# Youtube lovefest


This weekend, I have three [couchsurfers](http://couchsurfing.org) from
Argentina staying with me, and I’ve been practicing my Spanish a lot.
It’s quite rusty, but it’s fun, and we have had some great
conversations. This evening, my roommate joined us, and all five of us
were sitting around the table *platicando*. We talked about Toronto, and
all the different ethnic neighbourhoods they had walked past today.
About our plan to take the TTC out to Scarborough tomorrow to watch a
[Bollywood movie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dokDCg5JGEU) at
[Woodside Cinema](http://www.goldentheatres.com/woodside/new/), and then
have dinner at the [vegetarian South-Indian
place](http://www.saravanaabhavan.ca/) next door. Pretty soon, we pulled
out the laptop and began showing each other Youtube videos. I showed
them the [crazy Indian dance
video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1NoOOoaNw) “subtitled” into
English, because I was curious whether it was also a hit in Argentina.
It’s huge in Brazil, I know, with several “translations” to Portuguese
(for example [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjhO5CO2MzA)), and
lot’s of amateur “remakes” (for example
[1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEEuQ8K9uKI) and
[2](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E-ZocdQFIE)).

Then, my friend pulled up the Rumanian Got Talent performance of [“Ken
Lee”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RgL2MKfWTo) (Can’t live without
you, by Mariah Carey). After watching that, we watched the amazing
performance of [Stand By Me](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM)
by street musicians around the world. It’s an incredible video,
performers with such wonderful personalities, and the audio mixing
brings it all together in an amazing fashion. The fascinating thing to
me was that I had seen both of these earlier. Here was an Argentinian,
whom I had never met until this morning, who had seen the same clip from
Rumanian television, that I had!

As we were marvelling about this global culture, and were touched by
Stand By Me, I chose the National Geographic ad [“I love the
world”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5BxymuiAxQ). I of course had to
show them the [XKCD comic](http://xkcd.com/442/) too, although I guess
it’s funnier if you’ve been following XCKD. Then my roommate told us
about [a fantastic Hong Kong music
video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0EG6pSwcBk), where Eason Chan is
combining dance with a projection of a sand animation. That got me
thinking about other beautiful sand animations I’d seen, like [this
one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKJ_68q_Mec) from Korea, and the
poignant winner of the [Ukrainian Got
Talent](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6X8oX3pQqA).

Then I wanted to show [a beautiful and haunting
song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biMLVdc4UFg) from the region
affected by the Sichuan Earthquake, I made a mistake, and came up with
[the documentary about how the song was
recorded](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPJm_3MyL_U) — which was very
touching and interesting in itself.

At that point, it was already half past midnight, and my guests, who had
been walking around all day, were quite tired. They began making up the
couch, while humming the melody to the song mentioned above.

There were many more songs we could have looked at, if we had the time.
The two beautiful old Russian animations, [Vinnie
Pukh](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqdiEUp6s4E) and [Three from
Prostokvashino](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOebKn_WhI0), [another
crazy Indian “subtitled” dance
video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MdpaoBbK8c), the students of
Mississippi U doing [a great rendition of Jai
Ho](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSOgVgM7CDc) in their canteen… Or
maybe how a Chinese artist [reinterpreted the story of the Little Match
Girl](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHULyjIeUsQ), [Matt dancing around
the world](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY), or the guy who
walked through China, [taking a picture of himself every
day](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ky6vgQfU24). Or [the amazing
Chinese animation about war and
peace](http://reganmian.net/blog/2009/10/19/stories-of-peace-from-china-and-ukraine/).

Although it’s easy to get depressed by reading about tea-parties,
healthcare debates and banning the hijab, we came away from our little
browsing session inspired and amazed at the creativity, spirit and love
embedded in many of these videos, and how they enable people to connect
across the world. **I love the world!**

Stian