Composing for the Revolution: Nie Er and China’s Sonic Nationalism 9780824885731

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Composing for the Revolution

Series Editor: Frederick Lau Javaphilia: American Love Affairs with Javanese Music and Dance Henry Spiller

Hearing the Future: The Music and Magic of the Sanguma Band Denis Crowdy

Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities Edited by Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt

Broken Voices: Postcolonial Entanglements and the Preservation of Korea’s Central Folksong Traditions Roald Maliangkay

Making Waves: Traveling Musics in Hawai‘i, Asia, and the Pacific Edited by Frederick Lau and Christine R. Yano

Song King: Connecting People, Places, and Past in Contemporary China Levi S. Gibbs

Minority Stages: Sino-Indonesian Performance and Public Display Josh Stenberg

Composing for the Revolution NIE ER AND CHINA’S SONIC NATIONALISM JOSHUA H. HOWARD

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2021 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 26  25  24  23  22  21

6 ​5 ​4 ​3 ​2 ​1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945492 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-­f ree paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Cover art: George Njal (Nie Er) in Shanghai, 1934. Used with permission from the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

CONTEN TS

Illustrations  vii Musical Examples  ix Preface  xi Ac­know­ledg­ments  xv Introduction  1 CHAPTER 1  Growing Up in Yunnan: Emergence of

a Radical Nationalist  15

CHAPTER 2  Reading Nie Er’s Diary: “I Could Be a Symbol

for China”  43

CHAPTER 3  The Politics of Music: Ideological Debates

and Popularization  73

CHAPTER 4  Composing for the Revolution  97 CHAPTER 5  The Making of a National Icon:

Commemorating Nie Er, 1935–1949  138 CHAPTER 6  Creating the “People’s Musician”: Socialist Construction and the Film Nie Er  165 CHAPTER 7  Marketing Nie Er in Yunnan: From the “People’s Musician” to “Number One Brand”  185 Epilogue  205 Appendix  207 Abbreviations  211 Notes  213 Selected Bibliography  253 Index  261

I L L U S T R AT I O N S

1.1  Studio photo of Nie family. From the right, Nie Er, Peng Jikuan, Nie Ziming and Nie Xulun  17 1.2  Eight-year old Nie Er bugling  21 1.3  Nie Er and members of the Qiushi Elementary School music ensemble, 1924  21 1.4  Nie Er and best friend Zhang Yuhou returning from a musical outing  26 1.5  Nie Er’s self-portrait (1929)  27 1.6  Nie Er and Deng Xianglian (1929)  39 1.7  Nie Er and Zhang Yuhou (1930)  40 1.8  Yuan Chunhui with Chen Zhonghu and Li Jiazhen  40 2.1  Nie Er with classmates of the Lianhua song and dance ensemble (1931)  52 2.2  Actress Wang Renmei (1932)  55 2.3  Self portrait of singer Bai Lizhu  57 2.4  Violinist Josef Podushka (1934)  62 2.5  Nie Er’s photograph of gunboats during the Battle of Shanghai (1932)  65 2.6  Nie Er stands in front of artillery during the Battle of Shanghai (1932)  66 4.1  Nie Er posing as violinist for the 1933 movie Night City  99 4.2  Nie Er singing (1933)  100 vii

4.3  Nie Er and actress Tan Ying on set of film Muxing zhi guang (Maternal Light)  109 4.4  Nie Er (George Njal) in Shanghai (1934)  111 5.1  Memorial service for Nie Er in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, on August 4, 1935  145 5.2  Huang Xinbo’s woodblock print for Commemorative Volume Honoring Nie Er (December 1935)  146 7.1  Nie Er bust at the Central Conservatory of Music  187 7.2  Nie Er statue in Xujiahui Park, Shanghai  187 7.3  Nie Er statue located at his gravesite in the Western Hills, Kunming  190 7.4  Left-hand side of tombstone relief at the Nie Er gravesite  191 7.5  Center panel of tombstone relief at the Nie Er gravesite  192 7.6  “Nurturing” statue of Peng Jikuan and Nie Er in Yuxi, Yunnan  196 7.7  Nie Er Plaza in Yuxi, Yunnan  197 7.8  Nie Er statue as violin virtuoso in Yuxi, Yunnan  198

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Illustrations

MUSICAL EXAMPLES

4.1 “Wild Kitten” (Xiao Yemao)  105 4.2 “Song of the Newspaper Seller” (Maibaoge)  107 4.3 Excerpt from Haimen Porters’ Work Chant  112 4.4 “Dockworkers” (Matou gongren)  113 4.5 “Song of the Big Road” (Daluge)  116 4.6 “Four Don’ts Song” (Si bu ge)  119 4.7 “New Woman” (Xin de nüxing)  120 4.8 “Village Girl beyond the Great Wall” (Saiwai cunnü)  123 4.9 “Mei Niang’s Song” (Meiniangqu)  125 4.10 “Girl under the Iron Hoof” (Tietixia de genü)  128 4.11 “Graduation Song” (Biyege)  131 4.12 Opening measures from “The Internationale”  134 4.13 “March of the Volunteers” (Yiyongjun jinxingqu)  135

ix

P R E FAC E

I first learned of Nie Er while teaching English writing at Yunnan University as

an Oberlin-Shansi representative. Before my students went on strike during that fateful spring of 1989, one of my most rewarding teaching experiences involved supervising oral history projects. One of the students spoke about her grandfather, Nie Xulun, and his younger brother, Nie Er. Her family history piqued my interest, and soon afterwards I received an invitation to her home to meet Nie Xulun. Mr. Nie recounted his brother’s life story—growing up in Kunming during the 1920s, his sojourn in Shanghai during the early 1930s when he composed “mass songs” and film music, and his untimely death in Japan in 1935. I learned that Nie Er was considered the “people’s musician” for having composed the “March of the Volunteers,” which was chosen in 1949 as the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China, or PRC. Nie Xulun also talked about his own ties to Japan, having gone there initially during the early 1930s to work in the leather trade. Some fifty years later, Nie Xulun returned to Japan to witness commemorative activities honoring his younger brother and to promote sister-city relations between Kunming and Fujisawa, the seaside town where Nie Er drowned in 1935. I would not begin research on Nie Er for another twenty years. Hindsight tells me, however, that my conversation with Nie Xulun foreshadowed two major themes of this book—the relationship between history and memory, and the interplay of Chinese nationalism and internationalism among left-wing artists of the 1930s. The Nie family’s ties to Japan reflect a certain irony in that Nie Er’s most famous compositions derived their force from their anti-Japanese–inflected nationalism. Yet on a personal level, Nie and his brother admired Japan’s modernity and its proletarian arts movement. Nie Er’s faith in internationalism gave him some hope that conflict between China and Japan could be avoided. It was also the internationalism of others, namely Paul Robeson, who facilitated the xi

posthumous role of Nie Er, and Nie Xulun, who rekindled the spirit of internationalism to forge a relationship between the Asian neighbors. While conducting the bulk of this research as a Fulbright scholar at the Central Conservatory of China during 2007–2008, I was often asked by Chinese scholars and friends about my motivations for researching Nie Er. What more could be said about Nie Er? After all, the facts of his life were well known. His small body of work—some thirty-five songs and four arrangements of traditional instrumental music—had been analyzed to a fault. Two leading music historians—Wang Yuhe and Xiang Yansheng—had written numerous essays and books on Nie Er. For a younger generation of musicologists, Nie Er was passé. They gave him grudging respect for creating music “of his times,” but they thought his compositions had been unduly glorified by the state, and that other musicians, such as the linguist and songwriter Zhao Yuanren, deserved greater recognition. The composer Wang Xiling even argued that Nie Er should not be considered a “composer” but rather a songwriter. Without entering into polemics internal to China’s music community, I would suggest that an outsider’s perspective may offer a fruitful comparative view. Nie’s contemporaries in the US, the “people’s song” composers such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, did not find it beneath them to sample hymns and other familiar songs. And though Nie did not write his song lyrics, he did create new music, mostly homophonic melodies for his marches, labor chants, and women’s and children’s songs. My longstanding interest in the Chinese revolution and passion for the violin combined to sustain my fascination with Nie Er. I had drawn attention to questions of agency and social class in my prior work on China’s wartime labor history. This allowed me to ask new questions about Nie Er and the reception of his music.1 I could recognize and stress how Nie Er’s “mass songs” contributed to the sonic dimension of nationalism through the collective act of singing and performing at mass song rallies. By means of the National Salvation Song Movement, Nie Er’s “March of the Volunteers” and other militant songs spread from the urban coastal areas into the hinterland and became popularized among different social groups— intellectuals, white-collar workers, soldiers, and peasants. Writing from the wartime capital of Chongqing, the musician He Lüting described the force of this social movement in elemental terms. “The patriotic song movement . . . is like a wildfire sweeping through a barren hill with the force of a prairie fire. Many people who could not sing are now singing. At every demonstration or mass assembly, one hears the War of Resistance songs.”2 The songs spread from the domain of young urban intellectuals and penetrated the cultural fabric of rural life. They mobilized the people for the Resistance in the Nationalist-controlled territory, in the Communist base areas, and behind enemy lines in northern and central China. Highly politicized lyrics and the collective act of singing melodic lines in unison (qichang) contributed to an “imagxii

Preface

ined community.”3 When “March of the Volunteers” was selected as the national anthem, the party-state used the song to inculcate patriotic sentiments. Nie’s identification with nationalist music, however, was an organic process that began as a grassroots movement predating the establishment of the PRC. Chinese preoccupation with validating Nie Er as a national hero has obscured the important international dimensions of his politics and music. Nie desired to give voice to the subaltern, the oppressed and marginalized people. This desire led to his study of Soviet mass songs and gave him a pioneering role in Shanghai’s proletarian music movement between 1933 and 1935. Although state repression cut it short, the movement represented the tail end of a global phenomenon that began in the 1920s in the wake of the Russian Revolution. Alexander Davidenko, one of the founders of the “mass song” and proletarian music organizations in the Soviet Union, was a key influence on Nie Er’s study group.4 As well, theoretical writings on the social function of art and music, and the militant songs of the Communist composer Hanns Eisler from his Berlin period between 1926 and 1933, were among the concerns of China’s leftist musicians and intellectuals.5 By the mid-1930s, the Comintern’s call for “The People’s Front against Fascism and War” promoted political alliances between communist and socialist parties in Europe and the United Front in China, and policies in favor of antifascist class unity. This had an important effect on cultural movements in China and on the status of Nie Er internationally. The Popular Front served to catalyze China’s patriotic song movement and promote Nie Er abroad. One of the key supporters of the Popular Front—the singer and African American activist Paul Robeson— championed Nie Er’s “March of the Volunteers” throughout the world during the 1940s. Arguably, without Robeson’s advocacy, “March of the Volunteers” would never have become China’s national anthem. Finally, my own experience as a performing violinist has given me fresh insights into Nie Er’s affinity for the violin and the significance of the instrument in his life. My training as a historian and as a musician has enabled me to bridge these disciplines and produce a holistic work. The great violin pedagogue Joseph Gingold once commented on the addictive quality of the violin. His observation holds true for Nie, who had a lifelong fascination with the fiddle. With the requisite empathy of a fellow violinist, I have explored the personal-emotional bond between the musician and his craft, hoping in this way to create a singular contribution to the study of Nie Er that truly does him justice.

Preface

xiii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T

he research for this book was made possible by a generous grant from the Fulbright Program, a Chinese Culture Research Fellowship, a University of Mississippi College of Liberal Arts Summer Research Grant, and a CIAC Small Grant from the Association for Asian Studies. The Arch Dalrymple III Department of History Endowment supported the costs of illustrations and usage rights. I was an affiliate at the Central Conservatory of Music during the 2007–2008 academic year and had the good fortune to study with Professors Li Shuqing, Liang Maochun, and Pu Fang. Professor Wang Yuhe, Xiang Yansheng, Nie Lihua, and Qi Song also generously shared their knowledge of Nie Er. I thank Xu Zhengyun, Wang Liming, and the directors of the Yunnan Provincial Museum for access to the Nie Er archives and for granting permission to reproduce the archival photographs. I thank, too, the librarians at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, for access to the Paul Robeson papers. It gives me great pleasure to thank friends and colleagues who have read and commented on parts of this manuscript or provided other invaluable help in making this a better book: Oliver Dinius, Les Field, Kees Gispen, Gang Guo, Lane Harris, Bob Haws, Vivian Ibrahim, Jan Kiely, Marc Lerner, Rana Mitter, Minjoo Oh, Ted Ownby, Charles Postel, Amelia Robbins, Morris Rossabi, Kristin Stapleton, Tang Xiaohui, Peter Thilly, Nicolas Trépanier, Sue Tuohy, Anne Twitty, Krista Van Fleit, Wang Xutian, Joe Ward, Noell Wilson, and John Winzenburg. Hon-Lun Helan Yang provided essential encouragement and help with music-related questions. The late Arif Dirlik was a constant source of inspiration and support. I thank the following individuals for the opportunity to present my research in public lectures and conferences at their home institutions: Jiang Liangqin (Nanjing University), Liu Shilong and Li Deying (Sichuan University), Helan Yang (Hong Kong Baptist University), Wen-hsin Yeh (UC Berkeley), Chris Reed (The Ohio State University), Jeffrey Richey (Berea College), and Hans Van de Ven xv

(Cambridge University). I am indebted to Professor Liu Shilong for making it possible to teach a course about Nie Er at Sichuan University’s University Immersion Program. Two close friends read through multiple drafts and offered invaluable suggestions for improvement. Michael Strange generously brought to bear her exceptional editing skills on this endeavor, for which I am profoundly grateful. Michael Hoffheimer provided a sounding board to help me clarify inchoate ideas and bolstered my spirits through frequent tea and fiddling sessions. At the University of Hawai‘i Press, Masako Ikeda, Debra Tang, Grace Wen, and the series editor, Frederick Lau, have my heartfelt thanks for their help and encouragement with this project. Special thanks, too, to Jennifer McIntyre for the fine editing work. I am grateful to the two anonymous readers whose detailed comments were invaluable. The individuals mentioned here have all helped me write a better book. Needless to say, any errors of fact or judgment that I may have committed are entirely my own responsibility. I owe special thanks to my son Dylan, Gian Carlo Falco, Catia Sonetti, Angela Falco Howard, and Harrison Howard for their love and support. Xiaoyun Zhou Howard has accompanied me on this musical and intellectual journey, providing much love and good cheer. This book is dedicated to her.

xvi

Acknowledgments

Composing for the Revolution

Introduction

I

n his diary entry of February 7, 1932, the twenty-year-old violinist Nie Er pondered, “How to create revolutionary music? I thought about this question all day yet I still had no concrete plans. Isn’t classic music just a toy of the leisure class? I spend several hours a day practicing etudes, several years, a dozen years to become a violinist, and to what purpose? Can a performance of a Beethoven sonata excite and encourage the laboring masses? I’ve been mistaken! This is a dead end! Why didn’t I wake up sooner to reality!”1 Nie’s awakening, like that of other Chinese intellectuals, had been spurred on by the Manchurian Incident of September 18, 1931, leading to Japan’s immediate occupation of northeast China, and by the Battle of Shanghai of January 1932. In the remaining years of his life, cut short in 1935 when he drowned off Sagami Bay in Japan, Nie Er pioneered the creation of revolutionary music. He participated in the League of Left-Wing Writers (Zuoyi zuojia lianmeng hui, Left League for short), wrote extensively on how music could stimulate anti-imperialist class nationalism,2 and composed a small but influential number of Soviet-inspired “mass songs,” many of them for the burgeoning Chinese film industry. His last song, “March of the Volunteers” (Yiyongjun jinxingqu), captured the rising antiJapanese sentiment of the nation, and was selected as China’s national anthem with the establishment of the People’s Republic. This book traverses culture and politics, history and memory. Using Nie Er’s essays, letters, song compositions, and diary, I study his politicization and musical development. The two processes were closely intertwined. Based on his daily experiences with colonial modernity and his ideological convictions, he became a forceful advocate for a “new Chinese music” that could express Chinese nationalism and the spirit of revolution. Nie was quickly canonized after his death and recast into a national monument, the “People’s Musician.” Since the mid-1930s, he has become central to a nationalist project, at times aligned, more recently in 1

seeming discord, with state socialism and the legacy of the Chinese revolution. Composing for the Revolution thus addresses three themes: the relationship between revolutionaries and modernity; the development of nationalism, especially its musical dimension, in tandem with regionalism and internationalism; and the relationship between history and memory. Two historical paradigms have dominated the study of twentieth century China—revolution and modernization/modernity. Scholarship on Shanghai’s colonial modernity has shed light on its mass consumer culture and development of modernist literature. It has, however, neglected how leftists and Communists engaged with that modernity.3 Modernity can refer to several types of overlapping developments—the transformative experience of technological change, urbanization, and industrialization; the development of media technologies; the separation of time and space; and the psychological reaction to these changes, whether that entailed anomie or new types of identities and solidarities.4 My study stands as a powerful corrective to a growing literature on the construction of a Chinese (read bourgeois) modernity, which has privileged the consumer culture of Shanghai and consciously sought to displace the previous historiography that focused on the Chinese revolutionary experience.5 As one historian puts it, “Modernity was about business rather than politics, the quest for a good life rather than a just society, the transformative capacity of private enterprises rather than collective action.”6 Nie’s vision of Chinese modernity as expressed through his music was radically different. Nie sought to achieve modernity through a dialectical union between revolutionary nationalism and socialism. As Lin Chun defines Chinese modernity, “it concretely signified national salvation for an oppressed people determined to throw off the shackles of both external imperialism and internal premodernity.”7 Based on his own experiences and his readings in Marxist literature, and inspired by the Soviet proletarian music movement, Nie sought to give voice to the subaltern classes.8 His songs took the dispossessed and oppressed as their subject matter. Critical of capitalism, Nie nonetheless availed himself of foreigndominated mass media technology (the phonograph and cinema) in an effort to create a modern, revolutionary, and distinctly Chinese style of music. The end goal for Nie Er and his communist comrades was to use music for revolutionary ends—national liberation and social justice. This study of Nie Er perforce reassesses modern Chinese history in light of both the paradigms of revolution and modernity. Nie’s formative artistic career was spent in Shanghai during the early to mid1930s, a period of intense intellectual and artistic ferment. The Left League was formed in the spring of 1930 and would engender fierce debates over the social and political function of art and literature, which would have ripple effects on the small community of left-wing musicians. Given that many Left League members 2

Introduction

had studied abroad in Japan and that a primary mission of the League was to translate and introduce Soviet Marxist and Leninist texts, the influence of Soviet and Japanese socialist thought played an outsize role in Shanghai artistic circles. Between 1931 and 1932, Nie also engaged in the entertainment business while working for the popular songwriter Li Jinhui. Li’s Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe had joined forces with Lianhua Productions, and Li trained his young actors and singers to record for the emerging sound cinema. Despite a rupture between Nie and Li Jinhui in the summer of 1932, Li’s influence on Nie’s songwriting was considerable. Moreover, the experience and contacts facilitated Nie’s subsequent acting and music career in the film industry. As a semi-colony, Shanghai was also the site of an active European classical music scene represented by the National Conservatory of Music, established in November 1927 to promote Western music training for Chinese, and the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra, a bastion of colonial privilege.9 Although Nie aspired to attend the conservatory, he never succeeded. He had better luck finding a violin teacher, Josef Podushka, a member of the Municipal Orchestra. These three cultural fields—the Left League, the entertainment industry (involving both cabaret and film), and the music academy—shaped Nie Er’s attitude towards modernity and prompted him to adopt a stance of cultural hybridity. This often resulted in Nie having a contradictory posture of simultaneous attraction and repulsion toward colonial modernity.10 Nie’s study of and passion for the violin is a case in point. He was initially attracted to the violin as a symbol of cosmopolitanism while growing up in Kunming, capital of the frontier province of Yunnan, which he often decried as a cultural backwater. Through intense study in Shanghai, the violin became his inseparable partner and served a variety of functions—an emotional outlet, a means of livelihood, a disciplinary tool to organize his time and maintain his ethical principles, and a conduit to European culture. When the Battle of Shanghai erupted on January 28, 1932, an international conflict that he interpreted as the origin of the Second World War, Nie questioned his immersion in the cosmopolitan culture represented by the violin. Nie seemingly rejected Western art music, exclaiming, “[T]he classic music that I now value is so counter­revolu­tion­ ary!”11 Nonetheless, Nie continued to work with the violin in film music production and remained a devotee of the violin. Nie Er retained a similar ambivalence about working at the Bright Moon ensemble. A natural entertainer armed with an effusive personality and gargantuan energy, Nie relished performing, forging relationships with fellow artists (many of them up-and-coming starlets in Shanghai’s burgeoning film industry), and studying music with Li Jinhui. Yet Nie developed misgivings about the commercial nature of the entertainment business and the risks of romantic entanglements at the cost of “serving society.” Just as he questioned the validity of the Introduction

