Minako Yoshida -- Chinese Soup（チャイニーズ・スープ）

 

Decades ago, our family's go-to Chinese restaurant was The Golden Dragon in downtown Chinatown. I always looked forward going there because of all of the wonderful dishes such as Sweet N' Sour Chicken and Cantonese Chow Mein and tons of rice. Of course, we started off with Chicken Mushroom Soup. Since then, friends have also opened my eyes up to other types of Chinese soups including Hot N' Sour and the Beef Ball Soup that you can see above. 

It looks like singer-songwriter Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）may have enjoyed the stuff herself. Well, perhaps her and Yumi Arai（荒井由実）both since the latter was responsible for writing and composing "Chinese Soup" as the former's 2nd single in December 1975. Probably by that point in the year, some of that Hot N' Sour would have been absolutely great for the tummy.

Done up as a jazzy boogie, Yoshida sings away her intention to make up a fresh hot pot of that Chinese soup for her significant other, and for fans who may have first heard of her through her later R&B funk fests, "Chinese Soup" from her early years might be a refreshing revelation. Additionally, remembering that Yuming（ユーミン）was specially known for writing rather intimately about her life events and those of other women, I wouldn't be surprised if she herself were the lady cooking up that soup since I'd heard that one of her early boyfriends was Chinese (and apparently the one who came up with the famous nickname of Yuming). I certainly hope that she had as much fun on the stove making the soup as Yoshida did singing about it.

Incidentally, the single following "Chinese Soup" would be her wonderful "Koi wa Ryuusei" (恋は流星）, although it would be over a year before its release.