Many Canadians have seen John Woo’s acclaimed masterpiece, The Killer, starring Chow Yun-Fat. Also starring in the film was a beautiful woman whom we first saw singing in a lounge until gunfire blinded her (see HERE). Most of us would assume that she was some actress born and raised in Hong Kong. Guess again.

Sally Yeh (also known as Sally Yip) is Canadian. She grew up in BC and, like many Chinese-Canadians, her English was stronger than her Chinese. Because the Canadian music industry had not been welcoming of the 12% of the country’s citizens who are of Asian descent, as a gifted singer, she decided to brush up on her Chinese (learning Cantonese as well) and relocate to China. After several releases and a couple of moves, she finally made it big, so big, in fact, that she became known as the Celine Dion of Hong Kong.

It is important to acknowledge that Canadian singers who become successful in the United States are not the only ones to be honoured. Our very own Sally Yeh became a superstar in the most populated country on earth. In the same year that Bryan Adams topped the charts with his Robin Hood hit (1991), Sally Yeh had the biggest song of the year on the western side of the Pacific. In January, 2011, she was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Golden Needle award in Hong Kong.

Every so often a song comes along that is so beautiful it makes you cry, even a song performed in a language with which you are not fluent. In 1987, Sally Yeh recorded one of the ten biggest songs of the year in Hong Kong—”Jukfuk“. It is sung with heartfelt precision backed with delicate musical arrangement. Halfway through, when the song picks up with bass and drums, it makes you feel like you’re flying. “Jukfuk” is one of our favourite songs of all-time by a Canadian artist.

Lyrics

Because many of you may not have Chinese character support on your web browser, I won’t put up the lyrics here as they may appear as gobbledygook. However, for the many Canadians who can read Chinese (and are learning to), you can view the lyrics HERE in addition to listening to the song.

Summary

Song: “Jukfuk”*
Album: Jukfuk
Year: 1987
Artist: Sally Yeh
Origin: Vancouver

* Assuming your web browser has Chinese character support, the Chinese characters are 祝福 which can be translated as good luck, best wishes, good fortune, blessings, etc. In Mandarin Chinese, the pinyin romanization for Mandarin (standard) Chinese is zhùfú. However, as the song is performed in the Cantonese dialect, we have titled the song with Cantonese romanization which is “Jukfuk”.

Canadian Music Blog | September 28, 2011