3

violin, he questioned the purpose of commercial art and music amidst China’s national crisis. During the summer of 1932 Nie ended his tenure at Bright Moon after having published a scathing rebuke of Li’s crass commercialism. Despite the falling-out, Li continued to exert influence on Nie’s songwriting style, especially in the genre of children’s songs. In a more indirect fashion, Li Jinhui served as a model for Nie and other leftists, because they sought to use the capitalist-funded and foreign-dominated technology of the film and recording industries to propagate their emancipatory message. Andrew Jones suggests the difficulty of separating means from ends for Nie Er and other leftist artists, who were implicated in the nexus of colonial modernity and capitalism due to their appropriation of Hollywood images, Tin Pan Alley music, and the voyeurism of commercial media culture—despite their claim to reject them.12 A clue to understanding why Nie Er seems so contradictory in his engagement with colonial modernity can be found by looking at his variety of guises. As a man of the theater and a musician, Nie adopted multiple public personas, as evidenced by his numerous names. Born Nie Shouxin, courtesy name Ziyi, Nie used the former “scholastic” name as a student in Kunming. When he reached Shanghai in June 1930, he continued to use both Shouxin and Ziyi at work, seen on his business card and seal. But by the summer of 1931 he chose the new name, Nie Er, and commented in his diary, “Passed [sic] Nie Shou-Sin [Nie Shouxin] was not Niel [Nie Er] of this time.”13 The choice of “Nie Er” (adding a fourth ear [“er”], 耳 , to the character “Nie,” 聂 , which is composed of three “er”s) referred to Nie’s ability to twitch his ears and his skills at mimicry and music. It was also a conscious political act. Not yet a member of the Chinese Communist Party (he would join the CCP in 1933), Nie believed his name change would herald a more robust ideological program of self-study in Marxism. Although “Nie Er” would be his most prominent name, during the late 1920s, in keeping with his interest in all things Western, Nie adopted a foreign name, George Njal, in homage to the hero of the thirteenth-century Icelandic epic, Njal’s Saga. He would continue to use this name in his interactions with foreigners in Shanghai. Finally, during the spring and summer of 1932, when Nie rejected colonial modernity, he adopted a number of sobriquets that had political and philosophical implications. Armed with the name “Black Angel” (Hei tianshi), he penned a series of critical film reviews and denounced Li Jinhui. In assuming this name, Nie suggests that the moral turpitude of the Shanghai entertainment world had already tainted his character. At the same time, he adopted the penname “Huan Yu” to publish several articles for Cinematic Art (Dianying yishu). “Huan Yu” reflected Nie Er’s nostalgia for his homeland as well as a self-representation of being upright. The character “yu” refers to jade (a spiritually potent and pure material in the Chinese burial tradition) as well as to his father’s hometown of Yuxi, Yunnan. The term “huan” signifies “to cleanse,” but has an associated ref4

Introduction

erence to imagining and dreaming. Thus, Huan Yu resonated with Nie Er’s perception of Yunnan as an unsullied land distant from the capitalist inequities of Shanghai modernity and his expectation that he could retain his own sense of propriety. By the fall of 1931, after the Manchurian Incident, Nie conjoined observations about social reality with his own psychological state. Nie was in anguish not only because he questioned the purpose of art amidst China’s national crisis, but also because he felt conflicted about his love for two women and for his career. As he confessed in his diary, “These past few days I could be a symbol for China: a battle within my mind, internal contradictions, and external invasion and harassment.”14 In other words, China’s contradictions amplified Nie’s own angst, which was created by the tension of upholding his revolutionary ideals amidst urban Shanghai’s colonial modernity. A resolution to Nie Er’s own internal contradictions, which he also sought to apply to China’s crisis, was to deepen his friendships with fellow leftists and to develop his understanding of Soviet Marxism. He imparted an internationalist spirit to this ideology by participating in the global proletarian arts movement and developing a new form of the Chinese song to mobilize the nation and its subaltern. At the level of political identity, Nie Er, like most people, shared multiple and overlapping identities. Here one is reminded of Eric Hobsbawm’s observation: “Men and women did not choose collective identification as they chose shoes, knowing that one could only put on one pair at a time.”15 Nie drew on regionalism, nationalism, and Marxist internationalism. The interplay between these three perspectives is suggested by the following episode. After his rupture with Li Jinhui, Nie moved to Beiping, where he associated with friends from Yunnan and developed ties to Left League dramatists. One key political event was a performance in October 1932 at Qinghua University where Nie’s friends performed politically charged plays, while Nie Er performed on violin the socialist anthem, “The Internationale.” Proceeds from ticket sales went to fund volunteers resisting the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.16 Throughout his life, Nie depended on his network of Yunnanese friends for personal and political sustenance. Zhang Tianxu and Zheng Yili were key figures supporting Nie’s artistic and intellectual growth. Zhang, a friend from Nie’s middle school years in Kunming, was a member of the Left League and a fellow traveler with Nie during their sojourns in Shanghai, Beiping, and Tokyo. Zhang’s role in Nie’s life took on added significance after his friend’s drowning, when he brought Nie’s ashes back to China and edited the first commemorative volume on Nie Er in Japan during 1935. The Communist Zheng Yili, a native of Yuxi, Yunnan, supported Readers Life Press (Dushu shenghuo chubanshe), a leading publisher of revolutionary literature. Zheng mentored Nie Er, providing him with leftist tracts, financial assistance, and even tutoring in Japanese. He also supported Introduction

5

the theoretical work of fellow provincial and Marxist philosopher Ai Siqi, who was a close friend and neighbor of Nie Er in Shanghai. Although dramatist and Left League leader Tian Han became Nie Er’s patron and introduced him to the CCP in 1933, other leftist artists from Yunnan had facilitated Nie’s entry into the Left League when he lived in Beiping the previous autumn. The importance of Yunnan to Nie Er’s identity formation extended to his language and music. Nie, for instance, sprinkles his diary with expressions common to Kunming dialect.17 Most important, once he left Yunnan Nie developed a keen interest in folk melodies and songs from his native province and entreated his relatives and friends to collect materials for him. In contrast to his contemporary Li Jieren, whose roman-fleuve The Great River Trilogy, about Chengdu during the 1911 Revolution was written to counter a hegemonic national narrative, Nie sought to utilize the local, whether it was folklore from Yunnan or northern China, to support a national project. Perhaps because he shared the biases of most May Fourth–era writers who privileged the cosmopolitan and modernist view of the urban centers of Beijing and Shanghai, Nie did not use his hometown to “stand in for the site of nationness.”18 Nie was by no means a Yunnanese chauvinist. Put another way, Nie’s musical nationalism was pluralistic; he sought to utilize folk music from different regions to create a new national music. While growing up in Kunming Nie had already developed an interest in Marxism-Leninism, and he joined the Communist Youth League in 1928. In his early writings, Nie lashed out at the injustices forged by capitalism and expressed solidarity with the labor movement that had arisen during the Nationalist Revolution. Like many members of the iconoclastic “May Fourth generation,” Nie’s attraction to Marxism-Leninism derived from nationalist conviction. Here was an ideology that was modern, scientific, and Western, yet critical of Western imperialism at the same time. But when Nie became involved with other Left League members in Beiping and Shanghai, where he organized a Soviet Union Friendship Society’s music group, his perspectives broadened. By the time he reached Tokyo and began associating with Japanese leftist artists, Nie Er identified himself as an “internationalist.”19 Given Nie’s association with nationalism and, more broadly speaking, the strong link between the CCP’s socialism and radical nationalism, one might be skeptical of Nie’s self-styled internationalism. It is worth bearing in mind that only a few years after Nie died and war erupted in China, Mao Zedong instructed party members that patriotism reinforced internationalism. “And only by achieving national liberation will it be possible for the proletariat and other working people to achieve their own emancipation. The victory of China and the defeat of the invading imperialists will help the people of other countries. Thus in wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism.”20 On a philosophical level, nationalism has a universal value, which explains 6

Introduction

the compatibility between nationalism and internationalism. The desire among nationalists for cultural and political autonomy resonates with the universal value that every group deserves autonomy. Nationalist artists, too, seek to transcend the nation by creating an art that may be based on the particular but is informed by international aesthetic trends and forms (in Nie Er’s case—the proletarian arts movement) and aspires to universal recognition. Benjamin Curtis describes nationalist art as “impregnated with a certain cosmopolitaneity. . . . Far from ever being exclusively or ‘purely’ national, the national culture enshrines particularity in cosmopolitan forms to which are attributed universal validity.”21 Further, on a personal and professional level, most of Nie’s circle of friends and associates had strong international ties. His good friend, the Korean-born Jin Yan, nicknamed the “Chinese Valentino,” shared his father’s commitment to national liberation (for which his father had been assassinated by Japanese agents) and had socialist sympathies. Zheng Yili and Ai Siqi both lived in Japan during the late 1920s. Two of his most prominent collaborators in songwriting, the poets An E and Pu Feng, cultivated revolutionary ties abroad. Pu had traveled in Southeast Asia once the Nationalist government imposed its White Terror in 1927. After joining the Left League and working in Shanghai during the early 1930s, he resided in Japan between 1934 and 1936. And as Liang Luo writes of Tian Han, Nie’s most important lyricist, “Tian belonged to a generation of artists and thinkers who were first and foremost internationalists.”22 In short, Nie’s milieu was the rising cultural left wing of the CCP that had strong international ties, especially with Japan’s leftist community.23 Major figures in China’s proletarian arts movement united both the avantgarde and internationalism.24 Although Nie Er avoided the term “avant-garde” (xianfeng or qianwei) and his close associate, the musician Lü Ji, decried avantgarde music in the leftist music movement, Nie shared many of the avant-garde’s concerns. He was drawn to newness and the avant-garde’s radical critique of bourgeois culture. Above all, he shared the sense that proletarian art was part of a contemporary global phenomenon. Nie’s participation in the Soviet Union Friendship Society’s music group put him in dialogue with the global proletarian music movement, although this tended to be a one-sided conversation. A more politically engaged music had already come to the fore in Germany with the works of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, whose music, combined with Brecht’s avant-garde style of “epic theater,” aimed to jolt the middle class out of its complacency.25 Brecht, too, worked with the Communist composer Hanns Eisler. During the Great Depression, their protest songs mobilized workers through their accessibility and energy. Their Solidarity Song became a militant anthem sung at street demonstrations throughout Europe.26 Developments in the Soviet Union had the most direct impact on the small group of leftist musicians in China. The Russian Association of ­Proletarian Musicians (RAPM), Introduction

7

the dominant musical organization in Soviet Russia between 1929 and 1932, advocated revolutionary music through march-like mass songs set to agitational propaganda (agitprop) lyrics. Nie and his followers positioned their “mass songs” (qunzhong gequ) according to the guidelines of the Soviet proletarian music movement.27 In terms of theory, Nie and other members of China’s left-wing cultural movement were inspired by the international proletarian movement to advance popularization (dazhonghua), using art to “awaken” the proletariat for political mobilization. Grounded in revolutionary theory and taking the oppressed masses as the subject matter, the process of making art thus rendered the artist an agent of social transformation and revolution.28 The strong ties between Left League members, Shanghai’s leftist musicians, and the Communist International (Comintern) facilitated a rapid transition in 1936 to the call for literature and music “for national defense” that would, in Lü Ji’s terms, be both “national in style, national salvation in content (minzu xingshi, jiuwang neirong).” In line with the CCP’s cultural policy, which dovetailed with the Comintern’s Popular Front, Lü called for an alliance among artists and participation in national salvation work. This required the song form to be popularized.29 Composers should abandon highbrow songs and “strive to get closer to the masses, understand the people’s language so that they produce songs that the people need!”30 Throughout the world, communist parties “would soft-pedal their political radicalism and international ties, especially to the USSR, and emphasize their indigenous roots.”31 One important musical consequence was renewed interest in folklore, which, in the case of the United States, served as an adjunct to progressive political action.32 By this time, even though Nie was already dead, it is clear that his work had prefigured Lü Ji’s call. Nie’s compositional method (a form of “going to the people” that originated in China during the early 1920s as part of a folklore collection movement),33 his advocacy of popularization, and his interest in collecting folk music from different regions of China and amalgamating it with Soviet-style mass songs to create a new national musical language were all in advance of Lü’s call for a music of national defense. Nie’s life was too short and his compositions too few for him to have singlehandedly created a new Chinese song form, but he played an important role in the decades-long process by which Western music became Sinicized.34 Nie Er’s decision to write songs was not a random one. Because modern Chinese music was established and expanded primarily in the schools, as well as through mass forms of singing, the Republican era witnessed the rapid development of school songs, mass songs, choral music, and singing with actions (biaoyan chang). These various forms attracted highly creative work from artists. Like their predecessors in the early twentieth century who promoted school songs, left-wing 8

Introduction

artists believed song was the best vehicle to arouse and awaken the entire nation’s people. The unity of all the people could be achieved and strengthened through song, as not only lyrics but the very act of singing imparted a collective ethos. Nie Er’s early death, paradoxically, served to amplify his political and artistic influence over the course of the twentieth century. To modify a phrase attributed to Laozi, he was gone but not forgotten. Nie Er’s music contributed to Chinese nationalism in the immediate aftermath of his death, when leftist cultural workers championed him. The emergence of the National Salvation Song Movement in the mid- to late 1930s during the first phase of the Anti-Japanese War spread Nie’s mass songs along both spatial and social lines, from the coast to the countryside, from urban intellectuals and white-collar workers to soldiers and peasants.35 Taking their cue from Benedict Anderson’s influential work, Imagined Communities, historians of Chinese nationalism have highlighted the development of print culture during the late Qing and early Republican eras.36 No doubt newspapers also had an important effect on the mobilization of urban elites, but given that many rural-based Chinese were illiterate, print culture had its limitations. The collective act of performing mass songs, whose politicized and patriotic lyrics could be easily sung and have an emotional impact, facilitated the spread of mass nationalism during the Anti-Japanese War (1937–1945). That music participates in the formation of nationalism was not lost on Anderson, who coined the term “unisonance” to describe the conjuncture between collective singing and the emergence of nation-states.37 This study provides insight into two critically important but understudied aspects of China’s nationalism—its sonic and musical dimensions. Building on Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm’s observations that nationalism is not primordial but rather has been imagined and invented, studies of musical nationalism in nineteenth-century Europe show how intellectuals and political elites relied on common strategies to construct a national culture that would be representative and constitutive of the nation. Accepting the Romantic-era assumption that their creative powers could effect social change and motivated by the perception that their culture and aesthetic tastes had declined on account of foreign influence or commercialism, composers sought to create a nationalist music and a citizenry that would represent the national culture. Composers employed a variety of methods to create a nationalist music; they wrote opera librettos in their national language, evoked national landscapes, and incorporated elements from history and legends associated with their homelands. Influenced by the Enlightenment philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder’s notion of the Volksgeist (spirit of the people), an immutable national quality that could be found in its purest form in the folk material of the peasant classes, nationalist musicians sought to transfigure and elevate folk songs into a high art. This national culture—a fusion of authentic national folk forms with a higher art form—would “enshrine in the art Introduction

9

work the principal [sic] of unity that is the core of the nation idea.”38 Vertical integration of national culture was further marked by constructing soft or hard boundaries between one’s national culture and other national arts and adopting (typically pejorative) value judgments about “Othered” cultures.39 Much of the musicological literature on music and nationalism focuses on the 1848–1914 period, when “national music” (expressed through opera and tone poems) converged with nationalist movements in central and eastern Europe. Philip Bohlman’s capacious ethnomusicology of contemporary Europe marks a significant departure from this orientation by employing a “bottom up” approach, which broadens our understanding of how all music genres are “malleable in the service of the nation” to the extent that “we can experience nationalism in any music at any time.”40 Bohlman argues that competition, including war and colonialism, and, more recently, Eurovision Song Contests, transforms national into nationalist music. Whereas national music seeks to represent a quintessential aspect of the nation, whether that be its language or landscape, “[n]ationalist music serves a nation-state in its competition with other nation-states, and in this fundamental way it differs from national music.”41 Competition over resources, territory, or prestige renders national music in service to the nation-state. Nationalist music is thus a product of top-down cultural and political work. Riley and Smith further refine these definitions by suggesting that most compositions fall along a continuum of national music (evoking landscape, history, and mythology) and didactic nationalist music that has a political aim to mobilize and reinforce the values of autonomy, unity, and loyalty.42 Considerable overlap exists between nationalist music and sonic nationalism, but the latter includes sounds, not simply music. Since this is a study of a musician, my emphasis is on musical nationalism, but broadening the study to include sonic dimensions of nationalism underscores how music was transmitted. Nie Er was keen on using media technology (radio, the phonograph, and sound cinema) to popularize music and to create a national community. In a review of annual musical developments covering 1934, Nie denounced the broadcasting of “popular and vulgar” pieces, but waxed optimistic that the “popularization of [new leftist] music via the cinema has increasingly led the masses to warmly receive it.” 43 Furthermore, drawing on Sue Tuohy’s insights on sonic nationalism, I show that Nie Er shared Li Jinhui’s desire to use vocal music to disseminate a national standard speech both to promote mass communication and to transform local into national loyalties. Second, as Tuohy explains, new performance venues, such as mass song rallies, school singing, military rallies, radio broadcasts and film screenings allow citizens to hear, feel and participate in the nation.44 I stress the dissemination of Nie Er’s songs through mass song rallies among urbanites and later among soldiers during WWII. Social activists promoted Nie Er’s mass songs through a patriotic song movement that sought to raise nationalist consciousness through 10

