chinese

I happened to catch a snatch of chinese news today on the tv, and it was reporting on some singer who held a concert somewhere, who apparently performed exceedingly well. What caught my attention however was how the reporter described the performance as hauntingly beautiful which made all the audience, this is the interesting part, "听出耳油."

Which meant, literally, that some yellow fluid is dripping out of your ears.

Now that's one really disturbing image. Imagine you are seated in a posh concert hall, with few hundred people all dressed to the nines, all holding their breath to a hauntingly beautiful melody. And suddenly, as the melody reaches its crescendo, you feel something wet creeping down your auditory canal. And you slowly realized, that out of the ears of the mesmerized audience, something yellow is dripping out slowly, staining velvet coats and bare shoulders in a persistent stream...

Bleagh.

Well it is only a metaphor I guess, but one couldn't help feeling that it is a rather crass one. Certainly not one to inspire the feeling of beauty when applied to any piece of music. Not unless it's a music designed to magically clean out your ear canal.