Face Watching in a Chinese Music Video

Yùyán (Fable), by Zhāng Sháohán

I am singing this song at an upcoming Chinese New Year celebration. I really enjoy singing songs in languages other than my own, and Mandarin Chinese is one of my favorites, since I speak some Mandarin and have always had an interest in Chinese culture.

My friend from Taiwan recommended this song to me because she knew the tune of the chorus would be familiar to me as a westerner: it's essentially the melody of Greensleeves, a famous English carol. I watched the video and immediately found other things to enjoy about it, besides just the clever use of a familiar tune. 

One of the things that stands out to me most when I watch this video, honestly, is the the face of the singer, Zhāng Sháohán (張韶涵), also known as Angela Zhang. I didn't know much about her before watching this video, but for some reason, after watching her face for four minutes, I feel like I would like her as a person. I like the vibe she emanates through her eyes and facial expressions. I get a sense that she is intelligent, authentic, and internally focused. Maybe I'm misguided, but my response to this (perhaps false) instinct is to appreciate this singer and her work on a different level than usual.

I often find myself face watching. Sometimes I find myself really liking someone and I don't know why, because I know very little about them. When I really stop and think about it, I notice that I'm basing my positive feelings off their faces. It doesn't matter whether a face is conventionally attractive: it matters to me what "vibe" the face puts off. This vibe is determined by a string of little things, like when the eyes squint, how the mouth moves, etc. It all adds up to a basic energy, an essence, which comes across to me very strongly.

I don't depend solely on this kind of data when determining what a person is like, of course. It seems inherently unreliable. However, I don't ignore these intuitive observations, either, because they are so often confirmed once I actually talk to the person and learn some concrete facts about their nature. Face watching is a weird habit, perhaps, but I can't shake the sense that there must be some merit in it, so I don't give it up.