JJ Lin Wrote A Song About Jewel Changi & The Teaser Got Over 300K Views In 2 Days

One thing we can all agree on is that Jewel Changi looks amazing. What we can’t is what to feel about it.

What to feel? Building only, need to feel meh?

Well, actually yes. We can criticise about Jewel not feeling like S’pore despite our names attached to it, or that it makes us feel proud as S’poreans to have a work of architectural excellence, or just queue up at Shake Shake and snap a pic at the rain vortex because #FOMO.

But for JJ Lin? Jewel Changi is an inspiration for a song about connections.

Teaser for song “对的时间点”, official English titled “The Right Time”

As of the time of writing, JJ Lin’s 15-second teaser on his own Facebook page has garnered 92k views, another 21k on Jewel Changi’s Facebook Page and the YouTube mirror got 193k views:

Here’s the lyrics for the song, as well as a translation:

起飞前看一眼

每张我爱过的脸

每个交错和无缘

都在潜意识挑选

对的时间点

Take a look before takeoff

Every face that I’ve loved

Every encounter and missed connection

All chosen from my subconscious

The right time

From the lyrics alone, it really does remind people of an airport eh?

Full MV out on 26 Aug 2019 and will feature Christopher Lee

Lin composed the music for the song, while the lyricist Xiaohan wrote the lyrics. Apparently, JJ Lin felt “a wave of emotions” when he first saw an artist’s impression of the vortex before the opening in April. And then agreed to collaborate and produce a song about “unplanned encounters”.

 

You know, because an airport is a place where people around the world can meet and form new connections.

JJ Lin also talked about nostalgia, remembering the times he spent at Changi revising for exams and eating at the fast-food outlets with friends.

In other words, he was inspired.

Win a JJ Lin Autograph with The Right Time Jigsaw Puzzle

The event can be found on this page, though it’s fully in Mandarin.

This will be a 12-day event from 22 Aug 2019 to 2 Sep 2019. Clues will be given on Warner Music Taiwan Facebook and the event page at 12:00 p.m. every day, which will lead you to a specific broadcaster where you can take a screenshot of the puzzle piece.

You need to share the puzzle piece every day on your personal Facebook, with the hashtag #林俊傑對的時間點. Before the event is finished on 3 Sept, 11:59 p.m., post your completed puzzle to the event page, and 30 lucky winners will stand to win a signed postcard by JJ Lin!

The Right Time… The Right Timepoint…?

Those who understand both Mandarin (Chinese..?) and English might point to the title 对的时间点 and say I provided a shit translation as “The Right Time”, but that’s the official English name.

What the English translation doesn’t capture is the “点” part, so “时间点” can be understood as “time and place”. But I decided to go a bit further and see if there’s a better translation, in an effort to understood the song.

From the teaser, even though we’re told it’s Jewel, it’s blurry and for all that we know it’s just some random greenery yeah? The song is more about connections than the actual time and place.

So I dug up a little music theory, and found “Time Point“, which is a direct translation to “时间点”.

Wikipedia says this is “an instant, analogous to a geometrical point in space”, but “because it has no duration, it literally cannot be heard, but it may be used to represent ‘the point of initiation of a single pitch, the repetition of a pitch, or a pitch simultaneity’, therefore the beginning of a sound, rather than its duration.”

What is JJ Lin trying to say? Is this saying that when the connections you meet make time freeze literally? Or that every connection is the start of something new? Or that connections matter more than the time since the time point “literally cannot be heard”?

Is this some inception thing going on more than just 时间点? Am I just bored in my office chair?

You tell me. Philosophy essayists, do your thing.