Chemistry song turns hit in China

Beijing: A chemistry-themed song, whose lyrics have been written by the president of one of China`s top universities , has sparked debate on the internet due to its colloquial lyrics, media reports said.

The song carries many words popular on the internet, the China Daily reported citing Yangtze Evening Post and New Express Daily reports Wednesday. The lyrics have been written by the president of Peking University. Zhou Qifeng, the head of Peking University and also a chemist, even put newly invented and internet-popular words like "geilivable" (a Pinyin-English combination word meaning "giving power") into the lyrics, making the already plain lyrics even more accessible. After the song, performed by a student chorus, was broadcast recently on China Central Television, it was quickly posted on a mirco blog and forwarded more than 20,000 times. It received over 6,000 comments on the China`s largest mirco blog website -- weibo.com. Zhou maintains that he wrote the lyrics to motivate others to compose songs for the celebration of the International Year of Chemistry 2011, in which organisers are looking for the "Song of Chemistry" from the public. Some netizens argued that colloquial lyrics combined with internet-popular words make the song very approachable for most ordinary people. However, some criticised the colloquialism of the lyrics and doubted Zhou`s ability in Chinese writing as Zhou is the head of Peking University, commonly believed to be the top one in the field of liberal arts. The style of the lyrics has been even used by netizens to create another themed song, about physics. IANS