周杰伦 | Zhou Jie Lun | Jay Chou 青花瓷 |Qing Hua Ci| Blue and White Porcelain Lyrics

素胚勾勒出青花筆鋒濃轉淡
su pei gou le chu qing hua bi feng nong zhuan dan
The brush outlines a beautiful pattern, brush strokes becoming lighter

瓶身描繪的牡丹一如妳初妝
ping shen miao hui de mu dan yi ru ni chu zhuang
The peony on the bottle, simplest beauty, just like you

冉冉檀香透過窗心事我了然
ran ran tan xiang tou gou chuang xin shi wo liao ran
Whiffs of incense smoke bring your troubles to my heart

宣紙上走筆至此擱一半
xuan zhi shang zou bi zhi ci ge yi ban
I pause halfway while painting

釉色渲染仕女圖韻味被私藏
you se xuan ran shi nv tu yun wei bei si cang
The glazing of the lady's portrait hides her charm

而妳嫣然的一笑如含苞待放
er ni yan ran de yi xiao ru han bao dai fang
Your smile, to me, like a budding flower

妳的美一縷飄散去到我去不了的地方
ni de mei yi lv piao san / qu dao wo qu bu liao de di fang
But your beauty dissipates like smoke, to a place I can never reach

＃天青色等煙雨而我在等妳 (1)
tian qing se deng yan yu / er wo zai deng ni
The perfect shade of blue awaits the right weather, like how I wait for you

炊煙裊裊昇起隔江千萬里
chui yan niao niao sheng qi / ge jiang qian wan li
From a thousand miles away, I gaze at the curling chimney smoke

在瓶底書漢隸仿前朝的飄逸
zai ping di shu han li fang qian zhao de piao yi
The calligraphy beneath the bottle, elegance of the Han Dynasty

就當我為遇見妳伏筆
jiu dang wo wei yu jian ni fu bi
Our meeting I foreshadowed

＊天青色等煙雨而我在等妳 (1)
tian qing se deng yan yu / er wo zai deng ni
The perfect shade of blue awaits the right weather, like how I wait for you

月色被打撈起暈開了結局
yue se bei da lao qi / yun kai liao jie ju
The moonlight smudged away the remnants of our ending

如傳世的青花瓷自顧自美麗妳眼帶笑意
ru zhuan shi de qing hua ci zi gu zi mei li / ni yan dai xiao yi
Like legendary porcelain obsessed with itself, your eyes full of laughter

色白花青的錦鯉躍然於碗底
se bai hua qing de jin li yue ran yu wan di
Those blue carp seem to come alive on the white bowl

臨摹宋體落款時卻惦記著妳（2）
lin mo song ti luo kan shi que dian ji zhe ni
While I am imitating the Song inscription I'm thinking of you

妳隱藏在窯燒裡千年的秘密
ni yin cang zai yao shao li qian nian de mi mi
The eon of secrets you buried in the kiln

極細膩猶如繡花針落地
ji xi ni you ru xiu hua zhen luo di
It's exquisiteness like an embroidery needle

簾外芭蕉惹驟雨門環惹銅綠 (3)
lian wai ba jiao re zhou yu men huan re tong lv
The banana tree outside brought the sudden downpour, and in turn the copper rust on the door handle

而我路過那江南小鎮惹了妳 (3)
er wo lu guo na jiang nan xiao zhen re le ni
My passing by Jiangnan brings me to you

在潑墨山水畫(4) 裡妳從墨色深處被隱去(5)
zai po mo shan shui hua li / ni cong mo se shen chu bei yin qu
Yet you fade away into the deep abyss of the Chinese painting

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Translator's Notes:

Overview:
This song makes use of the metaphor of porcelain to describe love and separation. Separation doesn't always have to be painful and sad, it can be inscribed for life in memories and in the heart, just like paintings on porcelain, glazed and fixed for eternities. The pain and the sadness can pass with time, but the beauty of the love will always stay.

Points:
1. 天青色等煙雨而我在等妳
天青色 is a very specific colour of the porcelain that can ONLY be created/set with great difficulty. The temperature of the kiln has to be perfect and the last day of the glazing HAS TO BE on a rainy day. Only then can it achieve that specific colour.
煙雨天 =Rainy Day
Which is why 天青色&煙雨 are inseparable, relating it to the 'me' & 'you' in the song. Which means that I can ONLY wait for you, and no one else. Nobody else will complete me as you do.

To be more exacting to Vincent Fang's way of thought, it is the waiting that is the key point in this line. The shade of blue has to patiently 'wait' for the rainy weather, just as I can only wait for you...

2. 臨摹宋體落款時卻惦記著妳
This line, literally translated above, actually means that even though dynasties have passed (in reference to Han Dynasty a few lines up), the memory and thought of you does not wane.

3. 簾外芭蕉惹驟雨門環惹銅綠
而我路過那江南小鎮惹了妳
The use of the word 惹 veers from the usual negative implication it has. 惹 in normal usage means 'annoy; irritate'. However, in this instance, it means attracting or bringing forward something.

It has a much more aggressive implication than simply just bring 2 things together. In the first line, 惹 is used passively, as copper can only wait for the rust to form on it.. Yet in the second line, 惹 is used aggressively. It reflects from a few lines before 天青色等煙雨而我在等妳 where I am passive. In this instance, I am active. There is a contrast here.

4. 潑墨山水畫
It's a special type of landscape painting.

潑墨 is the technique used. What happens is that the artist will splash some ink on the canvas, and very quickly use that splatter of ink to create a final landscape painting.

Example 1
Example 2

5. 妳從墨色深處被隱去