A three-time Juno nominee has injected vivid imagery into a song that already tugs at the heartstrings. Ginalina accomplishes this in her new video for “Going Back”. It’s an original composition featuring the Taiwanese folk tune “Sānlúnchē” (“Trishaw” in English).
She wrote it as the title track for her fifth album, Going Back, which includes six popular folk songs from Asia. Ginalina reimagined them all with West Coast folk sensibility, while retaining Mandarin and Taiwanese lyrics. She also added her own English words, creating a truly trans-Pacific record.
Ginalina can do this because she’s multilingual. In addition to English and Mandarin, she’s fluent in French. Plus, she sang one song on the album in Taiwanese.
The video for “Going Back” (featuring “Sānlúnchē”) is filled with images of everyday life in East Asia. Who from that part of the world wouldn’t feel pangs of nostalgia hearing Ginalina singing in Mandarin, hearing jaunty Asian melodies, and seeing lanterns in the sky, scrolls in the market, rickshaws on the streets, and lushly forested mountainsides?
On top of supplying vocals, Ginalina plays guitar in the video. She’s joined by banjoist Steve Charles, erhu master Jirong Huang, upright bassist Joseph Lubinski-Mast, and guzheng player Sarah Yu Sha Tan. It’s a delightful brew of upbeat Canadian folk and cheerful Asian influences.
Check it out below.
Video: Ginalina goes where no other Canadian folksinger has gone before.
Ginalina also writes books
No one in the Canadian folk-music industry has ever done anything like this before. Through this album, Ginalina is uniting immigrant East Asian grandparents and their Canadian-born grandchildren. And she pulls this off by effortlessly switching from English to Mandarin and then back to English.
It’s one reason why Pancouver issued this declaration about Ginalina earlier this year: “she is what we should aspire for the future of Vancouver: a city that’s smart, compassionate, creative, outward looking, multilingual, and respectful of everyone’s heritage.”
That’s not all. The mother of four is also an author of three illustrated children’s books promoting appreciation for the environment. Kirkus Starred Reviews offered high praise, describing this work as a “happy marriage of text, art, and message that’s absolutely beautiful”.
The Mighty River, The Lively Forest, and The Blooming Mountain are all part of the West Coast Nature Series for Children entitled “What Do I See?”.
Follow Pancouver on Twitter @PancouverMedia. For more information on Ginalina or to purchase her albums or books, visit her website.
