TVB's Red Ladies?
In the next few posts, I will be taking a look at the song titles for the tracks on "Lady in Red", TVB's latest musical presentation, featuring songs by top singer Miriam Yeung as well as some renditions by their own artistes such as Myolie Wu, Bernice Liu and Charmaine Sheh.



We start by dissecting the title of the album:
金牌女兒紅
The literal translation of this is 'Gold Label Red Females' so the recognised translation of "Lady in Red" is not far off, but is in fact totally wrong from the original meaning of the title.

Breaking this down further gives:
金 (Canto: gum / Mandarin: jin) - gold
牌 (Canto: pai / Mandarin: pai) - label or sign
女 (Canto: nui / Mandarin: nu) - female
兒 (Canto: yee / Mandarin: er) - child or son
女兒 means daughter, you can often hear this term referred to in ancient dramas as it is the more traditional way of referring to daughter. In modern times, the 兒 is dropped from general conversation.
紅 (Canto: hung / Mandarin: hong) - red
女兒紅 is the name of a famous Chinese wine, again you will hear this a lot in ancient dramas. The name is usually linked to the finest quality, rather like the XO of modern times.
Overall, the name of the album is supposed to reflect a gold label fine wine, something to be savoured that is top quality. The creatives have tied this in with the literal meaning of the words by dressing the 'daughters' in red, hence leading to the misinterpretation during translation.
- posted by Em @ 4:51 AM