For You’ve Not Attained Marriage Age

First, a song you likely have not heard before:

It’s “Single Girl,” by 60s pop star Dusty Rose Muddy Tulip Rocky Chrysanthemum Sandy Posey. And it’s great, if you have ever felt like your experience of bygone pop music was lacking an American Petula Clark. But that’s not the point. Here, below, watch the same song performed in Cantonese by former child star Fung Bo Bo, a.k.a. Bobo Fung, Feng Bao Bao, Fung Po Po, Petrina Fung and the Hong Kong Shirley Temple. Or at least it’s the same melody played in a more upbeat manner and paired with Cantonese words that, of course, have been translated hilariously into ka-chunk ka-chunk robot English.

The lyrics:

Active youth
Promising and sentimental
The active young ones
Full of gaiety and laughters
Dance gaily but not too much
And be sensible
For you’ve not attained marriage age
Enjoy the songs of the birds
The beautiful flowers on meadows
The fascinating country scenery

(Note: When the hell did we go to the country?)

Active young ones
Compete energetically
Play but not too much
And be sensible
For you’ve not attained marriage age

(Another note: The song may have continued, but the video cuts out, so we’ll never know. Never.)

For what it’s worth, Fung Bo Bo is giving it all she’s got. But I brief flashes of worry on her face make me wonder if she had a choice about the matter. In conclusion, does anyone else find it disturbing that the Wikipedia list of former child actors from China features only two people, one of whom is famously dead? How likely do we think it might be that some disaster befell a Chinese national child actors convention?