Whenever I write about one of my flight attendant pet peeves on Gadling.com, readers always come back with raving mad responses, complaining about how bitchy US flight attendants are compared to our Asian brother and sisters. Whatever. That got me thinking, are Asian passengers just nicer, which in turn creates a more friendly flight attendant? I would have guessed yes, until I came across this video on YouTube – a Shanghainese flight attendant rap video! Apparently this beautiful flight attendant is complaining about her passengers. Hello, she’s not American! I know, even I couldn’t believe it. And what I find even more unbelievable is how good the music is. Sure, I have no idea what she’s saying, but who cares when it sounds so cool.

After doing a bit of research, I found this on a blog

Through “anonymous sources” I’ve been hearing for a while now about how unhappy the flight attendants at China Eastern are. They have little job security, their lives are not their own, and they get treated terribly by both passengers and management. Don’t worry, though, I’m not going to start pretending I’m a journalist. This is just the context which has produced the following MP3:

《旅客不是上帝》Passengers aren’t God(4.34 MB)

The rap is in Shanghainese, and it’s basically a flight attendant venting about passengers and their attitudes. The first verse goes something like this (my apologies in advance for the translation):

Ah, poor me, poor me

Let me sing about it like a bird (yeah)

Why are there so many morons in our society today?

They think just because they’ve got some money

They’re all big and bad

Know what pal? I can’t do everything

Don’t get on my plane and cause a big fuss

You’ll know I mean it

When I smack you upside the head

Damn, what do you want?

Filing complaints at the slightest thing

Who do you think you are?

You’re a moron (yeah), a moron

The young lady who raps in this song has quite a few other tunes as well, which have made the rounds at China Eastern and are now getting around on the Chinese internet in general. My source tells me that at first the singer succeeded in staying anonymous, but then she was caught writing lyrics on the job by co-workers. There are actually several girls involved. My source does not know of any repurcussions that the writers have suffered thus far.

I’m not going to bother translating the whole song into English, but I recommend you give it a listen. It’s really quite professionally done (a little “borrowing” from Eminem aside), and the background vocals are funny. It also has a cute ending.