Kung Alam Mo Lang - If Only You Knew

Disclaimer: I do not own the songs “Because I’m a Girl” by KISS and “Kung Alam Mo Lang” by Roxanne Barcelo; nor am I the creator of the music video above. All of the above are owned by their respective owners. These materials are used here for educational purposes only.
One of my favorite videos when I used to teach the course Translation and Editing of Texts (a major subject for Secondary Education students who are English majors) is the song “Because I’m a Girl” by KISS which is translated into Tagalog as “Kung Alam Mo Lang (If Only You Knew)” by Roxanne “Roxy” Barcelo. I found the video on YouTube while I was searching for songs translated from Tagalog to English and vice versa. In the three years I’ve used this video it has never failed to make students cry. I sometimes find myself tear up even if I’ve seen it countless times. (I cannot find the video on YouTube anymore so I'll host it here on my blog instead.)
 
The video clip is truly amazing because it’s a Korean song which has been translated into Tagalog with subtitles in English! The Tagalog translation is a “singing translation” but it is not a direct translation of the original Korean (such a translation is called a “contrafactum”). Meanwhile, the English translation is not a sing-able translation but it is faithful translation of the Tagalog lyrics. When watching a video, there is a strange sensation knowing that the original song is Korean, the words that you hear is Tagalog, and the subtitles you are reading are in Tagalog and English!

At first I thought that the video was the theme song of some Korean telenovela; but my students who are into Korean stuff said that it was originally produced as the song’s original video. It tells the story of a photographer who falls in love with a girl when he inadvertently snapped her picture during a photoshoot. They meet again at the salon where the girl works. They fell in love until tragedy strikes. The tragic end of the story—of the guy’s self-sacrifice for the life of the girl and the girl’s ignorance of the guy’s great sacrifice for her—is what makes the video a tearjerker.

The original lyrics of the song “Because I’m a Girl” appears to tell the sentiments of a girl who gets repeatedly hurt in love. She claims that men would tell them that they love them but leave them in the end (“I just can’t understand the hearts of men/they tell you they want you and then they leave you…”) Yet she could not help but fall in love again “since I am a girl to whom love is everything”.

“Because I’m a Girl”
By KISS

I just can’t understand the hearts of men
they tell you they want you and then they leave you
this is the first time, you're special
I believed those words and I was so happy

You should have told me you didn't like me any more
but I couldn't see that and you just rushed me
although I will curse you I'll still miss you
since I am a girl, to whom love is everything

I heard that if you give up things too easily
to a man, he will get bored with you
I don't think this is wrong
a girl says that she will never be fooled again
but she will fall in love again

You should have told me you didn't like me any more
but I couldn't see that and you just rushed me
although I will curse you I'll still miss you
since I am a girl, to whom love is everything

Girl’s narration:

Hey babe
the pain
it's not enough to describe how I feel
We were so happy together
but I know now
I've been blind
you told me that you'd never let me down
whenever I needed you you'd always be here
I can forgive but I can’t forget
even though you hurt me
I still love you
I still love you

Guy’s narration:

There someone I'm in love with.
Although I can't be with her now,
I'm still in love with her.

[English lyrics from: http://www.justsomelyrics.com/1392274/kiss-because-i'm-a-woman-lyrics.html]

In the Tagalog translation, the speaker tells of the fear of rejection when one expresses one’s feelings towards someone one loves (“If only you knew how I really felt for you/Would you still choose to leave from my arms?”) Tell me if I’m wrong, but while it was the woman’s voice who is the speaker in the song, I believe that the words echo the man’s sentiment. What would she do when she finds out what he really did for her?

When showing the video, I always ask the class—especially the girls—to “translate” a part which doesn’t even have words at all. At around 3:20 in the video, the guy picks up the girl who was waiting under the rain. After giving her an umbrella, the guy proceeds to pull out his own umbrella and the girl gets mad. WHY?
 
In the end, the two songs, “Because I’m a Girl” and “Kung Alam Mo Lang” and the video tells the story of the tragedy of misunderstanding in love. If the video story is taken with “Because I’m a Girl”, the woman is in pain because she has been deceived by men, only to have the man give her a part of himself. With “Kung Alam Mo Lang”, the man is in pain because the woman is oblivious of his gift to her.