Introduction

the collective act of singing. Thus, even before the “March of the Volunteers” became the PRC’s national anthem, Nie Er’s songs had already acquired a close identification with nationalism. Once the People’s Republic of China designated the “March of the Volunteers” as its anthem, the identification of Nie Er as a national icon and symbol of socialist China was complete. In contrast to the 1935–1949 years, when both Communist Party cultural workers and social activists championed Nie Er as part of a grassroots social movement, post-1949 commemoration of Nie Er has been subject to the top-down demands of the party-state. The “March of the Volunteers” remained a symbol of the nation during the first fifteen years of the PRC. The state used Nie Er and his music for the needs of socialist construction. During the 1950s, Nie as the “people’s musician” represented a patriotic but, above all, a class-conscious revolutionary composer. His Yunnanese roots were ignored and his internationalism—aside from a few symbolic nods to the Soviet Union—was conveniently forgotten. Only in the current “opening up and reform” era since 1978 has there been a renewed emphasis on Nie’s nationalism, buttressed by the patriotic education campaign. Nie’s regionalism and internationalism have also made a comeback, but their recrudescence with global capitalism has stripped Nie of his revolutionary message. Nie Er’s status as a national hero in China has led to an outpouring of ­Chinese-language scholarship (and propaganda) on the man and his music. Wang Yuhe’s biography offers the best introduction to Nie’s music, with detailed analysis of his song compositions. Wang also pays attention to Nie’s politics by mining key passages from his diary, yet omits Nie’s psychology and personal life when describing his evolution from patriotic intellectual to class-conscious revolutionary. By contrast, Wang Yizhi lacks musical analysis, but provides a standard political biography and examines the once-taboo subject of Nie’s tenure at Bright Moon.45 None of these works, however, combines an analysis of history, music, and commemoration. And there is still no in-depth English-language work on Nie Er, though Richard Kraus and Andrew Jones probe Nie’s participation in the 1930s Shanghai left-wing artistic movement.46 For Kraus, Nie serves as a progenitor to the more prolific and long-lived Xian Xinghai, China’s other “people’s musician.” Kraus’s argument that the piano prompted debate between middle-class cosmopolitans and revolutionary populists holds true in understanding the politics of Nie Er’s commemoration but is less applicable to understanding Nie Er, since he was both cosmopolitan and revolutionary. Jones concentrates on how Li Jinhui’s popular urban music shared affinities with the anticolonial mass music spearheaded by Nie and other leftist artists. Jones focuses on Shanghai’s cultural scene during the early to mid-1930s, but ends his narrative in 1935. I build on Jones’s insights on the leftist artists’ use of media technology, but my study departs from his in significant ways. I offer a Introduction

11

historical analysis of Nie Er’s life and music, and the making of a collective memory, taking the narrative up to contemporary times. I also stress the importance of socialist ideology in Nie Er’s conception of art, and I employ musical analysis to explain the influence of Nie’s songs. The first several chapters examine the history of Nie Er, and the remaining ones explore his memory. The French historian Pierre Nora places history and memory in opposition: Memory is life, always embodied in living societies and as such in permanent evolution, subject to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting, unconscious of the distortions to which it is subject, vulnerable in various ways to appropriation and manipulation, and capable of lying dormant for long periods only to be suddenly reawakened. History, on the other hand, is the reconstruction, always problematic and incomplete, of what is no longer.47 I have sought to use Nie Er’s own voice (through his diary, essays, letters, and musical compositions) in tandem with contemporary sources as well as memoirs, notably a Nie Er biography written by his brother, to reconstruct this history—his life, music, and ideas—and place them in the context of the times (1912–1935). That is the “history” treated in the book’s first four chapters. Subsequent chapters chronicle a history of official memory. I examine which aspects of Nie Er’s life and music have been remembered and forgotten during three phases of commemoration: 1935–1949; the Maoist period, especially 1949–1966; and the contemporary reform era since the late 1970s. This study is thus attentive to how the party-state has manipulated official memory for its own ideological ends, resulting in a separation between history and memory. But there remain continuities between the past and memory. In many respects, Nie Er’s life and death are inseparable. Nie Er’s advocacy for songs to “cry out for the people” comes to fruition only after his death, when his songs are popularized through a social movement. In other words, Nie’s posthumous reputation and usage of his songs promote nationalist music. Continuities between history and memory are apparent, too, in the commemoration of Nie during the late 1950s. The film Nie Er revives old debates between academic, popular, and leftist music. My examination of Nie’s life focuses on his politics and praxis, his ideas about the function of art, and how he implemented these ideas in his musical compositions. Chapter One explores Nie Er’s formative years in Kunming, where he developed his interests in the theater, music, Marxism, and “free love.” Nie’s interests coincided with those of the May Fourth generation, whose nationalism was defined as a rejection of traditional culture, anti-imperialism, and identification 12

Introduction

with Western-style modernity. His experience of growing up in a frontier province, however, would permeate his youth. Parallel to his class-inflected nationalism, which sought to give voice to marginalized social classes, Nie’s attention to folk music, especially Huadeng diao, anticipates his efforts to elevate the local into a nationalist art. Chapter Two addresses his first sojourn in Shanghai, from June 1930 to August 1932, when Nie encountered colonial modernity and witnessed the Battle of Shanghai. Using a realist writing style for his diary that was infused by ethical concerns, Nie expresses how China’s crisis became intertwined with his personal struggles. These struggles involved resolving his own ambivalence towards the Shanghai modern, overcoming alienation caused by the routinization and commodification of everyday life, suppressing desires for romantic love while aspiring to be revolutionary, and questioning how music could best serve China’s needs. Chapter Three traces the role of ideology, especially the idea of “popularization” (dazhonghua) that both Tian Han and Nie Er advocated and applied to their art (the theater, film, and music). Nie and other Left League members argued that immersion in the lives of the people would provide artists with material and allow them to compose a “new music” that would express the masses’ “cries.” Nie shared the goal of creating a new Chinese music with cosmopolitan musicians (members of the national school of music), but believed that nationalist music should also serve class interests. Ideological convictions led Nie and his associates, most notably Lü Ji, to attack musicians who professed the autonomy of art, thus strengthening the leftist musicians’ conviction that music held a political function. Nie Er applied ideas of popularization to his songs—the subject of Chapter Four. For political reasons that are dealt with in the second half of the book, Nie Er is most closely identified with the genre of “mass songs.” In the Communist wartime base areas and during the Maoist era, these songs were referred to as “revolutionary songs” (geming gequ) and featured a limited vocal range, short punchy lyrics, strophic verses, and march-like rhythms—qualities designed for effective agitprop.48 Nie Er pioneered these features in some of his songs, but his repertoire extended to children’s rhymes and to love songs. Almost all of his songs, whether lyrical or martial, confronted themes of social injustice and sought to give voice to the oppressed and exploited. His song content and folkloric symbolism underscored musical nationalism. Nie Er adroitly used rhythm, song structure, and notes to emphasize key lyrics promoting the songs’ political message—a fusion of class-inflected nationalism. Moreover, his songs combine a Western musical structure and aesthetic with elements from Chinese folk music. Of particular importance was Nie’s reliance on pentatonic modes and the blending of those with major keys of the heptatonic scale. Even if certain elements, such as labor chants, were largely symbolic, they Introduction

13

constituted a Sinicization of his music, thus promoting its appeal and identification with nationalism. Given that Nie Er was quickly beatified after his death in 1935, a cottage industry of literature has emerged on Nie. The second half of the book examines how Nie Er became a national icon. Three chapters analyze the relationship between the politics of commemoration and the development of sonic nationalism, in both its textual and performative dimensions. I show how the use of Nie’s music and memory, as reinforced through texts, film, public art, and museums, was a barometer of political trends in Republican China and the PRC. Representations of Nie Er shifted over time, exemplifying what Lawrence Kritzman and Pierre Nora have called the “capacity for metamorphosis” regarding realms of memory—a constant reinterpretation of new symbolic interpretations. “In becoming a synonym for national identity, a ‘realm of memory’ enables successive generations to mediate their cultural myths by inculcating them with their desires.”49 In part because of shifts over generations, collective memory of Nie Er reveals the tension between nationalism, internationalism, and regionalism. During the 1940s, for instance, while commemoration underscored the masculine, martial qualities of Nie Er’s mass songs and solidified Nie’s image as a man of the people, these representations came at a price. They forgot Nie’s internationalist Marxist views, left aside his lyrical songs, and omitted his passion for the violin, an instrument seen as emblematic of his cosmopolitan tastes. Yet internationalism plays a key role. In Chapter Five I highlight how the international reception given to Nie Er’s “March of the Volunteers” and the critical part played by Paul Robeson in championing the song around the world contributed to the song being chosen as the PRC’s national anthem. Chapter Six analyzes articles from the official party organ, People’s Daily, and the 1959 film Nie Er to examine how the representation of Nie Er coincided with the Maoist line that emphasized class struggle and the need for party cadres to be both “Red” and “Expert.” Since the 1980s, with China’s “reform and opening up” policies, a renewed interest in Nie Er has arisen in Yuxi, Yunnan (China’s tobacco capital), which has embraced Nie Er as its native son in an effort to build cultural capital. This final chapter examines the tension between regional forces and the central government’s use of Nie Er and his national anthem to promote patriotic education.

14

Introduction

CHAPTER 1

Growing Up in Yunnan EMERGENCE OF A RADICAL NATIONALIST

Born February 15, 1912, just days after the abdication of China’s last emperor,

Puyi, Nie Er’s life was enmeshed with the Chinese revolutions. According to Nie Xulun, whose account remains our most detailed document of his younger brother’s childhood, their mother, Peng Jikuan, pregnant with Nie Er, stepped outside her husband’s Chengchuntang medicine shop only to have a bullet whiz by and hit a pan in the kitchen.1 Skirmishes had broken out on September 9, 1911, in the streets of the provincial capital Yunnnafu (Kunming), prompting the New Army commander Cai E to revolt against Qing dynastic rule. However apocryphal, the story foreshadowed several themes relevant to Nie Er’s life—the convergence between local and national affairs, the centrality of revolution to Nie’s life, and the blurred boundaries between history and myth. Mirroring how Nie Er has been treated as a nationalist icon and, in more recent times, as a symbol of resurgent regional pride, posthumous accounts tend either to ignore or exaggerate Nie’s ties to Yunnan. Rather than view nationalism as inimical to regionalism, Nie’s nationalism—in the realms of both ideas and music—was strongly influenced by his upbringing in the frontier province of Yunnan. Nie was immersed in Yunnanese folk music, which would inspire some of his song compositions and arrangements of traditional Chinese music. At the same time, Nie had an ambivalent relationship to his hometown, embracing its music but also rejecting Yunnan for being a cultural backwater. This latter perception led him to embrace a more cosmopolitan and modern lifestyle associated with Western culture, hence his interest in the English language, the “new theater,” and the violin. Politically, Nie embraced the iconoclasm and ideals of the May Fourth Movement, denouncing traditional culture and advocating science and individual expression. He turned to Marxism by joining the Communist Youth League (CYL) in 1928. Nie Er’s turn to radical nationalism was motivated by ideological conviction 15

and the influence of friends. The spread of a radical press along with a school curriculum in Kunming that spoke of national humiliation pushed him to express solidarity with the unfolding labor movement and kindled his military fervor in support of the anti-imperialist, antiwarlord aims of the Nationalist Revolution during the mid- to late 1920s. An element of adventure and risk may also have played a role in Nie’s decision to join the CYL just as the warlord authorities began a wave of repression against social activists. Arif Dirlik is correct in underscoring the dangers, sacrifices, and alienating qualities of conversion to Communism. To become a Communist “means exposure to persecution and bodily harm; this would be the fate of many who participated in the founding of the Communist Party of China.”2 It remains difficult to assess Nie Er’s psyche and what effect growing up fatherless had on him. It was only years later, in 1931, that Nie confided to his diary that he had been traumatized by his father’s death. One can speculate that an unconscious desire to take comfort in an organization of kindred spirits helped alleviate the trauma of growing up without a father. The participation in the CYL of older friends, such as Li Guozhu and Deng Xiangfu, may also have attracted Nie to the radical organization. Nie Er’s social status in Kunming also shaped his sense of social justice. His parents could be classified as intellectuals, but the death of his father reduced the family to a déclassé status. As Nie recalled, “Father died when I was four. Based on what mother said there were no heirlooms, not even a few cash coins left.”3 Poverty was always close at hand, making it difficult for Peng Jikuan to provide an education for her three sons. Hardships informed Nie Er’s worldview. Nie’s empathy for the downtrodden and oppressed stemmed from his own experiences and self-identification as a member of the subaltern, defined by Gail Hershatter as social reformers who could both “speak for those ‘below,’ [the oppressed] while allying themselves with and speaking to those ‘above’ [elites].”4

Education amidst Hard Times Nie Er, the pen name for Nie Shouxin, was born to an upwardly mobile family at a time of regeneration for Kunming. In the aftermath of the 1911 Revolution, the new government of Yunnan, led by the reformist military governor Cai E, promised political and social modernization. Anticipating more business opportunities in the provincial capital, Nie Er’s father, Nie Hongyi, a renowned doctor who had earned the reputation of “effecting miraculous cures and restoring life back to the dying,” had left the county seat of Yuxi for Kunming in the waning years of the Qing dynasty.5 Personal considerations may also have motivated Hongyi to move. His son and daughter, Nie Shouzhuo and Nie Lanru, born to his first wife, née Wang, had left the family. Lanru had married out, and Shouzhuo, on 16

Chapter 1

state scholarship, was attending a school affiliated with the Yunnan Military Academy. After the death of his first wife, Hongyi married Peng Jikuan, and in 1902 they moved to Kunming to start anew. Between 1904 and 1912, they had four children: daughter Nie Huiru, oldest son Nie Ziming, a middle son, Nie Shouxian, who changed his name to Nie Xulun, and the youngest son, Nie Shouxin. To support his large family, Nie Hongyi set up shop in a strategic location, south of the former governor’s yamen (official residence) on a bustling street in the city’s southern quarters, where gold foil merchants plied their trade. Constantly in demand for his services, Hongyi made calls during the evening and also served as doctor for the recently founded Yunnan Military Academy, where aspiring elite families were sending their sons.6 When Nie Er was four years old, Nie Hongyi died from overwork and tuberculosis, and the family’s fortunes crashed. Nie recalled the event as traumatic. The person who had slept here had left the earth and left all his cherished things and had gone to that dark hell. He will never return! He’ll never ask if his family has food to eat or not! He won’t come back to life no matter how much his wife and children cry! Even less will he oversee that pitiable fatherless child learn his characters! This whole house is full of sorrow, silence, terror.7

A 1923 studio photo of the Nie family. From the right, Nie Er, Peng Jikuan, Nie Ziming, and Nie Xulun. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

Growing Up in Yunnan

17

No help came from Hongyi’s eldest son, who had found work in the distant city of Wuchang. Nie Shouzhuo’s relations with his ailing father were so estranged that he refused to visit or provide any financial assistance. It would fall on the shoulders of Peng Jikuan to raise her four children; the oldest, Huiru, was only twelve years old when her father died. By all accounts, Peng Jikuan was a woman of great fortitude as well as a devout Buddhist. She was born to a poor Dai minority family in Eshan county, central Yunnan. Peng’s father had worked as a herder for a landlord surnamed Chen, who was so impressed with the young man’s diligence that he consented to the marriage between Peng and a yatou, a slave girl adopted by Chen. They would have four sons and a daughter, Peng Jikuan, the youngest child. Shortly after their marriage, Peng ventured out on his own and began to sell sweet wine in the county seat, while his wife stitched embroidery. Jikuan’s four brothers received schooling, but her father prohibited her from becoming literate on the grounds that “women without talent were more virtuous.” Infuriated when he discovered that one of his sons was helping Jikuan read the Hundred Families’ Surnames (Baijia­ xing), he ripped the book to shreds. Despite the risk of abuse, she remained undaunted.8 Either studying with her brothers when her father was away or pretending to do needlework while sitting next to one of her brothers while he read, she learned enough characters to read didactic Confucian primers such as the Three Character Classic (Sanzijing).9 Jikuan’s desire for learning was encouraged by her husband. To improve her literacy, Nie Hongyi posted new vocabulary on the door. He taught her medical principles using the Three Character Classic of Medicine (Yixue sanzijing) and reviewed Li Shizhen’s Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu). Hongyi imparted enough medical knowledge that Jikuan could diagnose illnesses by feeling a patient’s pulse, prepare medicines, and fill prescriptions.10 Upon becoming a widow, Peng Jikuan passed the medical exam and became the first woman in Yunnan Province to earn a doctor’s license, allowing her to continue her husband’s medical practice.11 Peng supplemented the family’s income by doing laundry and needlework at night. Peng was determined that Nie Er and his brothers receive an education, the value of which she had learned through her own struggle. Nevertheless, she did not educate her daughter. Peng had agreed with her husband Hongyi to arrange a marriage for their daughter when she was five years old. Huiru married in 1917 and left for Yuxi to live with her husband’s family, thus reducing expenses for Peng Jikuan and the Nie brothers. Still, high rents forced the family to move several times, first to the outskirts of the city, where Peng had even fewer patients and less income due to her practice of not charging poor peasants, then back into the city proper to Ruiren Street, populated by furniture makers and woodworkers. It was here that Nie, when he was seven or eight, learned to play the transverse bamboo flute (dizi) 18

Chapter 1

from a local carpenter. Nie Xulun recalls the constant hardships their family faced amidst class divisions emerging in Kunming, the population of which had expanded by 1922 to approximately 119,000 residents. Most residents, if employed, worked in the commercial and industrial sectors, the latter including handicrafts and menial trades. Doctors constituted less than one percent of the total population and represented part of a thin stratum of professional classes. The majority of residents, the “common people,” faced severe hardships and lived on the edge of subsistence, reduced to wearing tattered clothes and eating chaff and husks.12 The family was frequently in debt, leaving Peng to pawn their few family heirlooms. Peng’s reaction to these hardships was to instill a sense of self-reliance and work ethic among her children. I was strict towards them. I didn’t allow them to ask for money in front of guests; I didn’t allow them to eat over in the homes of our wealthy relatives. I wasn’t ashamed of being poor and I took pride in my work. I didn’t want my children to be envious of a luxurious lifestyle of officials.13 Nie’s brother recalls how, even through middle school, they had to share a quilt, and that Nie Er was taunted for wearing tattered clothes.14 In 1923, with Employment in Kunming (1922) Profession

Number

Percent

Not employed Industry Commerce Officials & civil service Teachers Students Doctors Lawyers Journalists Agriculture Fishing Herding Mining Other Total

50,777 15,031 15,006 4,186 517 8,243 241 20 25 2,390 352 207 67 21,799 118,861

42.70 12.60 12.60 3.50 0.40 6.90 0.20 0.02 0.02 2.00 0.30 0.20 0.10 18.30 100.00

Note: “Not employed” includes the elderly, frail, and disabled. Source: Zhang Weihan, ed., Kunming shi zhi [Kunming City gazetteer] (n.p., 1924; Taibei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1967), 46–48.



