useful or appropriate, that if he possessed a better charisma, his speech could look a little charismatic and noticeable.

Let's look at Obama. He held his microphone tightly without shaking. He had a natural gesture. He was making jokes. But he didn't really look at the audience when he was speaking. His gesture told us that he was completely confident about himself. In most books that teach us presentation, they always say having eye contact was important. However, not in this case. Obama did a great job without actually looking at John. We have to take in account that, eye contact being important is not really about the eye contact itself. But it was to avoid the present from looking at his notes or at somewhere distracting or somewhere completely irrelevant. In this video, Obama looked at his note because he was writing. However, without eye contact, he still presented himself charismatically. It is all about how you put confident to yourself. And the ability of maintaining steady and controlling any nerves.

So gesture is nothing to learn, but to know that, it is about how you present yourself with your own character and confidence.

Sense of humour, would be an essential part of giving a successful speech. Because you don't want to bore your audience. The Obama video is definitely a good example of sense of humour. My advice is to watch comedies. If you really don't know how to make people laugh, I am sorry. You can never be quite charismatic.

The third point is the language skill. I don't think I really have to make any points about this. You have better language skills, you speak more accurately. Furthermore, if you have a very strong accent, you'd better get rid of it. Because accents do not bring in misunderstandings only, but also a kind of distance between you and the audience. Picture when an Indian walks into a Chinese market, which they speak with their own accents. Not only their ethnicity brings the distance, but also the language itself.

There is a Canadian Indian comedian called Russell Peters. He is pretty much having all these traits, while he can imitate different accents around the world, so he is really charismatic. And thanks for that, he is really successful in Canada. Well, if a comedian is not charismatic, he wouldn't be able to make people laugh. So, please check out his video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qtrAMK7_Qk.

How to pronounce my name?

As I mentioned earlier, my name is Joshua Yàthín Y̖u. Joshua, originated from the Holy Bible, should not be any problem for English speakers. What about Yàthín Y̖u? As I have introduced, I am a Chinese so I have a Chinese name. I was born in Hong Kong and live here so I speak Cantonese, so do my name. And people put the family name at the front for Chinese names while at the same time, one Chinese word produces one syllable. So my name would be Y̖u Yàt Hín. But for some reasons, in official administrations, my name is always simplified by removing the tone, which was represented with diacritics in the previous notation. However, Yu Yat Hin is just a representation of my Chinese name, not a new name given to me based on my Chinese name. Therefore I would really prefer to pronounce it in the original tone. Although it may sound problematic to English speakers, I really appreciate it.

Let's look at the "tones" of Cantonese. There are totally 9 tones in Cantonese. Different tones give different meanings, even for the same sets of vowels and consonants. The 9 tones are respectively: Upper Level, Upper Rising, Upper Departing, Lower Level, Lower Rising, Lower Departing, Upper Entering #1, Upper Entering #2 and Lower Entering. Take "si" as an example, it produces nine completely different and unrelated words: 詩 (poem), 史 (history), 試 (trial), 時 (time), 市 (market), 是 (affirmation), 識 (knowing), 錫 (tin), 食 (eating). The tone can be represented in many different ways. For instance, si1, si˥, si˥˧, sí, sî, sī, sì all means the same thing, only that they were introduced in different context.

The nine tones are actually not that complicated than it sounds. They can be divided into 3 groups. The first 3 in the first group, the 4th, 5th and 6th in the second group and the last 3 in the last group. Now, for English speakers, please check out how these 3 diacritics are pronounced: sí, sǐ, sī, by reading foreign names or resources in the Eastern Europe. These 3 diacritics represents the first 3 tones. The second group of tones are actually lower versions of the first group. They pronounce exactly the same but an octave lower. Yes, just like in music, you say the words in the first group with an A above middle C, then you will say the words in the second group with an A below middle C. Easy, isn't it? The 7th tone is actually done by adding an ending consonant k to the 1st tone. For example, the 7th tone of si, represented as "sík", is exactly the same to the word "sick", without actually producing the k sound. And the 8th and 9th tones are just lower versions of the 7th tone. 8th tone would be "semi-lower" and 9th would be around an octave lower just like in the second group. Use your imagination!

