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Paper short abstract

Music education and singing at a pro-PRC Chinese school in post-war Yokohama enabled diasporic youth to experience a distant ‘homeland’ through revolutionary songs. Singing became an embodied practice through which these songs were reinterpreted in local contexts, fostering solidarity and shaping an identity connected to the 'New China'.

Paper long abstract

Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by the Communist government in 1949, political divisions within the Chinese community in Japan intensified between supporters of the PRC and supporters of the Nationalist government in Taiwan (Republic of China). In Yokohama these tensions culminated in the 1952 ‘School Incident’, which divided the Chinese school. In its aftermath, the pro-PRC school introduced music education centred on revolutionary and patriotic songs associated with the PRC. Drawing on school publications and interviews with former students, this paper examines music education and choir activities at the pro-PRC school from the 1950s to the 1960s. Students learned songs from the War of Resistance against Japan, such as the ‘Yellow River Cantata’ and ‘Solidarity Makes Strength’ alongside revolutionary songs such as ‘The East Is Red’ and ‘Socialism Is Good’. During the Cultural Revolution, songs praising Mao Zedong became increasingly prominent. The school’s Yellow River Choir also performed at Chinese community events, Japan-China friendship gatherings and events associated with Japan’s communist Utagoe (‘singing voice’) movement. This paper explores how these songs acquire particular meanings for Chinese youth growing up in post-war Japan. Former students recall singing as a means of experiencing a distant and rapidly changing ‘New China’ when direct contact with the PRC was limited. Songs of resistance and solidarity were reinterpreted through the community’s experience of the 1952 school incident, while participation in Utagoe movement further connected students with pro-China sections of Japanese society. For students from predominantly Cantonese-speaking families, singing in Mandarin also linked language with emotion, collective experience and an imagined homeland. This paper argues that singing was an embodied practice through which an identity connected to ‘New China’ as the ‘motherland’ was actively produced in post-war Yokohama.