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their mother facing eviction for not having paid the rent for several months, the three brothers planned to quit school and find permanent work. Relying on a relative’s help and pawning her late husband’s treasured clock, Peng cleared her accounts so that her children could continue their schooling. Poverty constrained Nie’s choices for an education. His childhood education was a combination of homeschooling and attending the least expensive schools his mother could find. By the time he was six, his mother had taught him to read some 600 characters using flashcards and nightly readings. Often, she included narrative song, local opera, and woodblock prints from which she recited and sang.15 Nie graduated in 1921 from an elementary school affiliated with the county normal school, but his family could not afford to buy him the military regalia and uniform required of child soldiers attending the higher primary school. Reflecting the militarization of society during the warlord era, the school sought to inculcate military discipline by having students form a children’s army and parade on the school grounds.16 By default Nie, aged eleven, successfully applied to the privately funded Qiushi (Seek Truth) Elementary School, founded in 1919. The progressive educators, Su Honggang and Xu Jiarui, popularized education by setting low tuition rates and waiving various fees.17 Unable to afford the schoolbooks, Nie borrowed them and copied the lessons by hand. After he graduated from higher primary school in 1925, Nie attended the Yunnan First United Middle School before studying at Yunnan First Normal, the only tuition-free school in the province. Compounding the threat of poverty, Peng Jikuan feared that her Dai ethnicity would hurt her children’s prospects, so she concealed the fact from her children. Not until 1925 did Nie trace his ethnic roots on a family visit to his mother’s parents on the outskirts of the Eshan county seat. Peng’s parents were members of the Dai branch known as Daiya, or the Huayao (“flowery waist”) Dai, for the latticed, tube-shaped skirts worn by Dai women. The women’s clothing and silver jewelry, along with the incomprehensible Dai dialect, sparked Nie Er’s curiosity, but his mother insisted that their Dai heritage must remain a family secret to avoid possible discrimination.18 It was at the Qiushi Elementary School that the world of music opened to Nie Er. Music was an integral part of the curriculum and Nie, then aged twelve, rapidly learned to play multiple instruments, such as the flute and three-stringed lute (sanxian) for the school’s traditional instrument ensemble. Within his first year at the school, he had assumed leadership of the children’s ensemble. Nie Xulun, also a member of the ensemble, recalls that they performed popular songs such as “Su Wu the Shepherd” and “Mulan Joins the Army.”19 It is unclear when and how Nie first began reading notational music, but it was likely that this skill was taught at Qiushi Elementary. Nie’s initial interest in music derived from his mother, who served as his “first 20

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Eight-year-old Nie Er bugling with cigarette in hand. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

Nie Er sits in the front row on the left-hand side playing the three-stringed lute (sanxian) with faculty and students of the Qiushi Elementary School music ensemble, 1924. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

folk music teacher.” Growing up in Eshan, near Yuxi, the center of Huadeng (Flower lantern) melodies, she was influenced by this genre of song and dance typical of central Yunnan. Nie Lifang (Nie Xulun’s daughter) remembers that Peng Jikuan was always singing entertainment ditties (xiaodiao) and folk melodies. “In the evening when the cock crowed you could still hear her singing while she was grinding the medicine powder.” A devout Buddhist, Peng went on the first and fifteenth day of each month to burn incense at the Huating Temple near Kunming’s Western Mountain. When she went, she would bring a sheng (freereed mouth organ made of bamboo pipes). “During the day she recited the sutra, in the evening she played the sheng.”20 Peng Jikuan inculcated both her love of music and her moral values through singing and recitation, an art known as “changshu.” During the evenings, she gathered her children around her and, by the light of an oil lamp, recounted stories such as “Mengjiangnü ku Changcheng,” from the Book of Virtue (Shanshu). Nie Lihua remembers how spellbinding her grandmother was as she sang Yuxi Flower Lantern melodies and recited the seven- or ten-character rhymes from the libretto according to the melodies that she knew.21 Nie was exposed to many different types of Chinese music and instruments, which provided the main form of entertainment for his family, classmates, and friends. He first learned to play the bamboo flute by listening to and watching his neighbor, Master Qiu. By day, the Sichuanese craftsman carved furniture, and in the evenings, he played the piccolo, which captivated Nie Er. Nie would often use numerical notation (based upon the Galin-Paris-Chevé system) to write down the melodies and then sing them. Resolved to learn the flute, Nie borrowed one from a classmate and then secretly observed Master Qiu. Ultimately, Nie mustered enough courage to ask Master Qiu to teach him.22 Nie also learned the huqin (Chinese fiddle) from an elementary school teacher and the sanxian from a neighborhood musician. After dinner Nie passed the time with his brothers, forming a “small ensemble” that would perform school songs with a strong folk music flavor, such as Suwu muyang and Mulanci.23 According to Nie’s close friend Zhang Yuhou, He and his two brothers, Nie Ziming (a clerk in the post office) and Nie Xulun (a student at the Municipal commerce school), frequently got together at night to play instruments in the pharmacy, and one could hear the sweet and melodious sounds of the flute, huqin, sanxian, and yueqin (two or fourstringed fretted lute with a large round sound box, hence the popular name, moon zither). . . . I also was a music fan so I later often went in to play an instrument with them. This is how we became friends.24 The two Yunnanese musical genres that most shaped Nie’s later compositions and arrangements were Huadeng and Dongjing music. Nie was living in Yunnan 22

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just as Huadeng melodies—a combination of song, dance, and drama with a strong Yunnanese folkloric element—reached a peak in popularity throughout the province. As Nie’s brother recalls, their father’s hometown, Yuxi, was its focal point, but Huadeng associations had also sprung up throughout various villages and townships. During the Spring Festival, Nie would listen to amateur Huadeng troupes give street performances. Nie took to writing down Huadeng melodies in notational form, thus enabling him to perform some of the repertoire at school and during visits to family in Yuxi.25 The genre must have impressed Nie Er, since he adopted the nickname “Little Fourth Dog” from the Flower Lantern drama, Fourth Dog Rocks His Family (Sigou naojia). The drama’s plot resonated with Nie Er’s own life, as Little Fourth Dog’s father dies when he is young and the boy and his three siblings are brought up by their mother.26 The “new” Flower Lantern opera appealed to young urbanites like Nie Er for a variety of reasons. Actors in traditional Huadeng opera, not unlike other regional operas, typically assumed one of three roles, known as the three “young” (xiao)—the xiaosheng or young scholar; the xiaodan, the maiden; and the xiaochou, the buffoon. The songs extolled rural scenery or underscored the search for wealth set amidst popular legends. But by the late 1910s, Huadeng opera involved more realistic, complex plots involving ordinary people that highlighted contradictions and conflict between characters. In addition, the “new” form typical of Yuxi Huadeng, superseded “older” forms from Kunming. In part this was due to the military strongman Tang Jiyao’s patronage of a Yuxi Flower Lantern society, allowing it to perform for three days during his inauguration as provincial governor in 1923. Moreover, Yuxi Huadeng developed by choosing among some of the most beautiful melodies already current in the Kunming and Chuxiong forms of Huadeng, adapting these melodies to fit new content and thus create a unique Yuxi style.27 Whereas Flower Lantern music represented a form of popular culture, Dongjing music was associated with ritual music. Originating during the midsixteenth century as part of a cult honoring the Daoist deity Wenchang Wang, the patron god of culture and literature, Dongjing religious societies and the performance of their music entered Kunming in the late Ming dynasty. Despite its decline in the early twentieth century with the abolition of the civil service exam system, by the early 1920s, Kunming was home to eight Dongjing societies. One of these, the Hongwenxue branch, had accepted the three Nie siblings as members. A neighborhood friend of Nie’s mother, a former licentiate, facilitated the boys’ membership; such memberships were a mark of social status. As Nie Ziming recalls, “to join the Dongjing society was a notable matter and reflected one’s entry into the intellectual stratum. Generally speaking, admission was difficult unless one came from a family of scholars.”28 Training in Dongjing music was rigorous and involved strict rules. If Nie and his brothers erred in playing a pattern

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23

or rhythm, they would have to kneel and burn incense.29 By all accounts, Nie’s initiation into the religious society spurred his musical development. Nie often went to the house of the Dong brothers. Dong Yunjia was the director of the Hong­ wenxue branch and his younger brother, Dong Xinglin, was a noted “silk and bamboo” musician. Nie also received instruction from Jin Zizhen, a Dongjing musician, known as the “golden sanxian” for his talents.30

Nie’s Turn to Cosmopolitanism While Yunnanese popular culture and traditional Chinese music remained a constant throughout Nie’s childhood, by the time he reached middle school he began to craft a cosmopolitan identity inspired by Western culture and the New Culture movement. Nie Er was keenly interested in questions of modernity, Western culture, science, democracy, socialism, and “free love.” In the Chinese context, “free love” referred to freedom of choice in romantic attachments and marriage without parental involvement. Nie began to cultivate these interests upon admittance to the Yunnan First United Middle School in 1925. He devoted himself to his studies and committed to the daily two to three hours of walking to and from school. During his two years at the lower middle school, Nie mastered enough English to read Robinson Crusoe, and to carry on a conversation.31 Admitted on scholarship to the Yunnan First Normal School in the foreign language section, Nie Er remained a dedicated student. He made steady progress using a variety of innovative methods, such as keeping note cards (one side in English, the other in Chinese) to remember vocabulary and idioms. He kept a “Winter Vacation Daily” in which he wrote exclusively in English, listing daily encounters and activities, such as playing the piano, visiting the YMCA, or strolling at night with friends at Kunming’s Green Lake. A born ham, Nie enjoyed reciting dialogues as a study technique. One day Nie surprised his brother, who returned home to hear a foreign couple quarreling in English. When he opened the bedroom door, he discovered Nie Er acting out both parts of a skit.32 Nie’s diligence in his language studies stemmed from his family’s work ethic but also reflected a form of Occidentalism current in Yunnan, stimulated by the presence of a small Western community living in Kunming. Although most foreign nationals were Vietnamese (some 227), several dozen British and French also resided in Yunnan’s capital, engaged in missionary work, commerce, and work for the all-powerful Compagnie Française des Chemins de Fer de l’Indochine et du Yunnan.33 For Nie the West took on an exotic quality as well as being a bridge to the modern. In one diary entry written in broken English, Nie links his joy in hearing a Westerner play the piano to his tour of modern urban symbols—the railroad, the post office—and participation in dramatic acting.34 24

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Nie’s interest in the West was stimulated by his relationship with a certain Mr. Bernie, known to Chinese as Bo Xiwen, who taught Nie both English and piano. Born in Canton in 1886, the son of a French consular officer and his Guangdong spouse, Bo Xiwen had studied in England between the ages of eight and sixteen before returning to China. After some success at business in Shanghai and Hong Kong, Bernie moved to Vietnam and founded the newspaper Prospects daily (Qiancheng bao) and established the Harmonious Society (Zhihehui). Under the threat of arrest for his anticolonial sentiments, Bernie fled to Guangxi and taught at the Guangxi Military Academy Primary School, founded in 1907 by Cai E. After Cai became governor general of Yunnan, he invited Bo to become a political advisor and translator in 1913. Bo enjoyed a close relationship with Cai E, supporting the antimonarchical movement of 1915–16 with profits derived from an antimony company, and by translating documents issued to foreign powers. During the early years of the Republic, he also established the English Association, after 1929 renamed the Darwin English Language School.35 When Nie was twelve or thirteen years old, he attended upper elementary school during the day and the English Association at night. According to Nie Xulun, Bo Xiwen inspired Nie Er’s progressive thought. Bo used the classroom to propagate atheism and to denounce Western imperialism. Knowing of Nie Er’s family struggles, Bo did not charge him tuition. Nie would later repay his teacher’s kindness by bringing him food and medicine when he was convalescing from illness.36 Just as Nie Er was later attracted to Marxism-Leninism for its Western origins and its critical stance vis-à-vis imperialism, he was also drawn to Bo Xiwen, who disseminated Western culture through English and music, even as he denounced colonialism. As the Nationalist Revolution unfolded during the mid-1920s, an entire generation of students was caught up in the anti-imperialist movement. Judging from articles published in the Yunnan First Provincial School bulletin, Nie and his cohort were saturated with anti-imperialist condemnations. Chu Tu’nan, a prominent intellectual teaching at the First Provincial School, warned his young readers of foreign tyranny. “They do not treat Chinese as people or China as a nation and this is not a recent phenomenon.”37 In the same issue, just days before the outbreak of the May Thirtieth Movement, Yang Furui denounced economic imperialism and urged his compatriots to reclaim full sovereignty. Unless the Chinese eliminated the concessions, he said, “we will suffer for an eternity from foreigners’ insults and humiliation.”38 Nie Er, too, adopted a critical perspective, noting in an exercise book written most likely as a middle school student that Christianity was an insidious form of imperialism because it relied on converting elites. In the same book, Nie bemoaned China’s debt to foreign nations, which at that time totaled 450 million taels.39 On the basis of quiz topics that Nie jotted down, one can surmise that his geography and history lessons

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25

highlighted China’s past imperial glory and its contemporary crisis in the face of Western expansion.40 Bo Xiwen’s progressive politics may have alleviated any misgivings Nie Er had about being so interested in Western culture. In addition to his pursuit of English, Nie began to frequent the local YMCA, adopted the Western pseudonym George Njal, and pursued piano studies under Bernie’s tutelage. Zhang Yuhou recalls that Bo “played the piano very well and we asked him for a few lessons, so he taught us basic exercises, how to study fingering and staff notation. In terms of the violin and piano we were simply feeling our way about. From then on we formally began to study music.”41 By 1927 Bo was a professor of piano at the newly established arts school. The curriculum included Chinese and Western music, but as Zhang notes, “In the backwater of Kunming it was exceptional and only a fad for the few to study and perform Western instruments, especially the violin, mandolin and piano.”42 Nie and Zhang must have made quite a sight in Kunming, performing on a bridge at the Daguanlou and walking about in traditional scholar gowns, bobby hats, and sunglasses while carrying their instrument cases. In 1926, Nie Er took to writing a journal and diary as a form of self-education. His diary is filled with scattered usage of English words and phrases, and exhortations for self-study and improvement. Initially the diary served as a memoran-

Nie Er and Zhang Yuhou returning from a musical outing at the Daguanlou Park in 1929. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum. 26

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dum and chronicle of daily life for which Nie documented trips he took in Kunming and to his father’s hometown, Yuxi. Rather quickly he adapted the diary to serve his study needs—jotting down notes on his readings and on the English language, which became his focus of study at middle school. For the entire month of December 1927, Nie wrote only in English, reflecting a desire to improve his foreign language proficiency and to manifest his budding individualism. Employing foreign words, too, became a mark of modernity and a mechanism to express feelings that contravened social customs, especially regarding gender relations. Similar to the iconoclastic May Fourth generation, which sought to break free from the constraints of traditional hierarchical relationships and encouraged “free love” as an antidote to arranged marriages, Nie’s use of English allowed him to imagine a more liberated state unbound by Chinese conventions. Reflecting his pro-Western sympathies, Nie concluded his “Winter diary” with a “farcical comment” noting that the West could not compete with Chinese culture in terms of bound feet, opium, and mah-jongg.43 Nie’s interest in Western customs was manifest in his public and private demonstrations of affection with his friends. He developed a particular fondness for Li Jiaying, the nine-year-old daughter of a fellow musician friend in Kunming. In his diary entries of September 10–11, 1928, he describes an outing with Li Jiaying and Peng Wenrong.

Nie Er’s self-portrait as sketched in 1929. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

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I can’t forget their liveliness and loveliness for even one day. . . . If only they could be my younger sisters how joyous it would be! Every day they appear before me dancing, singing and I hold their small hands and kiss their small faces. Nie writes the word “kiss” in English to underscore that his display of emotions is a departure from traditional Chinese custom. Nie continued to have a brotherly affection for Li Jiaying, recalling how he dreamt of her after he had left Yunnan in 1929 to join a volunteer student soldier army. There was cute little sister Jiaying wearing her dance clothes and white cotton dancing shoes along with her father meeting me. I grasped her small hands and kissed her small face. As I hugged her small body I asked her about school. As I awoke I felt it was a dream.44 In Nie Er’s formative years, the theater played a role equal in importance to English and the violin as a bridge to Western culture. As a student at the Yunnan First Normal School, Nie established a drama research association and frequently performed modern Chinese and Western drama. In advocating for a social and political role for new drama for China, Nie Er shared the May Fourth generation’s rejection of traditional customs. Not averse to taking on female roles at his allmale school, Nie acted the part of Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (which had recently been translated into Chinese), played Marie in Goethe’s Clavigo, and assumed the role of Mirandolina in Carlo Goldoni’s comic masterpiece, The Mistress of the Inn (La locandiera).45 Assuming such roles was a political act. As Zhang Yuhou relates, Nie’s role as Mirandolina sparked controversy and drew a dividing line between proponents of a “national school” and those, like Nie Er, who were criticized as Western enthusiasts. At the time we were called the Western eulogists [ yang chuigushou], and in the performances we acted independently and in defiance of those students majoring in music at the arts school.46 Perhaps to assuage his critics, Nie assumed a leading dramatic role in Zheng Boqi’s 1928 anti-imperialist play Resistance (Kangzheng).47 Nie had a natural acting ability. He was extroverted, humorous, and a skilled mimic who understood from an early age the political and propagandistic value of drama. In two school essays, Nie advocated reforming traditional drama, which he deemed “obscene with elements of illicit sexual relations.” This view of popular theater carried over to Nie’s later criticisms of suyue (common music) and the Shanghai song and dance world, which Nie would eventually condemn in pruri28

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ent terms. Instead, Nie heralded “new drama” as a “sharp weapon of social education,” which with “active promotion would yield greater results than academic education.”48 Most likely writing in 1924–25, Nie was thinking in terms of the propagandistic value of the arts. Unlike traditional drama, which included acrobatics and Peking Opera and had only entertainment value, Nie contended that modern drama had an emotional depth and a didactic function because it focused on family and social issues.49 Nie’s interest in Western culture coincided with his growing critical spirit, which had emerged from his reading of literature. In a diary entry in which he copied down details from a biography of Marx, Nie also took note of a debate over the meaning of literature published in New Tide (or The Renaissance). He referenced the editor of New Tide, Luo Jialun, a proponent of the vernacular; T. W. ​ Hunt, who placed literary realism in the mainstream of Western literature; and the humanist Marxist critic and revolutionary [Aleksandr] Voronsky, who defined literature as the “written expression of thought” that included “imagination, feeling and taste.” Crucially, for Nie Er, literature was defined as “the interpretation and criticism of life.”50 Nie may have consciously applied this view of literature to his own diary writing. His diary entries from 1927–28 reflect his budding social consciousness and his desire to use his writing for critical observations of his environment. Such is the case with Nie’s commentary on Yunnanese soldiers’ oppressive treatment of civilians. Visiting his cousins in Yuxi during the summer 1927, Nie noted how soldiers had forced civilians to carry them in sedans and cook for them, and had confiscated their horses for transport labor, flouting prohibitions against such practices.51 Nie was an avid reader, especially of the works of Lu Xun, whom he admired for his critical activism. According to a middle-school classmate, Nie read Lu Xun’s “Call to Arms” (1923) and “Wandering” (1925), as well as his 1924 translation of Japanese literary critic Kuriyagawa Hakuson’s Leave the Ivory Tower! (Zōge no tō o dete!).52 Although there is some evidence that he held a romantic temperament, Nie self-consciously rejected that characterization, placing himself in the same camp as Lu Xun and Kuriyagawa. In an autobiographical statement, “My Outlook on Life” (“Wo de rensheng guan”), written after he began attending Yunnan First Normal School, Nie remarked, “My outlook is not passive, but active, and far from romantic.” The emphasis on being socially active stood in marked contrast to a similarly titled personal statement that he had written several years earlier at the First United Middle School. In that essay, Nie envisaged himself as a carefree spirit, befitting a Daoist recluse who sought to escape political tyranny by living in a “quiet and beautiful place,” enjoying music and the company of a “few comrades”—the term suggesting Nie’s political sympathies with socialism.53

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In his second statement, Nie positioned himself at the forefront of a revolutionary struggle and affiliated himself with many of the ideals of the May Fourth generation—faith in science and democracy and iconoclastic rejection of traditional culture. We young and aspiring people will soon go to war with this odious society. As social actors, we forge our own individual lives, but we should realize the limits of our freedom, which is dominated by the warlord politicians. They do whatever they please. Many pernicious customs, outdated rituals and teachings that cannot be adapted to the new society exist in this scientific era of the twentieth century. We must overthrow all of this. In other words, overthrow the wicked society and construct a new society.54 Seeing his mission as creating a new society built on science, Nie, not surprisingly, expressed interest in pursuing a career in industry, engineering, and even exploration. I would also wish to become an explorer (not at all in the sense of Robinson’s [Crusoe] individualism). I would like to travel the world and make concrete observations so that I could build a new society.55 Elsewhere, Nie argued in nationalist terms against those who dismissed science while seeking to restore China’s heritage. “There are many reasons for advocating science. Our industrial production is too limited; we have too few innovations in our material culture, and our citizens hold deep-seated superstitions. We must remedy the situation through a science of experimentalism.”56 Ultimately, Nie chose the artistic path, but he did so for many of the same reasons he had supported science. Art could function as an instrument to revolutionize society. During his teens, Nie already viewed art as a weapon of criticism against a corrupt political system and capitalist oppression. Besides advocating the reform of traditional Chinese drama, by the late 1920s Nie had begun to try his hand at writing proletarian literature. This genre emerged in 1928 when, in the wake of the abortive Nationalist Revolution, both the Creation and Sun Literary Societies engaged in a debate over revolutionary literature.57 In the short story “Press Gang” (“La fu”), Nie describes the ordeals of a young shepherd conscripted into a warlord army.58 In a second untitled story, dated September 6, 1928, Nie depicts the clash between an immoral factory manager who has sacked a woman worker (Sister Chen) and her husband (Chen Hua). The story details the solidarity of the women factory workers who provide financial aid and help the couple regain their factory jobs. In the story’s conclusion, a paean to the female proletariat, Chen Hua’s male 30

