i go on about zhou xuan, my grandmother's favourite singer, but i don't say anything about cai qin, my dad's favourite singer. i was in the mood for chinese oldies last night had an urge to hear cai qin's tingyuan shenshen - remember the tv series? we must have been maybe seven or eight when it was running. not a chance of finding it on kazaa, so went to my staple site for chinese music - you can only stream, but it's an impressively thorough song archive, with both contemporary pop and oldies - just scroll through the list of singers and look at how many names you've forgotten! do listen to her version of chi chi de deng. (if you can't see the chinese, it's the first song, click on the headphones symbol - the player opens in a pop up.) very very nice. han yu qu, one song below that, is one of my childhood favourites. (you know, when i was growing up i thought she was the original singer of all these songs.) very cool lyrics, and probably originally japanese. her bu liao qing is not bad, but the first six words are too mildly delivered, and on the whole it doesn't quite give you the spine-shiver you ought to feel. she has another recording of the song which conveys more of struggling grief, but is too slow and contrived. zuihou yiye and san nian are good also.