La petite marchande de porte clefs [English translation]

Her mother wanted to wait and get her married,

Her father wanted to get her hanged or drowned,

Only one child per household, he wanted a boy,

But his bitch of a wife only did half the job

In the countryside, what we need is strong men to work

Not another mouth to feed, not a sissy crybaby

Living's near impossible for families of three

A girl for only child means losing your name

It's a shame for a villager

What was he to do with a human waste ?

Burst her skull between two stones,

Burry her next to the dog?

He went to borrow a shovel from his neighbor

But his neighbor told him to wait

He told him he could sell her

And Lady Luck comes knocking,

A dealer offered to buy the child to sell her to tourrists

They ditched her for about a third of the French MW

The evening she left her melancholic mother sang

中國歌曲1

She sang

中國歌曲

Twelve years later the young lady's sleeping quietly at her host's

Her alarm, it's a huge kick in the ribs

Her breakfast, it's steamed bread and water

Then straight to the sweatshop to join the others

She never got adopted by wealthy westerners

Her owner raised her, kept her secretly

Nine in the same place, her room a wooden case

At eight, she landed her first job

Some kind of kindergarten where they make soccer shorts

With her hands shaped like feet from all the sewing,

Hmm, with her spine all arched up

Twenty-minutes lunch breaks, a bit of rice, a bowl of soup

Talking is forbidden, gestures are barely allowed,

She must keep her head down when adressing superiors

The noise haunts her to the point she doesn't notice when it stops

To keep from becoming insane she sings this song inside her head

中國歌曲

She sang

中國歌曲

Returning to her hometown after some ten years,

Seeking a family cocoon, looking for her past,

Eventually, her master told her who she really was

Just before going to jail for the rest of his life

His factory had been dismantled secretly,

As the press wasn't allowed to cover the event,

In short, the majority of villagers had left the place,

Gone far away, to open restaurants

Or various clothing stores,

To join them, she went across oceans

She nearly died, letting her fate sail on, carried by the winds

All alone, with no money, without an ID card

She had no name anyway beside "the slit-eyes beggar"

After she got almost every possible disease,

She ends up miraculously in Paris,

I was on my way home from work just as night was falling

When our eyes met, she came up to me and said:

" Hmm, excuse me Sir, key chains, 2 euros

- Uh, sorry no, I got nothing on me, good evening "

中國歌曲

But I still hear her singing

中國歌曲

She sang

中國歌曲

She sang

中國歌曲

1. Translation: When I can't conceal the scars anymore

I hide in an empty room, behind the closed doors, and I cry