There is disappointingly no standardized way. My representation makes use of tone diacritics. In which the nine tones are represented: sí, sǐ, sī, si̖, si̗, sì, sík, sīk, sìk. In my name, Y̖u is of the 4th tone; Yàt is of the 6th tone and Hín is of the 1st tone. Putting them all together, we still have one more problem to solve. It is that the diacritic is added beneath the y instead of the u in Y̖u. It is because that the vowel is actually "y" instead of "u". Y represents the close front rounded vowel. This vowel is used in many languages other than English. But the Scottish way of pronouncing the word "food", is literally "fyd", making use of this vowel. If you have a Scottish friend, please go ask him. The "u" in the word Y̖u is actually completely meaningless but to make it look better. Maybe the people in the government think the Y looks lonely, or a single Y may mislead people to pronounce it as "Wai".

So, after a long story of phonetics, you can now properly pronounce my name. If you have interests in Cantonese phonography, please check out the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_phonology.

What is this blog about?

Greetings. My full name is Joshua Yàthín Y̖u. I am ethnically Chinese and I was born in Hong Kong. I am starting this blog for I don't know what reasons. Most of my friends started different blogs writing different things. And it just came to my interest that we may actually learn something by reading others' blog. For instance, I find myself solving a lot of technical problems with my computer by Googling. And the Google results were surprisingly mainly blog sites. Instead of working all time on my Airline Manager in Facebook, I guess writing blog may benefit me better. Sometimes digging up things in the Internet and blog it down could be fun. So I am starting it anyway.

This is my first post. So I am not going to end it with just one paragraph of introduction. I still have no ideas of what to blog at the moment so I guess I will start with writing what I would be writing in the future. I am a classical music lover, so I may blog about classical music. I study in Computer Science so I may also blog about it. I am also a moderate gamer so I may talk about something for games, and so on. Sooner or later readers will know what my blog would be about.

At the moment, I am reading a news passage about mandatory minimum wage in Hong Kong. The page, that is in Chinese, could be found here: http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/091103/4/ezwq.html. So the businessmen recommend a wage of HKD $24 per hour. Using today's currency, it is equal to USD $3.09674. The currency calculator could be found here: http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html. It will be around HKD $5000 (USD $645.154) per month. The main concern for the government is to minimize the effect of introducing the mandate. According to the article, in 2008, there were 274.2 thousand of employees in Hong Kong receiving a wage lower than HKD $24 per hour, which was approximately 8% of all working population.

In 1999 England, the mandatory minimum wage was set at £3.6 (HKD $46.0873, USD $5.94668). There were approximately 5 to 6% of British employees affected by the mandate. This British example is one of the biggest arguments of the government to set a mandatory minimum wage of HKD $24 instead of HKD $33 (USD $4.25802), as they believe the mandate should aim to affect as few people as possible in order to maintain social stability.

The motivation behind the mandate is really doubtful. I have read some articles, which I cannot recall the source, that 1.6 million of people, out of 7 million total population in Hong Kong, satisfy the following description: Living in a 3 person household, making HKD $9000 (USD $1161.27) per month in total for the whole household, where $5000 goes to housing rent for a flat with less than 400 squared feet, while the workers are working 10 to 14 hours a day. Even a mandatory minimum wage of HKD $24 is applied, these 1.7 million of people may only see a very small effect.

Hong Kong is now the number one city of wealth inequality, with a Gini coefficient of 43.4, see http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/10/1013_biggest_rich_poor_gap_globally/28.htm, while the government is considering preserving the "economic mobility" as the main factor of deciding the level of mandatory minimum wage. I think every single Hong Kong people has the right to ask, "Is it worth doing? By sacrificing the poorests?"