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associates credit their female cohorts for their courage to go on strike and achieve victory.59 Despite the efforts of its governor, Tang Jiyao, to retain provincial autonomy and consolidate his military power, the Nationalist Revolution sweeping the country also began to affect Kunming. In 1925, as the “anti-imperialist, classinflected” May Thirtieth Movement spread across the coastal cities, 60 Nie described China’s labor movement. His writing manifests an ethical and critical stance towards capitalism and individualism, themes that would preoccupy Nie for the rest of his life. The most serious cases involved the Shanghai cotton mills and the Hanyang iron mill where blood flowed and conditions were miserable. Why did this happen? Because of the capitalists’ oppression, workers’ cost of living increasing daily and insufficient wages . . . I would like to avoid the perils of strikes, but we must first smash the capitalist class.61 At school, Nie Er helped form the Xingfu She (Association for Happiness) to put his collective ethos into practice. Our intent is not to promote the happiness of the individual . . . nor does it mean to wine and dine, or to play mah-jongg. . . . Nor do we seek to limit happiness to our association members. On the contrary, we seek the wellbeing of China and the world. More concretely, we seek to advance culture, reclaim barren land, improve the economy, and reform politics.62 Intent on merging art with political activism, Nie participated in the student council at First United Middle School to voice support for Shanghai workers and urge the boycott of Japanese products. Forming a propaganda team, Nie performed dance skits and comic acts at popular teahouses, and then collected donations to the May Thirtieth Massacre Support Association.63

Communism in Kunming Nie Er’s politicization should be seen in the context of the introduction of Communism to Yunnan, which was facilitated by the formation of study societies and the circulation of radical literature. Some sixty-eight newspapers and periodicals circulated in Kunming prior to November 7, 1926, when the CCP Special Branch in Yunnan was established.64 Yunnan Wave (Dianchao, 1920–1926), Dawn of Yunnan (Shu Dian, 1923–1925), and Voice of Yunnan Daily (Dianshengbao, 1914– 1926) were especially important in disseminating Marxism-Leninism and

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­ ublicizing the exploitation of labor, the abusive quality of the labor–capitalist p relationship, and the need for labor organizing. Whether Nie Er read such articles is an open question, but his moral stance on the oppressive features of capitalism resonated with the radical press. Dianshengbao’s publication of Jiu Feng’s article, “A Few Hopes Regarding the Labor Movement,” illustrates the highly moralistic terms used to convey labor’s status and its future needs. Society’s belittling [of workers] and the various forms of maltreatment by the capitalists have reached the extreme; thus, labor needs to organize . . . and work diligently to advance, to struggle with this wicked society, and in the end we shall see who emerges victorious.65 Readers will recall how Nie had used the same term, “wicked society,” in his social criticisms. Nie’s call to “smash the capitalists” as a precondition for happiness shares striking similarities with the Yunnanese Communist Wang Youde’s article “Admonition to Capitalists and Labor” (Jinggao zibenjia yu gongren), published in the Yunnan lüjing xuehui huikan. “If we want to abolish inhumane treatment and improve our livelihood, we must undergo the greatest sacrifices, expend the greatest effort and declare war on the capitalists. Only by taking risks can we attain happiness in this world!”66 Many of the study groups and publications in Kunming were formed in the immediate aftermath of the May Fourth Movement. In late 1919, Yang Qingtian, Ke Zhongping, and several other students at the Yunnan First Provincial Middle School—the source of the student movement—formed a study group, the Datongshe. The influential concept of the datong, or “great community,” was based on the utopian vision of the late-nineteenth-century Confucian reformer Kang Youwei and inspired Yunnan’s first socialist study group. Expanding to some twenty members, the group met twice a month, usually in temples on the periphery of Kunming to avoid detection, and discussed socialist theory, politics, and the future of the nation. To increase its political influence, Datongshe published the monthly Yunnan wave. Its inaugural issue (October 25, 1920) echoed the May Fourth Movement slogans: “Down with Confucius and Sons, Overthrow the old system, Liberate women, Oppose arranged marriages, Support writings in the vernacular, Sympathize with the laboring class, Champion science and democracy.”67 The departure in 1922 of prominent Datongshe members for Beijing led to the formation of the Yunnan reform society (Yunnan Gexinshe). This was the other key study group that facilitated the introduction of Communism into Yunnan. Many of its founding members, such as the brothers Wang Fusheng and Wang Desan, were among the first CCP members.68 Founded in 1924 by Yunnanese living in Beijing, the fifty-member organization published an iconoclastic, anti-imperialist weekly, the Innovation Weekly (Gexin zhoukan). A year later, the 32

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organization renamed itself the New Yunnan Association (Xin Dianshe) and replaced Innovation Weekly with the publication Iron Flower (Tiehua), which it circulated among branch associations in Shanghai, Wuchang, Guangzhou, and Kunming. At Kunming, the association was known as the Yunnan Diligent Youth Association (Yunnan qingnian nulihui), led by the activist Li Guozhu.69 Li Guozhu, who later authorized Nie Er’s admission into the Communist Youth League, had graduated in 1922 from the Yunnan First Provincial Middle School, where he subsequently worked as librarian. In the winter of 1924, committed to the idea that “ultimate success comes to the most diligent,” Li established the Yunnanese Diligent Youth Association. Li used the study society to mobilize schools in support of the May Thirtieth Movement. By September 1925, Li became secretary of a special branch of the Communist Youth League.70 Li Guozhu used his position in the CYL and at the provincial school to disseminate radical literature and foster the study of Marxism.71 Starting in December 1925, Li funneled donations from the Diligent Youth Association into a cooperative that would purchase books and periodicals from Shanghai to meet the demands of young readers. The books were sold on a nonprofit basis. Besides making China Youth (Zhongguo qingnian) mandatory reading, Li Guozhu disseminated Chinese Woman (Zhongguo funü) and other publications from local organizations, such as Iron Flower. With the publication Yunnan Student (Yunnan xuesheng), launched in April 1926, Li emphasized internationalism (unity between “the oppressed class of laborers in the West and in the East”) and stressed that the Chinese revolution was part of a global phenomenon.72 Conflict with the authorities led Li Guozhu to flee Yunnan. He came to the attention of the provincial governor, Tang Jiyao, during the spring of 1926 after organizing students to protest Tang’s proposal to sell to a French businessman public property used by the Yunnan First Normal School. Although public pressure blocked Tang’s proposal, the governor retaliated on June 26 by banning the Yunnan Student, prohibiting demonstrations, and ordering the arrest of Li Guozhu, Ai Siqi, and other “red elements” in Kunming.73 Li left for Shanghai and eventually went to Moscow to study at the Sun Yat-sen University. In his absence (he would return in mid-1928), leadership of the Yunnanese Diligent Youth Association reverted to his wife, Wu Cheng. During the fall of 1926, the CCP Guangdong District Committee and GMD (Guomindang) Peasant Board sent Li Xin to Kunming to build a CCP organization and do preparatory work for the GMD. Li forged links with the Youth Association and terminated the study group by absorbing its members either into the left wing of the GMD or as CYL and CCP members. On November 7, 1926, Li convened the first CCP member meeting in Kunming and made Wu Cheng secretary of the CCP Yunnan Special Branch.74 The February 6, 1927, coup d’état, led by the defense commissioners Long Yun and Hu Ruoyu against their military commander Tang Jiyao, had the effect

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of opening up political space for both political parties.75 The CCP, which had worked to topple Tang Jiyao by encouraging dissent within his army ranks, began to build its organization. Wang Desan, a political instructor at the Huangpu Military Academy, returned to Yunnan and became secretary of the CCP Yunnan Special Committee. By September, Wang oversaw two hundred members. His brother, Wang Fusheng, contemporaneously served as secretary of the Guomindang provincial party branch and developed the organization to include over three thousand members, some 70 percent of whom were students.76 Beginning in May 1927, Long Yun began a crackdown on both parties. His ongoing rivalry with Hu Ruoyu led Long Yun to play up the Communist threat in Yunnan so as to curry favor with Chiang Kai-shek. Long Yun subsequently established a Communist Purge Committee in January 1928, which by that spring had arrested some three hundred CCP members, including Wang Desan. Over 120 Communists were executed, and a total shutdown was imposed on unions, student organizations, and women’s and peasants’ associations. Most party cadres were forced to leave Kunming and disperse to counties, especially in southern Yunnan.77 During this wave of repression Nie Er became radicalized, in no small measure by having witnessed the execution of the activist Zhao Qinxian. Zhao had been at the forefront of a nascent women’s movement in Kunming. While still a student at Kunming Girls’ Middle School, the only women’s school in the entire province, she had played a prominent role in the Diligent Youth Association. Tang Jiyao’s crackdown in July 1926 led Zhao to take refuge in Guangzhou, where she was recruited by the CCP and attended the Canton Women’s Movement Training Course. The following year, Zhao returned to Kunming, assuming the guise of an elementary school teacher while working for the CYL. In early 1927, she established Yunnan’s first periodical devoted to the cause of women’s liberation, Nüsheng (The voice of women). Zhao helped organize a mass demonstration commemorating International Women’s Day in which up to eight thousand men and women took to the streets of Kunming on March 8, 1927. She also consolidated three women’s organizations into the Yunnan Women’s Liberation Association (Yunnan funü jiefang xiehui), which she led until her arrest in the spring of 1928.78 Nie Xulun and Nie Er witnessed the gruesome spectacle of Zhao’s head being cut off and her heart torn out. According to Nie Xulun, the event had a transformative effect. After that day, Nie Er’s character changed; each time he returned home reticent and taciturn. At home he threw himself into reading those “banned books” and frequently hummed the “Volga Boatman” or the “International.”79 Nie’s introduction to Marxist-Leninist theory derived mainly from secondhand readings. He had read a biography of Lenin in the journal Eastern Miscellany (Dongfang zazhi). By the fall of 1927, he had also copied details from a bio34

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graphical sketch of Marx. He noted Marx’s religious conversion from Judaism to Christianity, his revolutionary activities, his exile from Germany, and his writings, mainly Capital, “considered by socialists to be a classic.”80 Nie Er’s diary entry (November 30, 1927) notes that he had read “some Marxist articles.” In a school notebook he lists borrowed books, such as Introduction to Dialectics (Bianzhengfa rumen), Dialectical Materialism (Bianzhengfa de weiwulun), and Gorky’s My Childhood.81 He owned some socialist tracts, such as the translation of Contemporary Social Life (Xiandai shehui shenghuo) by Sakai Toshihiku, Japanese socialist leader and founding member of the JCP, as well as a translation of Leonard Woolf’s Economic Imperialism, which linked capitalism’s exploitation of the worker with Western imperialist exploitation of land and labor in Africa and Asia.82 In 1928 Nie joined “middle school,” the code name for the Communist Youth League, via the introduction of his classmate Guo Huinan and Li Guozhu, the CYL secretary for Yunnan Province. There he read tracts such as Bukharin’s The ABC of Communism, helped to distribute mimeographed pamphlets, and joined in demonstrations. Like many youth of the older May Fourth generation, Nie was attracted to socialism as a means to selectively appropriate Western ideas without sacrificing his nationalist values. In Maurice Meisner’s words, Socialism had the great attraction of being a Western ideology—thus re­affirming the intelligentsia’s Westernizing inheritance and its alienation from traditional Chinese values—while at the same time it was critical of the West in its existing capitalist (and imperialist) form. To become a socialist in the May Fourth era was a way to reject both foreign imperialism and traditional Chinese culture simultaneously, to be a modern Chinese nationalist without falling back on old Chinese values.83 It was probably during 1928 that Nie Er wrote “Capitalism and Social Problems,” in which he gave a brief overview of capitalist development and adopted a class perspective on society. “Just think, workers’ wages are very limited, but the capitalist still exploits them. It is inevitable that they unite and resist. Only then do strikes and social problems occur. From this perspective, the capitalist system indirectly creates social problems . . . [T]here are no limits to free competition and the expansion of private property.”84 Fueled by radical sentiment, Nie looked to the Nationalist military to combat the twin evils of warlordism and imperialism.

Adventures in the Army Impressionable and idealistic with a profound distaste for what he deemed a corrupt society, Nie saw an opportunity to leave the province when he read

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recruitment ads for “student soldiers” who were to be stationed outside Yunnan. Interest in the military as an agent of revolutionary change was widespread among Nie Er’s cohort. In the aftermath of the May Thirtieth Movement, many of his older classmates at Yunnan First Normal under the guidance of Li Guozhu had formed a “student army” to combat imperialism. The school’s paper denounced imperialist privileges, using slogans such as “Down with the imperialist powers and warlords” and “Abolish all unequal treaties.”85 Seeking to go beyond rhetorical flourishes, for several weeks the 120 students had practiced military drills during their morning exercises and after school. Long Yun, fearing that his rivals might mobilize the students against him, ordered a halt to their zealous marches.86 In the fall of 1928, Nie Er joined two hundred Kunming students in enlisting in the National Revolutionary Sixteenth Yunnan Army stationed at Chenzhou, Hunan. Yao Chen, Nie’s classmate and fellow CYL member, recalls that both he and Nie signed up in a “fit of idealism and passion” so that they could spread revolution.87 Many students knew of its commander Fan Shisheng’s revolutionary luster. A Yuxi native and member of the National Revolutionary Alliance, Fan had distinguished himself on the battlefield in leading opposition to Yuan Shikai’s forces in 1916 during the National Protection Movement—an effort to block Yuan’s monarchical ambitions and protect the fledgling Republic. Later, in 1922, Fan had opposed Guangdong governor Chen Jiongming’s attack on Sun Yat-sen’s headquarters in Guangzhou. In 1926, Fan’s Second Yunnan Army was reorganized as the Nationalist Sixteenth Army and prepared itself to become the reserve force for the Northern Expedition, the military campaign seeking to reunify China against regional warlords. Fan, though, soon found himself at odds with Chiang Kai-shek when he opposed his purge against the Communists in the spring of 1927. Relations further soured after Fan defied Chiang’s order to bring Zhu De to trial in Nanjing. (Fan had provided Zhu De, his classmate at the Yunnan Military Academy, with temporary haven after the abortive Nanchang Uprising.)88 Seeking to replenish their ranks after Zhu De and his men defected from the Nationalist Army, officers of the Sixteenth Army returned to Yunnan a year later to recruit “student soldiers.” A sense of adventure and dissatisfaction with his environment motivated Nie Er to join the military. Nie chafed under the political repression in Kunming, became dissatisfied with the teaching at the normal school, and sought to “see the world.” In retrospect, Nie seemed overly naïve and unwilling to listen to the counsel of his friends. Only a few months before Nie enlisted, a former classmate at Provincial Normal who had joined the National Revolutionary Army encouraged Nie Er to continue his studies rather than experience the “difficult” army life, where the reality of frequent sickness and constant movement quickly tempered students’ idealism.89 Deng Jinzhi, serving in the 99th Division of the 36

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National Revolutionary Army, reacted with horror upon learning that Nie Er had enlisted. “My dear younger brother, if I had known of the calamity that has struck you now, I would rather have died than let you leave [Kunming].90 Sure enough, only one week after reaching Hunan for basic training, Nie Er became disillusioned with army life. Nie opted out by becoming a copy clerk in an officer training corps subsumed by a military academy associated with the Guangzhou Eighth Route Army General Headquarters. Finding the new position even less fulfilling, Nie unsuccessfully petitioned his officers several times for an extended leave so that he could attend a public school in Shanghai. By March 1929, Nie’s unit had left for Guangzhou and Nie followed suit. Still entertaining hopes of a military career, Nie met with Fan Shisheng, who agreed to recommend Nie to the Huangpu Military Academy. Despite the letter of recommendation, Nie was rejected. In April 1929, Nie’s short-lived military career came to an end. He was given a discharge and 75 yuan to fend for himself in Guangzhou.91 Falling back on his singing skills, Nie placed into the music section of the Guangzhou Drama Research Institute, but withdrew almost immediately. Given his aversion to traditional Chinese forms of drama, perhaps it was no surprise that he left the school abruptly on the grounds that it offered nothing more than training for a reformist Canton opera troupe and that his main instruction in “theory” would consist of playing percussion for Cantonese and Peking opera. Although Ouyang Yuqian led the school, Nie felt the reforms of this noted director, playwright, and opera performer were only piecemeal. Homesick and in distress, Nie wrote to his mother for succor: This is a society with extreme contradictions! A society that is so cold blooded it has reached the freezing point! Everyone and every place are looked upon with disdain! Revolution (geming) indeed, when the transformation (ge) to this day has snuffed out life (ming). There is no more way out to transform! Struggle indeed! Since leaving Yunnan, have I experienced one day without struggle? But now I have no more energy to fight, especially in this exclusivist city of Guangzhou. I can’t even fight for several yuan to buy a ticket home. Alas, everything is false!92

Romance in the Spring City Within a month after borrowing travel funds from a fellow Yunnanese teacher, Nie had returned to the “Spring City” of Kunming, where he resumed his studies at Provincial Normal for a fourth term with the prospects of graduating within a year. A poem written on May 30 during the rainy season reveals that Nie had

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not lost his wanderlust and sought to leave the routine of Kunming for Shanghai or Guangzhou and make something of himself, even though he had no illusions about the coastal cities. A fine drizzle, drip drop drip drop, School, meals, sleep; sleep, meals, school . . . These mechanical images: Sometimes they pass by my mind one by one in distinct fashion While I’m floating in the midst of great surging waves Illusory ideals that won’t be easily attained This evil corrupt environment that I can never conquer; Leave! For Shanghai with its thousands of unemployed stopping over Reside! In Guangzhou with its exclusionary practices Bye now! My hometown, this detestable and loveable hometown; This is my final decision for my final route! . . . Everything but everything is as of old, Ah! The fine drizzle as usual drip drop, drip drop, The chilly breeze, as of old drinking wine, drinking wine.93

Nie continued to be engaged with the Communist Youth League and became politically active following the July 11 Incident. The incident derived from an ongoing power struggle between Long Yun and his military rivals. Facing the mounting threat that Tang Jiyu sought to avenge the military coup against his older brother (Tang Jiyao) and occupy the northern district of Kunming, Long Yun transferred explosives stored at the Shangshan Temple to a depot at the Lower Yangzi Native Place Association within the city. On July 11, 1929, the ammunition exploded—leaving 320 dead and over 570 people severely wounded. Nie Er and other students from Provincial Normal and the Yunnan Middle School formed the July 11th Youth Relief Squad and, with the support of the CCP, called on Long Yun to compensate the victims and end the skirmishes. The inevitable crackdown and arrest of several students provoked further demonstrations, which Nie Er joined.94 Nie Er retained his political convictions and ties to the Communist Youth League after he returned to Kunming, but his days were consumed by his artistic pursuits and friendships. In this respect, Nie’s trajectory differed from that of many radical youth of the 1920s. Studies of the Chinese Communist Party’s formation concur that radical youth who had often participated in anarchist-inspired mutual aid societies and study societies gravitated towards the more disciplined and centralized Leninist organization of the CCP. A combination of factors transformed radical youth from “friend to comrade.”95 These included political repression, the influence of Comintern advisors, and recognition that political organization and power, rather than cultural transformation, was the more effective route to social 38

