Comments on: Ti Mo Yurm?

Question: Ti Mo Yurm?

sholdens12 — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 23:16:13 -0800

I was on one of the Chinatown-to-Chinatown buses from New York to Boston, and the bus driver had the Chinese pop music on VERY LOUD ALL THE WAY.

Instead of losing my cool, I decided to laugh about it with my wife. One song was just absolutely ridiculous, the most cliched pop idioms available. The thing is, I want to surprise my wife with it. It had the refrain or chorus that sounded like "ti mo yurm." Does anyone know this?

By: Phire

Phire — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:14:06 -0800

can you describe it...? girl singing? duet singing?

with limited knowledge of cantonese, "ti mo" sounds kind of like "listen to me", and I'm not sure what the last part is. As it is, it's not very conclusive...

By: Pollomacho

Pollomacho — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:28:08 -0800

Was it Coco Lee? She's hawt all over the Sino-sphere right now.

By: mphuie

mphuie — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:37:23 -0800

Considering you couldn't tell if it was mandarin or cantonese and bus drivers don't exactly play current pop music, you might have better luck calling the bus company and finding the driver to ask him yourself.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 05:48:50 -0800

Considering you couldn't tell if it was mandarin or cantonese

That's pretty insulting. The fact that the poster just said "Chinese" doesn't mean he can't tell the difference. If his "ti mo yurm" is at all accurate, it was Cantonese, which is a priori more likely anyway. But asking somebody at the bus company might be productive. Can you hum enough of the tune to give them an idea of what it is?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 08:00:28 -0800

you might have better luck calling the bus company and finding the driver to ask him yourself.

...assuming he even speaks English. Or anyone at the bus company, for that matter.

By: forforf

forforf — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:48:22 -0800

Another option is to find a place where you can listen to snippets of the songs (record store, online, whatever ... ) and settle for a song similar to the bus song.
This should work as long it wasn't specific to that particularly song that's driving you to do this.
I'd approach it like this - "Hey wife, remember that crazy bus trip with the crazy songs, I got you some Chinese pop music as a way of remembering that trip".

By: hooray

hooray — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:30:05 -0800

Was it a male or female singer?
A slow or a fast song?

Go to Chinatown, find a music shop. At least one person there will speak English. Sing the song to them and ask them to help you out.