I find this music properly hard to read (musically: not solely because I only know 10% of the characters).
It may be that the text and notes are in such perfect alignment: I am used to sight-reading with them offset (the note is almost always smaller than the corresponding text) and find it easier to do. Also the text for verse 1 and 2 is very rarely identically laid out in alphabetic writing making it easier to keep your place.
The recording should be easier thanks to the kind people who have given us phonetic transliterations in Cantonese and Mandarin.