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change. It does not seem that this disciplined process, whereby party loyalty overrode personal relations, ever held true for Nie Er, even after he joined the CCP in 1933. Certainly, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, friendships and romantic pursuits coincided with Nie’s leftist political sympathies. Most of Nie’s male friends were involved in the arts or supportive of Nie’s artistic interests. Nie recalls how one day as he lay in bed reading the Creation Monthly (the journal associated with the Creation Society), his classmate and CYL group leader Deng Xiangfu (aka Deng Xianglian) appeared on the scene dressed in fashionable attire and carrying gold horn-rimmed spectacles. “When we met today I was so happy I couldn’t speak words of joy . . . I believe that in the future I will lead a new type of life. My comrade Lian fully supports me to pursue a literary path.”96 Although we have few details about Nie’s relationship with Deng, a photograph showing them holding hands suggests the closeness of the bond. In Zhang Yuhou, a violin teacher at the elementary school associated with Provincial Normal, Nie found a kindred spirit in their love of music. Zhang played mandolin and piano to Nie’s violin, and they sang songs together with friends, such as Yuan Chunhui. Nie’s first romance, an iconoclastic statement in itself, came to fruition in his relationship with Yuan Chunhui. Nie met Yuan through his friendship with Zhang Yuhou. Both Nie and Zhang frequented the home of Zhang’s cousin, Li

Nie Er and Deng Xianglian (1929). Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

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Nie Er and Zhang Yuhou (1930). Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

From the left, Yuan Chunhui, Chen Zhonghu, and Li Jiazhen. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

Jiazhen, who in turn invited her cousin Yuan Chunhui for musical activities. Zhang recalls that he and Nie went to Li’s home two or three times a week, where they accompanied the girls on violin and mandolin as they sang Li Jinhui’s popular children’s opera songs, the songs of the prominent music educator Xiao Youmei, and even some classical songs, such as “Mulanci.” When they had exhausted their repertoire, Nie and Zhang arranged classical poetry for readymade songs.97 According to Zhang, soon afterwards in 1928, Nie and Yuan Chunhui “developed affection for each other. While we had fun together they were inseparable and became intimate. As far as I knew Yuan Chunhui was the only girlfriend to whom Nie became relatively intimate.”98 In his chronicle, Nie dates his affection for Yuan to New Year’s Day, 1930: “On January 1, I began to express my love for her.”99 That Nie had a girlfriend at so young an age violated social norms, explaining why he kept an appropriate distance while courting Yuan Chunhui. When they went out on excursions, Nie typically walked ten meters ahead of Yuan. The idea of free love for a Kunming girl was even more scandalous, and this dissuaded Yuan from confiding in her mother. Yuan was from an eminent scholarly family; Yuan Chunhui’s paternal grand-uncle had been a Number One Scholar in a special examination. Her father had passed away at an early age, leaving her mother to educate three daughters. The limited means of her family meant Chunhui could only afford to graduate from junior middle school. She then taught Chinese language, math, and music at the Kunming Fifth Elementary School. Both Nie and Yuan Chunhui shared a passion for hiking and music, and both had an independent streak. As an example of her courage, Chunhui accepted Nie Er’s invitation in 1929 to perform at a party hosted by his school—an all-boys school. With the accompaniment of Nie Er and Zhang Yuhou, she sang “Three Butterflies” (San hudie). By 1930, Nie had come to a crossroads in the relationship. Peng Jikuan sought to convince her son to become engaged with Yuan Chunhui, but he refused to allow his mother to visit the Yuan family on the grounds that the “time wasn’t ripe” and that he first needed to establish his career. Peng felt this would be another lost opportunity. “Before I had thought of raising this matter of marriage with Zheng Ruoju but you had refused. She was such a fine girl! Now she has already left the province to further her studies. It’s too bad you lost that opportunity! Don’t make the same mistake now!”100 Although Nie rejected his mother’s advice, he remained conflicted. As he wrote in English in his diary after a conversation with Zhang Yuhou on a moonlit night stroll on the banks of the Cuihu lake, “I have an idea: 1. I can’t with [do without] C [Nie’s code name for Yuan Chunhui] from my ‘Thinking.’ [thoughts]

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2. I can’t with [do without] C from my ‘Loving.’ 3. If I depart from C, I can’t assure that I would not [take up] with another [girl]. 4. If I sacrify [sic] my ‘Thinking,’ I can’t satisfy C’s hope. 5. The ‘End’: I go on my ‘Thinking’ hardly.” A day later, Nie further clarified his tormented thoughts, indicating that he had become so obsessed with Chunhui that he contemplated suicide. “If I go on my ‘Thinking,’ I can’t suffer longer. On the ‘End,’ ‘Suicide.’ ”101 In reflecting about Yuan Chunhui, Nie Er confronted a very modern dilemma—a clash between personal ambition, family responsibilities, work, and love. One can clearly see his conflicted feelings. On the one hand, he was in love with her and could not remove her from his thoughts. On the other hand, Nie had lofty ambitions and wanted to leave the province to give play to his abilities and develop his own career. These contradictions were painful, and his response was to hold on to his longing and memories. The pressure from his mother to become engaged to Yuan continued, even after Nie left Kunming for Shanghai. Nie’s dilemma was at least temporarily resolved when he was forced into exile due to betrayal by an imprisoned fellow Communist Youth League member.102 Word soon reached the authorities of Nie’s radicalization—his activism and condemnation of capitalism. On April 24, 1930, three of Nie’s classmates were arrested. One week later, Li Tongwen alerted his friend Nie Xulun that he had inadvertently seen an arrest order for Nie Er lying on the desk of his father, a local judge. In July 1930, on the eve of his graduation, Nie fled by train to northern Vietnam. He then traveled by steamboat from Haiphong to Shanghai, where his brother helped him find employment at the Yunfeng shenzhuang, a shop marketing Pearl Cigarettes.103 Nie Er would never return home, but Yunnan remained an integral part of his life. As he sojourned in Shanghai, Beiping, and Tokyo, he depended on a closeknit network of friends and contacts from Yunnan. On a symbolic level, Nie sought to “return to Yunnan” by composing music with a strong regional flavor. Ultimately, his conception of a Chinese sonic nationalism would rely on melding folk tunes from his native province with those of other regions.

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CHAPTER 2

Reading Nie Er’s Diary “I COULD BE A SYMBOL FOR CHINA”

During the Maoist era, the party-state cultivated Nie Er’s public persona by

stressing his morally virtuous and altruistic idealism. Nie personified a modernday Confucian “gentleman” ( junzi) in line with Liu Shaoqi’s “Good Communist.”1 Questions of morality were central to Nie’s sojourn in Shanghai and came to the fore in the interplay between Nie’s politics and his personal life. But the official representation of Nie glosses over his internal struggles. To draw a more multidimensional portrait of the musician, one must look at family ties, friendships, love, and artistic passions. In reading Nie Er’s personal writings from the early 1930s, the critical years of his involvement with the Shanghai cinematic world and the leftist art movement, it becomes clear that he both embraced and resisted the cultural hybridity of colonial modernity. Nie writes of his loneliness upon leaving his family. He expresses doubts over whether to marry or “serve society,” and dreams of a violin career. He writes engagingly about his happiness with young female friends at Li Jinhui’s Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe, laments their failure to meet his moral expectations, and questions the political function of music. A period of intensive diary writing and much soul-searching came in the months between the summer of 1930, when Nie arrived in Shanghai, and the spring of 1932, when he witnessed the military conflict with Japan that convulsed the city. After the Manchurian Incident, Nie remarked, “These past few days I could be a symbol for China: a battle within my mind, internal contradictions, and external invasion and harassment.”2 In Nie’s mind, China’s national crisis was intertwined with his own personal struggles. These struggles involved resolving his own ambivalence towards the Shanghai modern, which he found simultaneously alluring and repulsive, balancing career ambitions with personal relationships, suppressing desires for romantic love while aspiring to be revolutionary, and questioning how music could best serve China’s national needs. 43

Nie Er used his diary in multiple ways, but predominantly as a form of selfeducation. The diary is replete with Nie’s detailed notes on violin practice, scattered usage of English words and phrases, reviews of concerts and films he attended, observations on Shanghai society, and exhortations for self-study and improvement. With its stress on everyday activities, the writing avoids embellishment. As Nie’s political ideas about art matured into a full-scale attack on the notion of the individual creative artist, he became more reticent and reluctant to dwell on the details of his personal life.3 Nie also practiced self-­censorship at the repeated urgings of the Shanghai Communist underground organization, which sought to navigate the political repression imposed by the Nationalist regime. Nie Er took it upon himself to cross out, tear up, or omit some of the most historically significant parts of the diary. Although political commentary was not absent from the diary, there was a distinct hiatus in his diary writing during 1934 after he joined the CCP. Missing are criticisms of the Nationalist government, records of his ties to the party organization, or to key party figures such as the Communist dramatist and lyric writer Tian Han, and details of his own participation in revolutionary activities. Consequently, several parts of the diary are rendered obscure or have deliberate digressions in the writing. Conversely, once he reached Japan, he felt more liberated about expressing his political views, noting that “it is vital to record the contemporary international and political situation. I have no more interest in just jotting down a daily laundry list.”4 While he was working for Bright Moon, Nie Er knew that his diary was often read by his teenage women friends, their curiosity piqued by his observations on friendship and love; I speculate that, in fact, Nie crafted his diary as a didactic primer for his impressionable audience. Quite a few entries present moral judgments contrasting improper and upright behavior, consumerism versus political action, or individualism versus the collective. Nie always seems to choose what he deemed the more honorable course of action. Given the perception of Shanghai as a “heaven built on hell,” Nie may have used these entries as proof to his family and friends, and to himself, that he had not lost his way.5 This function of Nie’s diary as a moral compass was integrated with his realist style. While in Kunming, Nie had experimented with proletarian literature. By 1932, Nie began to sketch the outlines of a Bildungsroman that would use, in his words, a “realist style” to trace his trip from Yunnan to Hunan to Guangzhou, his experiences as a soldier, and the transformation of his consciousness—casting off his “petty bourgeois illusions.” Nie confidently asserted he had sufficient material and creativity to match the writings of his fellow provincial, Ke Zhongping.6 Nie’s use of realism confirms Marston Anderson’s observation that realism in Chinese fictional writing and literary criticism of the 1920s and the 1930s deviated from its European model’s focus on art and literature as a reflection of reality by means 44

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of language and verisimilitude. European writers’ objective style to simulate realism and their aversion to autobiographical writing was likewise rejected. Instead, Chinese writers embraced realism for its transformative effect on society.7 “Chinese realists were not content with . . . simply laying bare the nitty-gritty minutiae of everyday scenes and exposing life in the raw seemed i­ nadequate—and so began to valorize the ethical impulse in their writing.”8 Nie’s interest in diary writing and the frequency with which he dealt with the subjects of “romance” and “love” suggest he was influenced by contemporary fiction, especially the writings of Ding Ling and Yu Dafu. Ding Ling’s sensational story “Miss Sophie’s Diary,” published in 1928, uses the diary form to enter the interior world of the protagonist, a young woman suffering from tuberculosis while confronting her own sexual desires, ambivalance towards the attention of two suitors, and confusion between lust and love.9 As a window onto contradictory emotions, Ding Ling’s short story may have influenced Nie’s own diary writings, which at the peak of his and China’s contradictions turn inward and delve into his dreams. Likewise, Yu Dafu’s 1921 short story “Sinking” (Chen Lun) broaches, in its author’s words, the “suffering of modern man—that is, sexual need and the clash between soul and flesh.”10 In contrast to “Miss Sophie’s Diary,” Yu Dafu relates the young loner’s sexual insecurities and alienation to China’s weakness vis-à-vis Japan.11 Of particular relevance to Nie’s diary writing is that Yu Dafu’s protagonist, a medical student in Japan, identifies his personal crisis with that of China. According to Jeannette Faurot, the protagonist feels that he “as an individual is China in miniature.”12 As a symbol of modernity and in its attention to the details of quotidian life, the diary helps us understand how Nie Er engaged with everyday modernity. In his critique of everyday life, Henri Lefebvre views activities of the everyday to involve a dialectic of presence and “absence” (the latter term signifying alienation and mystification). By rejecting the routinization and commodification of everyday life, one could become a “total person.”13 As Rob Shields explains, L’homme total constantly overcame the dialectical opposition between mind and body, between self and other, and thus overcame alienation. They had a better grasp of totality because of this unalienated outlook and the refusal of “mystifications” of bourgeois ideologies of the middle-class culture of capitalism.14 To be sure, Lefebvre’s critique focuses on conditions of life under advanced capitalism; nonetheless, Nie Er’s observations on the alienation, consumption, and tedious routinization of work in the entertainment industry suggest that everyday modernity raised similar questions for the Shanghai sojourner. And if, for Lefebvre, the means to dis-alienation was the creation of works [oeuvres] rather

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than products or commodities, this may help explain Nie Er’s own passion for music as a means to overcome alienation.

First Encounters with Shanghai’s Colonial Modernity Despite his desire to leave Kunming and fulfill his wanderlust, Nie’s first few months in Shanghai, where he worked as a clerk at the Yunfeng Shop, were marked by loneliness, a continued struggle with poverty, doubts over his future prospects, and caution in navigating the new urban environment. Nie expressed these sentiments in letters to family and friends. To Ziming, Nie Er confided, “I had tears in my eyes as I said goodbye to our beloved mother, brother and sister-in-law, and sister. They finally poured out when I reached Shanghai.”15 Separation from Yuan Chunhui, who was in poor health, exacerbated Nie’s sense of isolation and anxiety. As he related to Zhang Yuhou, Nie passed his free time walking along the banks of the Huangpu River while thinking about her. “I truly worry and miss “Sanren” [his code name for Yuan]. Her health is so frail! She is always getting sick. You must think of a way she can get some rest! You know that whenever I hear she is sick I become so anxious and my heart begins to pound violently.”16 Nie further explained that despite his job he had only eight coppers to his name after spending 20 yuan for the boat ticket to Shanghai. While the Yunfeng Shop offered room and board, no pay was distributed to Nie, at least during his first month of employment. Nonetheless, Nie remained characteristically upbeat and reassured Zhang that his upright character would shield him from the immoral climate of Shanghai. “This bustling Shanghai, a sink of iniquity, has already made a deep impression on your younger brother so please believe in him as you have in the past. He won’t go astray.”17 To Zhang Yuhou, Nie lamented how quickly he had tired of the shop’s drudgery. “By chance I run a life of keeping accounts, balancing the books. With all these vexations and trivialities, how can I lead a life of peace and comfort? . . . I’ll just muddle along for the time being!”18 Another Kunming friend tried to help him find work at Hankou, but the plan never came to fruition, frustrating him no end. As he related to Zhang Yili, “I have no way out! Balancing the books, keeping accounts, copying the books, eating my meals, mechanically puttering along!”19 Nie aspired to audition at Shanghai’s Jinan University or the National Conservatory of Music, but lack of money forestalled his plans, which he concluded were “merely a fantasy.”20 A business venture that appealed to Nie’s nationalist sentiment presented itself when his hometown friends Zhang Yuhou and Liao Bomin established the Yile (Comfort and Pleasure) Movie Theater to stimulate a domestic film industry and counter the dominance of foreign cinema.21 Nie served as a middleman, renting 46

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out movies from the Tianyi and Mingxing film companies in Shanghai and sending them to Kunming. By December 1930 he had received 100 yuan as compensation and decided to remit half the sum to his mother. With the remainder, Nie had a winter coat made for himself and bought a violin. The passing of the New Year aggravated Nie’s homesickness, but in what would become a recurring theme in his personal writings, Nie turned to language study and the violin as a means of solace. Nie enrolled at first in the Xiping School to study English and Japanese, but quickly opted out and decided to study at a Japanese language school instead. Nie’s Yunnanese patron, Zheng Yili, paid his tuition and also met with Nie twice a week to help him with his Japanese.22 Nie’s motives in studying the violin were multiple—it was a means of acquiring cosmopolitan status given the violin’s association with European culture; it was also a career path and, in his personal life, a way of meeting Yuan Chunhui’s expectations. As he detailed in his diary, “I hope to continue with my practicing . . . and then return to those ‘nice sounding’ pieces, so that the people who pin their hopes on me will not be disappointed.”23 Moreover, in a letter to his brother Ziming, Nie Er suggested that self-improvement—in proper Confucian fashion— and “treading on solid footing” would help him maintain his moral fiber despite living in “vicious” Shanghai. Retiring to his tiny loft room to study Japanese or practice violin offered some respite from the constant clamor of mah-jongg that his roommates indulged in on an almost daily basis. Showing his disdain, Nie remarked how he would find excuses to avoid playing. “I had no desire to waste my time, so no matter how much commotion they might make I was determined to focus on my Japanese studies.”24 Nie, no doubt, was both homesick and studious, but his diary entries exhibit another side of the young man, one keen on participating in Shanghai’s urban modernity as represented by its mass consumer culture and nightlife. Despite his best intentions to concentrate on his studies, distractions abounded. Nie recalls, for example, purchasing an English-language reader and eagerly sitting down to read it when these “ ‘little devils’ [children] came and disrupted me by singing those popular songs—‘Three Butterflies’ (San hudie), ‘Spring Happiness’ (Chuntian de kuaile), ‘Flower Selling Song’ (Maihuaci), ‘Wuxi Scenery,’ ‘Drizzle’ (Maomaoyu), ‘Little Sister, I Love You.’ . . . Each one led me to recall past events.”25 Growing up in Kunming, Nie had taken pleasure in singing both Li Jinhui’s children’s songs and his more commercial songs. Hearing the very same songs no doubt rekindled memories of his own youth and served as a bridge to Shanghai’s popular culture. Nie’s interest in cabaret culture led him to subscribe to the Liangyou magazine, a pictorial publication documenting the city’s pleasures, which he would first read and then send to his co-subscriber, Zhang Yuhou.26 Nie indulged himself by going to the amusement hall at the Great World and observing young couples dancing. Nie adopted a tone of critical detachment with regards to their frivolity:

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Heavily made-up young girls accompanied by their handsome and spirited young paramours sat unsteadily in the car. It looked as if they had just left the wine and dishes of the wedding banquet and were preparing to go again to the dance hall. Don’t they play the leading role in Shanghai’s nightlife?27 Curiously, these observations followed Nie’s description of a conversation with Zheng Yili, five years Nie’s senior. Nie thanked Zheng for his constant encouragement and for harboring high hopes for Nie’s future, yet Nie chided himself for frittering away his time. “I hope I can realize those dreams, but when I recall my aimless life this past half year, my unrestrained drifting spirit asked, ‘How will I ever progress?’ ”28 Nie’s self-criticism revolved around his libido and attraction to the opposite sex. As a young man on his own in Shanghai, he may have felt less inhibited by social conventions; still, he retained a sense that an interest in young girls was beneath him. In an outing to a vegetable market, for instance, Nie indulged for the first time in the practice of “chasing a white rabbit” and later commented on his internal contradictions. He dismisses his actions as meaningless and inexplicable, but concedes the powerful magnetism of the “rabbit”—the young woman. For whatever reason, I did something today I had never done before. Chasing the little white rabbit was the most banal thing to do, and when I was a student I would never have participated or tried this most common weekly entertainment. . . . Although that rabbit didn’t represent any certain person, her features and special dress were very stimulating. At first sight, I couldn’t help but have a strong impression.29 By March 1931, Nie had begun revisiting the need for female companionship, juxtaposing his desires with an aimless life. Suffering from severe headaches and anxiety, Nie ascribed his illness to seasonal change. I believe the coming of spring, the blossoming of flowers and dancing of butterflies have only aggravated my anxieties. Everything assumes a tender smile to curry favor and be praised for the bright and beautiful spring light. From this they inspire and bring joy, especially to those feeling lonely and starved for sex. To aimlessly run the streets is such a bitter experience!30 Although Nie sought to restrain himself and apply himself to his studies, his interest in Shanghai modernity, especially its visual culture, was overwhelming. Nie’s interest in film—a key element of Shanghai modernity—was evident in his purchase of movie star photographs and his frequent movie outings, even forgoing meals to catch the latest show. As Andrew Jones has shown in his study, the 48

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emergence of the phonograph and jazz in Shanghai was part of a contemporary global phenomenon, suggesting that the technologies of modernity in China did not lag behind those of the West. Popular Pre-Code Hollywood films were shown almost contemporaneously in Shanghai. Nie described Just Imagine, David Butler’s 1930 science fiction musical comedy starring Maureen O’Sullivan and El Brendel, as a “must see” and on opening day rushed to the Carlton Hotel and then the Grand Cinema, only to discover the film was sold out.31 When Nie did go to the movies, anticipating his future practice of publishing film reviews, he would bring home the film programs and add critical comments in his diary. After seeing All Quiet on the Western Front, Nie highlighted its antiwar message and the emotional impact of the sounds that the cutting-edge technology produced. The technique and expressivity of the sound film All Quiet on the Western Front far surpassed that of other films and it easily moved the audience. But the lasting impressions for me were the gunshots, artillery sounds, the cries of soldiers charging, and the flesh and blood of military combat. In short the viewer’s greatest takeaway is the knowledge of the soldier’s suffering, that the death of a soldier is as easy as killing chicken, that war is evil and brutal.32 If Nie was receptive to film and photography (he had recently acquired a used Browning camera), he sought to keep at arm’s length everyday modernity as defined by mass consumption and urbanization. Nie’s description of street scenes on November 7, 1930, is representative of the allure of “Shanghai modern”—the electric trams, neon lights, whizzing cars, bustling streets—but these phenomena are merely the backdrop to Nie’s ultimate goal: participating in a “flying meeting” ( feixing jihui) to commemorate the anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Participants in these demonstrations “would arrive at the spot from separate directions; upon receiving a signal, they would suddenly and quickly distribute pamphlets, shout slogans, and give speeches.”33 Nie notes his excitement upon seeing the date “November 7” in Shenbao (Shanghai news), which was “like the joy and excitement of watching a pilot land his plane after a flight around the world.” Venturing out that evening to participate in the demonstration, Nie describes his determination to reach his destination while passing by colonial landmarks, such as the racetrack and the custom house on the Bund, and ignoring the sounds of an Odeon recording and the glitter of foreign products and advertisements on the roof of Nanjing Road’s New World Amusement Center. The adrenaline rush caused by his anticipation is palpable, but, to his bitter disappointment, the demonstration never took place. “The raging fires of my excitement continued to kindle as I went over to North Sichuan

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Road. Ah! Chinese and foreign police were hiding under cover. The rays from those devils’ eyes were cast all around them.”34 Details on his political activities during Nie’s first few months in Shanghai are absent from his personal writings, but Chinese biographers indicate that through the introduction of Zheng Yili he joined the Shanghai Anti-Imperialist Great Harmony Alliance (Fandi Datongmeng), a progressive mass organization led by the Communist Pan Hannian in Shanghai. The Shanghai organization was a local chapter of the international organization founded on August 1, 1929, in Brussels by such luminaries as Henri Barbusse, Romain Rolland, Maxim Gorky, and Song Qingling.35 Nie’s anti-imperialist sentiment manifested itself in conflict-ridden episodes that suggested the uneasy relationship between colonial settlers and Chinese. Adjacent to the Yunfeng Shop was a Western-style home whose residents often relied on Nie Er’s language skills to interpret. One evening while studying Japanese, Nie heard an English couple arguing and a woman’s screams. Nie intervened to separate the couple, only to be accused of having made advances on the woman. Englishman: “Wretch! What were you doing with my woman?” While he was speaking he gestured. “You are [sic] very good man. You are Chinese. I’m going to kill you!” Nie Er: “Why you beat her?” “What? What? . . . You wretch! You were with her, my wife, that’s no good! Never come to my room again!”  . . . The matter was so petty I don’t know how it affected my mood, but I ate only a third of my dinner and even now I’m still furious! What a joke! His son was about my age and his wife was a forty or fifty-year old. Who would believe such a story?!36 Nie, like many Chinese who disdained the stereotypical “marauding foreigners,” concluded that the Englishman was a “foreign thug.” Later, Nie could barely conceal his delight when he witnessed a belligerent foreigner being beaten up on a tram, which Nie gleefully admitted that he had instigated without even lifting a hand. “Afterwards I was as happy as when consuming a cool drink on a hot summer day.”37 Despite the allure of the Shanghai modern and its mass consumerism, Nie retained his working-class sympathies. This extended to struggling immigrants. Observing his Turkish neighbors, a family of three who had fallen on hard times and had been reduced to selling their clothes, Nie remarked how heartbroken he 50

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felt.38 While describing everyday life in the city, Nie was quick to spot its internal contradictions. He punctuates his description of the frenetic lifestyle with an eye to its dangers. “The bustling Yingda Road is crowded with people wearing large coats, capes, single lined shirts. The cars rush forward and the trams clatter along. . . . If one isn’t careful at the intersection of Zhejiang Road, one will get hit by the cars.”39 Nie Er developed a keen eye for Shanghai’s working people. Waking up at the break of dawn, Nie would walk the streets and observe working people: “I got up early; at 6:00 the lights had not yet been put out before daybreak. The streets were lined with workers: men, women, the old and young.”40 One week later, he described a similar scene: I got up even earlier at 4:00. In early morning Shanghai one can see everything and there’s nothing like it. The rickshaw pullers, police, peddlers selling boiled water, workers scrubbing night soil pails, burning incense sticks. I only saw one laborer carrying mess tins. The color of the sky like fish maw reminded me of an evening of warming by the fire, the wind, the western jail’s foreign policeman on duty, pushing of carts, small red lights, street repair, cloths arranged alongside the streets, chimney stacks (those of boats and factories), cars, Western style villas.41 Once Nie began composing mass songs, these observations would inform his subject matter and guide his efforts to incorporate working people’s daily rhythms into his songs. Nie Er’s own livelihood was placed in jeopardy when the Yunfeng Shop went out of business in late March 1931. Nie compared the shocking news to a “clap of thunder on a bright sunny day.”42 But Nie must have had some forewarning since, a month prior, he had already documented some of the economic challenges facing Yunfeng. Remittances were sent from the main Kunming shop to its branch shop in Shanghai once Nie and his fellow shop clerks had packaged and shipped Pearl Cigarettes (produced by the Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company) to Yunnan. But other popular Yunnanese products such as Xuanwei Ham and “Huzhangjun” [Tiger palm mushrooms] had little appeal in Shanghai. As Nie observed, “It’s easy to buy but difficult to sell goods.”43 Given its limited market share, the Yunfeng Shop had resorted to tax evasion and receiving kickbacks from the post office on commercial taxes. Heavy fines after an investigation in Kunming led to the shop folding. The closure led Nie to ponder whether he should return to Kunming or look for another job. By March 27, Nie was still at a crossroads and even toyed with the idea of enlisting in a military academy in Nanjing.44 Fortuitously, the following day Nie noticed an advertisement in Shenbao seeking auditions for the popular songwriter Li Jinhui. In 1931, Lianhua (United China) Productions

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integrated Li’s Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe (and renamed it the Lianhua Song and Dance Group) to have a ready supply of professionally trained singers, instrumentalists, and actors for the emergent sound cinema.45 Nie quickly registered and on April 1 arrived at Li Jinhui’s office. Nie recalled his audition with mixed feelings, both flustered by his inability to play a C major scale on the violin and taking heart that Li had offered him needed encouragement: “He said I had promise.”46 Within two weeks, Nie would be called back for a second audition, and by April 22, he had been accepted as a student into the song and dance school, thus marking his formal entry into the entertainment business. Regardless of his ambivalence towards the glitz and glamour of the Shanghai modern, Nie Er would now fully engage with its trappings, since Lianhua, in collaboration with Li Jinhui, aspired to create a Hollywood-style studio system. Nie’s misgivings about the decadence of cabaret culture may have been tempered by Lianhua’s promotion of a patriotic cinema and morally upright female stars, whom it depicted as “soldiers serving the nation.”47 Studio publicity for “good girls” (talented trained professionals on screen and virtuous off screen) shaped the 1930s

Nie Er with members of the Lianhua song and dance ensemble class in 1931. From the left, Li Lili, Li Jinguang, Nie Er, Wang Renmei, Li Mingjian, Chen Qing, and Yu Zhile. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum. 52

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discourse on actresses, which may have influenced Nie’s own attitude towards the film starlets.48

Nie Er’s Tutelage under Li Jinhui Nie’s association with Li Jinhui was blemished by Nie’s accusations a year later against the popular music director and composer of a Sinified jazz that, by the mid-1930s, was labeled “yellow” or “pornographic” (huangse yinyue) music.49 Perhaps because of Li’s vilification, the musicologist Wang Yuhe suggests Nie Er’s experience in the troupe caused him to lose his moral bearings. “The job advanced Nie’s musical skills in violin and composition and opened up his artistic vistas, but the environment of the song and dance troupe created inner turmoil for Nie Er because for a time he became consumed with dreams of individual fame.”50 Such an analysis downplays affinities between the two artists, especially their patriotic fervor and their faith in music’s transformative powers. Since the May Fourth Movement, Li had been a leading proponent of Mandarin Chinese to offset the plethora of regional dialects and serve as a unifying force for China’s nationalist project. Besides working for a time as director of the standard Chinese language department associated with the Shanghai Zhonghua shuju press, Li had composed a dozen children’s operas, which combined song, dance, and dialogue and were to be sung in Mandarin using simple, direct language. The operas did not broach contemporary politics, but were “imbued with the May 4th spirit of humanist enlightenment, antifeudalism, and nationalism.”51 Nie had grown up singing many of Li’s most popular songs with his friends in Kunming. His respect for Li was enhanced when the latter became his mentor; Li provided Nie with opportunities as a violinist and taught him phonetics and the rudiments of song composition. He also stressed to Nie the importance of merging the inherent tonality of the Chinese language with rhythm and melody. On a personal level, Li Jinhui and his younger brother, Li Jinguang, aka Seventh Elder, a manager and composer at Bright Moon, befriended Nie Er and often invited him to their home to chat and listen to recordings. Nie noted, for instance, visiting Li Jinhui on Christmas Day, 1931, for three hours and talking with him “to my heart’s content.”52 The vilification of Li Jinhui, which took place after Nie Er’s death in 1935, should not be read back in time to negate Nie’s admiration for his teacher and the strong influence Li Jinhui had on Nie’s songwriting. Although Wang Yuhe is correct in noting Nie’s ambivalence about working at Bright Moon, his disillusionment with Li and the work environment of the ensemble was a gradual process. A key element in his eventual divorce from the ensemble was the contradictory feelings that began to form over time as he tried to remain loyal to

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Yuan Chunhui but found himself developing feelings for the young women in the entourage.

Love in Shanghai Despite his best efforts to avoid romantic entanglements, Nie’s relationships with female friends and the topic of love permeated his life in Shanghai. Judging from his diary entries, not a day would pass without some mention of the word “love,” a topic of endless commentary. As Nie would admit, “There is never enough time to discuss the problem of love (lian’ai).”53 Nonetheless, Nie’s own rectitude made him the object of curiosity and derision. The emergent movie starlet Hu Die (Butterfly Wu), for instance, taunted him when Nie passed her on his way to post a letter to Yuan Chunhui. “H [Hu Die] wanted me to let her read my letter. . . . ‘Eh, for your lover?’ She laughed as she ran up the stairs. She seemed to know all my secrets.”54 Nie’s fellow musician and roommate, the cellist Zhang Shaofu, was keen to have Nie lend an ear in recounting all of his jilted loves.55 When they went to attend Jascha Heifetz’s recital, Zhang proceeded to interrogate Nie on his life story. I talked to him about my life from the time my father passed away to the present day, already quite a long lecture. That wasn’t what he had in mind; he wanted me to talk about my “love life.” . . . I mentioned in general terms the course of our pure and short love and I also asked him if he had experienced this rather innocent love life? He only said smiling, “No, as you said, it’s a bit too much effort!”56 Nie’s own interest in the subject is reflected in his rereading of Alexandra Kollontai’s stories, published in 1928 as Paths of Love, which he had read two years before. Nie noted that his reading “sparked even more sympathy towards her [Kollontai] than before.”57 He probably did not endorse her radical views on sexuality, but judging from Nie’s commentary on the mistreatment of women by some of the married men in Li Jinhui’s ensemble, he likely agreed with her view that bourgeois notions of marriage and family were pillars of oppression and that equality in relationships was necessary.58 Kollontai supported a new morality of the working class in which candor, sympathy, and altruism would be extended to the collective rather than directed to one single person. “The task of proletarian ideology is not to banish Eros from the social community, but only to rearm its quiver with the arrows of a new structure, to nurture the feeling of love between the sexes in the spirit of the greatest force, comradely solidarity.”59 This new value may have influenced Nie’s decision to sacrifice his love for Yuan Chunhui for the 54

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needs of society. Certainly, within several months Nie, in a letter to a Yunnanese female friend, reiterated the view that he had “expressed very early on” that “love cannot be monopolized” and restricted to one person.60 In his opinion, men became undisciplined when they fell in love. After seeing his friend, the movie star Jin Yan, throw a drunken fit, Nie remarked, “I just can’t understand how these stupid men go crazy about women and become drunk like this.”61 Another drunken rage by his colleague Yan Li led Nie to conclude, “Drinking and acting crazy is so low class. I noticed that everyone eating and drinking in a fit were doing it for the women. Damn, these fools!”62 For the aspiring artist, lack of discipline was a pitfall to be avoided; thus, Nie Er constantly exhorted himself to rise early, practice his violin, and keep his diary to maintain a rigorous work ethic. Not surprisingly, Nie concluded that his colleagues all served as negative role models. “When I hear about other people’s troubles regarding love and marriage I can only rejoice about my own situation. . . . Everything I witness serves as reference material for myself.”63 While working at Bright Moon between April 1931 and July 1932, Nie interacted on a daily basis with many of the “sing-song girls” and became close friends in particular with the starlet Wang Renmei, the younger sister of his colleague and violin teacher, Wang Renyi. Both Wang Renmei and Nie maintained a platonic relationship, suggested by their appellations of “dry sister” and “dry brother.”64 Perhaps out of loyalty to Yuan Chunhui and to keep romance at a distance, Nie wrote most often about his love for the teenage girls living on the third floor

The actress and singer Wang Renmei inscribed her photo “To my younger brother to keep, Renmei, April 30, 1932.” Wang’s sensuous pose with a rose is probably an allusion to Sun Yu’s film, Wild Rose, in which she made her cinematic debut in 1932. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

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of the dormitory used by the training school. These were thirteen- to sixteenyear-old actresses, singers, and dancers being trained to perform for Lianhua Film Company productions. Somewhat of a loner, Nie notes in his diary how he was often left alone in the building on Sundays or on paydays when everyone else would rush out to spend their money. Staying in may also have been Nie’s only option, since he lacked any spending money. Yet, homesick for his beloved Yunnan, Nie welcomed the diversions and happiness he found in playing with his younger friends. Nie recalled how one Sunday when he was the only boy left in the building, he entertained the three girls, Xiao Bai, Xiao Chen, and Xiao Yang, with his storytelling and “ear power,” referring to his ability to twitch his large, jutting ears. “We played together to my heart’s content.”65 In his mind, the girls brought welcome relief from his daily routine, “which always transpires in a mechanical fashion.”66 Nie saw the three girls as innocent children, shielding him from what he increasingly viewed as the sordid environment of the entertainment business. Nie explained his love for the girls in the following manner: “I like to play with children, that’s my character. I love children even more than if they were my lover because they are pure, innocent and free from hypocrisy in their words or actions. They are the most beloved people in the world!”67 At other times, Nie bemoaned the children’s loss of innocence and felt that it was his role to protect them from the decadent environment of the song and dance world and the risk of business failure. “All the bad habits involving pride, selfdeception, deceit, and mischief have taken root in the [body] cells of these innocent pure children. I can feel the danger facing them. I can feel the danger on behalf of the song and dance ensemble leaders. I suspect they will disband and crumble.”68 Nie articulated the same worries of lost innocence when he viewed an older colleague, a certain “Mr. Hei” (an overseas Chinese from Southeast Asia named “black” for his darker complexion), pursuing the young performer Guo Ding. “[T]hat lively child will become corrupted under the attraction of that evil force! . . . Guo, I feel sorry for you! You will soon lose your innocence unless you awaken.”69 Nie disapproved of such liaisons, and castigated the movie industry for lowering standards and facilitating moral depravity. Nie’s jaded view of the entertainment business can be gauged in his comments about Shi Dongshan’s film Twin Stars of the Silver Screen (Yinhan shuangxing), starring Jin Yan, for which Nie’s ensemble had recorded song interludes. Even Jin Yan with 7–8 years at Nanguo [Southern Drama Society] is still a second-rate star. He had some useless lines. The more I think about it the more laughable the matter is. . . . These are “movie stars” because of their stupid connections. . . . They keep making mistakes even for the most elementary scenes.70 56

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Nie also took offense that Chinese films were beginning to copy foreign films in using scenes depicting actors kissing, which he viewed as explicitly erotic. “Do we need to imitate this? The kiss in national films is most despicable.”71 Nie tried to detach himself from this corrupt environment, but he became tormented about his young friend Xiao Bai, with whom he had developed an emotional bond if not infatuation. Although she is a twelve-year-old child, she can make me happy, vexed, crazy with a flash of her expressions. She once ardently loved me (the word love has a different meaning here than the adult meaning) just as she now loves Jin Yan. But at that time, I didn’t feel it, and now she “ignores” me, it is over. She is a child! A child! I know. I deeply understand! But how can she occupy my heart?! In rational terms, I don’t dare have the slightest wild ambitions. What does she understand? . . . Her pure innocence makes her detestable but also lovable!72 Although Nie tries to convince himself that he couldn’t possibly love Xiao Bai, it’s clear that he was jealous of Jin Yan, whom he saw the next day drinking beer with Xiao Bai. “He smiled smugly. I hate it! What’s so glorious about this?! He likes to show off his skills and seeks the limelight, but still has no ability.”73 Nie became further riled when he accepted an invitation by Xiao Bai and her roommates to visit their room and noticed photographs of movie stars like Jin Yan but none of himself. “I couldn’t stand looking at all the photos that Xiao Bai had hung. In her heart she had no place for her love, the ‘doctor of philosophy’ [a reference to himself, Nie ‘Boshi’].”74 By contrast, Nie kept several photographs of his friends and actresses—Xiao Bai, Wang Renmei, and Li Lili.

Self-portrait of Bai Lizhu inscribed “For Four Ears to remember me.” Appealing to modern tastes and fitting the norm for sing-song girls, Bai sports a bob haircut and fringe and wears a Western-style jacket and white shirt with cravat. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

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Keeping to the Straight and Narrow In keeping with his practice while employed at the Yunfeng Shop, Nie sought solace and tried to counter the corrupting influence of his new environment through a disciplined program of self-study and ideological training. Several months after attending the song and dance class, Nie bemoaned how he was frittering away his life and falling behind in his studies. As he put it, “I’ve muddled through this troupe for three months now. Recalling these three months now that I have ignored and abandoned my diary is truly a shame.” 75 One solution was to be diligent in keeping his diary. “I hope to persevere going forward and there’s no lack of material.” A week later, a visit to the home of his patron, Zheng Yili led Nie to question his habits. “When I saw the books on Yusheng’s shelves, my heart began pounding and I felt that I had regressed in my reading habits. Will I only lead a careless and lazy lifestyle?76 Self-consciously adopting a new identity and a new worldview (described by Nie in faulty English as “Passed Nie Shou-Sin was not Niel [Nie Er] of this time”), Nie concluded that he needed a “firm philosophical foundation” and “proper ideological training. . . . For a time I had received ample training, but now find myself starved. On account of being hard up my life has no central idea, and I frequently let my emotions arbitrate events that I should let reason dictate. This is quite dangerous.” 77 Borrowing several books from Zheng Yili, the likes of Engels’s Anti-Dühring and How to Listen to Music (Yinyue de tingfa), Nie set out to remedy his deficiency.78 Charting out a study plan also became a means for Nie Er to organize his time and goals. When he noticed he had trouble reading an English-language music program, he determined to subscribe to the English weekly and find English books to read. He encouraged himself thus: “Tomorrow I will rise early and work hard! Practical position exercises [for the violin] and reading English.” A New Year resolution that he wrote to Chunhui included reading more English-language books and social science books. He ended the New Year exhorting himself to “tirelessly continue to strive hard and run forwards!”79 Just as he had studied at the Yunfeng Shop to keep to the straight and narrow, Nie maintained that practicing the violin was a virtuous activity. He compared his musician classmates with a couple indulging in a tryst in one of the classrooms. “If we acted like them how could we be industrious?! It’s still best to be a bit proper, and the more basic exercises one plays the more merits one will accrue.”80 Rising early to practice violin fostered self-discipline but also happiness. As Nie explained, “It wasn’t yet 6:00 and I naturally awoke. I didn’t care if they were in the midst of their sweet dreams. I began playing the violin to my heart’s content. After the first sound they had such nice expressions in their nests.”81 Early-­ 58

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morning practicing became a routine for Nie: “I rose at 6:00 according to schedule. Every day I’m the first to get up while they listen to my ‘elegy’ in their sweet dreams.”82 The violin was Nie’s obsession for a variety of reasons. Upon his joining Li Jinhui’s ensemble, the violin became his primary source of income; he was placed in a small band that accompanied singers and recorded film music. Moreover, the instrument for Nie symbolized social status, cosmopolitan refinement, and a source of pride and joy. A diary entry detailing Nie’s practice of basic exercises and his attention to fingerings and bowings for difficult Chinese pieces indicates that he took great satisfaction in his work, but it also came at a cost, since he was perceived as aloof. As he lamented, “I hadn’t thought that some people would wildly speculate on what I was doing and give me strange terrifying looks.”83

Violin Dreams Without formal instruction, it is doubtful that Nie made much progress on the violin while living in Yunnan. There, the violin symbolized, above all, his interests in Western culture; it was in Shanghai that Nie developed a real passion for the instrument. Upon joining Bright Moon, Nie was instructed by a more experienced member of the troupe, Wang Renyi. (Nie affectionately called Wang his “little teacher” because they were separated in age by only a few months and because of Wang’s youthful appearance.) According to Wang Renyi, when Nie joined Bright Moon he could not read staff notation and knew even less about violin fingering or bowing.84 After reading Feng Zikai’s Introduction to Music (Yinyue rumen), Nie became despondent upon learning how difficult the violin was and realizing that making good music would require systematic training.85 Despite this slow beginning, Nie more than compensated through his determination and love of the instrument. “The violin naturally liberates people from worry. When I performed “Dream” [Schumann’s Träumerei], although my fingers hurt and I lacked [proper] bowings and fingerings, I was so happy. If there is no disturbance around me, I can forgo eating or sleeping and keep practicing whether it’s night or day.”86 Wang, his roommate at the time, recounts that Nie coped with their cramped conditions and blocked out any distraction by setting aside a tiny corner near the door as his “music school.” Under Wang’s guidance, during 1931 Nie morphed from a self-taught amateur violinist to an aspiring professional. His repertoire changed from adaptations of Chinese pieces (his favorites included “Su Wu the Shepherd” and “Zhaojun hefan”) to standard classic Western repertoire such as Dvořák’s Humoresque. Both the Träumerei and the Humoresque were difficult pieces to play well. No surprise, then, that Nie recounts a feeling of accomplishment in his persistence and rapid progress.

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I couldn’t help but feel that my progress in violin was extremely rapid. Several times in the past I had despaired and thought to give it up and take up another instrument. But now I realize that this difficulty was only temporary, that tangible progress is possible by trying one’s utmost and tempering oneself by confronting challenges. I no longer hesitated about studying violin and this was yet another sign of progress. But progress is relative; one shouldn’t feel proud or smug.87 Nonetheless, several months of lessons with Wang Renyi made Nie confident enough to declare, “I suspect that in five years’ time I will be far ahead of him. I’m becoming optimistic about my future.”88 Nie’s progress was rewarded; within a year, Li Jinhui selected him as first violinist in the Bright Moon ensemble. Although no recording exists of Nie’s violin performances, his repertoire suggests that he achieved a relatively high degree of proficiency. His teachers assigned him a steady diet of scales and études from Kayser, Schradieck, Mazas, and Kreutzer. Upon hearing the concertmaster Arrigo Foa of the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra perform the Polish virtuoso Henryk Wieniawski’s Souvenir de Moscou, Nie picked up the score the following day from Wang Renyi and was able to “play quite a bit”—no small feat.89 Nie’s growing mastery of the violin translated, too, into a greater appreciation of the violin recitals he attended. Nie pawned clothes to afford a ticket to hear his idol, Jascha Heifetz, whom he praised as “the world’s greatest violinist.” When Nie reached the violin shop to buy a ticket, he stared with rapt attention at Heifetz’s portrait. “I worshipped him, loved him. An indescribable flame burned in my heart. I stood there for ages. I must work hard!”90 Upon hearing the virtuoso perform Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” sonata, Nie felt that “the surging emotions were magnificent. It was an eye opener to see such supreme skill.”91 A year later, after hearing Efrem Zimbalist perform in Beiping, Nie noted somewhat disparagingly that “his posture was not as proper as Heifetz’s, but I was still very satisfied listening to him.”92 To a certain extent practicing, performing, and listening to music served as a spiritual oasis for Nie Er. “Today I listened to many records of violin solo, since listening lets me forget everything.”93 By “everything,” Nie refers to an annoying meeting convened by the Lianhua Studio in reaction to the Manchurian Incident. The meeting sought to establish an Anti-Japanese National Salvation Troupe in a show of solidarity with the Resistance. Weighty political matters, however, soon degenerated into petty squabbles. “Some people had no idea of meeting decorum; some planned to use the meeting to get some laughs from the girls and they expressed the most senseless arguments; how can this kind of serious meeting degenerate into these romantic pursuits?”94 The sheer pleasure of making music, whether rehearsing, practicing violin, or learning piano, is evident in many of his diary entries. “Today can be consid60

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ered my pure violin life. We played the melodies by merging the two ensembles with pretty good results. . . . I was never happier, and that day I played two pieces (the Dvořák Humoresque and Franz Drdla’s Souvenir).”95 Nie’s usage of the term “pure” (chuncui) suggests a total commitment to music making and that Nie imparted a moral dimension to the violin. Other references to the violin indicate music making was an emotional outlet. The violin was a partner in sorrow and in happiness. “I burst out crying when I played Humoresque.”96 “I warmed up on basic exercises and played the violin with great joy.” Nie, who resumed piano practice after having taken a few lessons with Mr. Bernie in Kunming, recalls feeling similar satisfaction on the keyboard. “After eating dinner I monopolized the piano for the next four hours. I practiced some forty pages of Bai’e [Ferdinand Beyer’s Elementary Instruction Book for the Piano]. I was so happy I couldn’t stop from letting out a big laugh.”97 Nie also took pride in his work for the ensemble under Li Jinhui. A memorable concert that enabled Nie to merge his political ideals with his artistry had performed to a sold-out audience of two thousand people at the Huangjin Theater to raise money for the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Troupe. Nie took delight in recounting how “[y]our humble servant was a bit in the limelight on the violin”98 and how he was congratulated by female admirers. “When they saw me they clapped and congratulated me saying how well I played the violin.”99 Nie also enjoyed the camaraderie and socializing associated with performances. He recalled with enthusiasm a tour to Nanjing when the troupe recorded selections from Wagner’s opera Martha at the Central University party branch broadcasting station, and later relaxed, drinking wine and chatting with Li Jinhui.100 Despite his moralizing tone when it came to alcohol consumption, Nie enjoyed playing the occasional drinking game of huaquan (finger guessing game). After a week of performances, the World Theater invited the musicians to a Si­chuan­­ese restaurant, where they were feted in the hope that they would extend their performances for another five days. Suffering from a hangover the following day, Nie and two of his fellow instrumentalists took rickshaws to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial, an episode recounted in irreverent style: “I slept for two thirds of the way. What a joke! We were all drunk but none of us recognized so. We stumbled up to the top of the mountain. Your humble servant performed the rituals and brother Yang read the Premier’s last testament.”101 For all these lighter moments, however, Nie realized that the entertainment business was fiercely exploitative of its musicians. After his first performance with the ensemble, Nie complained about the inadequate rehearsal time, fatigue, torrid heat, and measly pay despite three performances a day. This horrid lifestyle resembles the conditions of shirtless workers whose sweat drips while toiling alongside steaming hot machines. At least their

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wages are fixed, and if they carefully operate a machine for all those hours of work, they can earn a “just” wage. But what about us? We toil with body and soul and sit through eight hours, but we’re paid a pittance, which is further cut by discount tickets! For four days [of performances] we received six dollars, [reflecting] the capitalist’s meticulous exploitation!102 Nie compared musicians to a proletariat stripped of human dignity. He lamented the mistreatment of musicians after his final tour to Wuhan in May 1932. I’ve endured living sixteen days like a beast of burden, but if we had continued performing I fear one of us would have died. Yesterday Jiazi fainted and collapsed. The doctor told her not to go on stage today and let someone else fill in, but the replacement is also terribly sick. Each day she consumes a dozen pots of herbal medicine and her face is ashen white.103 Poor salary and benefits and limited opportunity to advance his music studies had driven Wang Renyi to Beiping, where he hoped to convalesce from TB and continue to study the violin. Without his “little teacher,” Nie became determined to find a violin instructor even if it would leave him penniless.104 True to his word, Nie found a Russian instructor, Josef Podushka. But the price was high, in terms

Shanghai Municipal Orchestra violinist Josef Podushka, who inscribes the photo “To my dear Pupil Georg Njal from his teacher Josef Podushka Shanghai April 1934.” Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum. 62

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of both Nie’s wallet and his sense of dignity. Unable to afford the lessons on his monthly salary, Nie pawned his winter coat and then took the ignominious step of asking management to help him pay for the lessons. Nie recalled his request with shame: “Today I did something that I usually find repugnant—I went to beg the capitalist for pity, and I clearly saw his iron cast face.”105 Fortunately, Nie received a monthly stipend from the company and continued his lessons. But over the course of that fall and winter he became restless and annoyed with the music ensemble’s lack of commitment. In mid-October he lamented, “Our evening rehearsal was just ‘sloppy work’ lacking any energy. Aside from the three of us in the ensemble (Nie Er, Zhang Shaofu on cello and his younger brother Zhang Xian on flute) it’s always pretty bad.”106 Six weeks later he complained about a recording session at the Pathé studio. “Everything was done perfunctorily. The tunes were lackadaisical, the accompaniment for singing also mediocre. I returned [home] at midnight but there were still two [wax] disks to record, how annoying.”107 With the New Year, Nie’s interest in the rehearsals seemed only to flag. “I procrastinated going to rehearsal as I had trouble persevering. It wasn’t like the past when I was energetic. It seems everyone has become sick with lethargy.”108 Part of Nie’s discontent may have derived from the Sinified jazz style that Li Jinhui was pioneering. Nie’s few references to jazz indicate a deep aversion to the genre and to the dance halls, which he “normally despised.”109 Invited to perform selections from Li Jinhui’s “Spring Happiness” (Chuntian de kuaile) for Li Jinguang, Nie was dismayed when he was instructed to sway while playing. “Ugh! He truly is an out and out jazz man, but how can I do that here?!”110 And on Christmas day, Nie abruptly left a dance party hosted by the Li brothers when he heard jazz being played, recalling later, “I hate this baffling jazz.”111 His dwindling interest in the music environment at Bright Moon coincided with his desire to audition for the National Conservatory, where the pedagogy focused on Western classical music. In truth, the very day Nie started work at Bright Moon and Lianhua, he declared his commitment to the film company conditional on his own artistic progress.112 An opportunity arose for Nie to take a training course at the National Conservatory after Li Jinhui contacted its director, Xiao Youmei, to see if he would listen to the ensemble’s rehearsal in the hope that Xiao could provide free tuition. Xiao proposed a special class for the troupe members but set tuition at 60 yuan per person each semester, effectively barring them from the conservatory. (Nie’s monthly salary at the time was 20 yuan, and he was constantly in debt.) Nie was crushed. As he noted, “I don’t know why but I was dejected. I took up the bamboo flute and played “Spring Morning Song” (Chunzhaoqu) and “Old Place” (Jiudi). Once the tears started flowing I didn’t have the courage to keep playing.”113 Two months later, Nie began studying music theory and harmony and planned

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to audition at the conservatory.114 By January 22, after another listless rehearsal, he longed for an improved station in life that he thought the conservatory could ensure. Even the possibility that his entourage might embark on a performance tour in Southeast Asia did not deter Nie Er from his plans. “If I really could go, I would have to stop my studies and they unavoidably would be affected. Thinking about this point, I’d rather not go.”115

Wartime Nightmares Had Nie joined the conservatory, he probably would have pursued his violin dreams and his life course would have changed. Within weeks of Xiao Youmei’s offer, though, the Manchurian Incident erupted, and on January 28, 1932, the Japanese navy began bombarding Shanghai, ostensibly to crush the student movement protesting Japan’s occupation of Manchuria. The national crisis forced a new reality on Nie. He questioned the role of art. He searched his soul about the relationship between Shanghai’s cosmopolitan musical culture and the particular needs of China’s revolution. If European concert music was “just a toy of the leisure class,” Nie concluded, it was a “dead end” road to pursue the arduous study of the violin.116 The process by which Nie rejected his beloved violin and the commercial world of his employer, the Lianhua Film Company, was a lengthy one. As we have seen, his struggle to maintain a sense of personal rectitude was always a powerful force in his life. It had led him to question his tenure at Lianhua and would lead to his July 1932 rupture with Li Jinhui. Conflict with Japan became the catalyst that pushed him to embrace revolutionary art and reject classical music. In contrast to his colleagues who viewed Japan’s invasion of China as a national affair, Nie interpreted the incident as the first salvo of a global conflict that the international order was complicit in permitting. “When we were eating at the company everyone talked about national affairs. Their discussion was always based on the concept of statism (guojiazhuyi) without recognizing that this is the fuse that will inevitably spark the Second World War. . . . It’s rubbish to pin our hopes for a resolution on the League of Nations!”117 Nie excoriated Shenbao for “deceiving the people” when it explained the Japanese Guandong army’s occupation of Mukden (Shenyang) as simply a “conflict instigated by lower level military officers; the Japanese government had no enmity regarding China.” “Bullshit!” Nie exclaimed.118 He also criticized a faction within the Nationalist government for toadying up to a Japanese general, and he condemned the League of Nations for its pose of neutrality.

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The “League of Nations” is full of shit when it remarks: “Don’t aggravate Sino-Japanese state of affairs” and “We hope that both sides withdraw their troops.” Damn it! What kind of talk is this? Our territory has been occupied and Chinese soldiers have yielded step by step, so how can the so-called mutual withdrawal take place at the same time?119 The Shanghai War of 1932 had an even more visceral effect on Nie. He recounts in great detail a terrifying panorama of aerial warfare, the sounds of gunfire and artillery shells booming through the night, street warfare, the bombardment of residential areas, and the panicked state of urban refugees.120 Nie and his colleagues ventured out to North Sichuan Road to encounter a “frightening scene.” Similar to his observations of the movie All Quiet on the Western Front, Nie underscored the sonic dimensions of warfare. Fighter planes were circling the skies and the whirring sounds filled our ears. Cars, rickshaws and small carts helping people move filled the streets. As soon as one looked, one knew they were fleeing the Chinese district for the foreign concessions. Black smoke emerged from more than three or four

On February 11, 1932, during the Battle of Shanghai, Nie Er photographed Japanese gunboats docked at the Huangpu River port. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.



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Nie Er stands in front of artillery in the Zhabei district, where fighting was heaviest during the Battle of Shanghai. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

burning homes. When we reached North Sichuan Road, it was terrifying. Gun shots kept sounding on and off.121 The following day, Nie’s dreams of the violin were transformed into nightmares. He dreamt he was alone on a small steamship plying the Huangpu River when a guard on board a Japanese ship shot him. “My middle finger in my left hand felt extremely painful; I could see that the bullet had gone through the first joint and that there was a small hole, blood was flowing. After I disembarked the Japanese pursued me. . . . I only feared that I would never be able to play again the violin.”122 Two days later, Nie had a nightmare in which he found his ­infatuation— Xiao Bai—shot dead among a pile of workers’ corpses laid out on the street. The macabre scene ends with Xiao Bai’s fellow actresses imploring Nie Er to launch a protest against Lianhua, since Xiao Bai had died while working on set.123 The dreams were a reflection of the psychological trauma Nie Er experienced amidst the War of Shanghai. Despite “celebrating” his twentieth birthday on February 4—commenting sardonically that artillery shots were sending him best wishes for longevity—he remained morose, retreating alone to his room after dinner. As well, Nie was in turmoil upon recognizing that he had fallen in love with Xiao Bai. “I could tell a special affection had developed. I hate myself for having this kind of sentiment, but it’s impossible to control.”124 At the same time, the international order was crumbling. My heart knows how much anguish I can’t express! I want to cry, I want to go cry out my sorrows several times! The entire world is starting to waver! The conflict of imperialism, the start of the Second World War can’t be 66

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denied. My future is as uncertain as these times. . . . Moreover, the classic music that I now value is so counter revolutionary!125 As the conflict progressed, Nie had begun to question the value of classical music and was increasingly critical of Li Jinhui’s management and the exploitative environment common to the arts. Struggling financially, Lianhua Studio entered cost-cutting mode during the spring of 1932 and sought to terminate its contract with Bright Moon. Nie feared that the entire ensemble would be out of work within months. As a member of the negotiating team, Nie described Luo Mingyou, the Lianhua manager, as using the intimidating tactics of a “big, fat malicious capitalist pig.”126 At the same time, Nie viewed Li Jinhui’s lack of business acumen as “absurd.” All this left him deeply pessimistic. On May 19, Nie wrote in despair, “Bright Moon’s future is indeed bleak!”127 At a personal level, Nie witnessed the suffering of his friends at the hands of male colleagues and felt anguished when the ensemble actor Yan Hua abused Xiao Bai. In all my years, I’ve never seen such a distressing sight. A man in his twenties hitting a young girl. I cried, enough to make one go mad! It was unbearable! Yan Hua swore at Xiao Bai and she started complaining leading him to lose his temper and hit her. He first threw a mug at her and then punched her hard. . . . To hell with it, why do I always encounter such ignorant brutes? Such bleak prospects, and “Bright Moon” is no better! Forget it! Don’t think about having hope or no hope, better to take another road! I never want to see such an injustice again.128 Nie’s indignation, along with the economic downturn in the entertainment industry, provided the backdrop for his criticisms of Li Jinhui. Assuming the pen name Black Angel, Nie wrote a caustic article, “Short Treatise on Chinese Song and Dance,” condemning the crass commercialism of Li’s music. When speaking of China’s song and dance, inevitably Li Jinhui comes to mind, that creator of playthings who has no fear of hardship. For over a dozen years he has manifested his hard work leading a group of gaily dressed young men and women rushing about in China and abroad. Let’s pay him our respects! Erotic sex appeal and revealed fervor, these are the so-called achievements of song and dance over the past dozen years. It’s often remarked that singing is an art and has educational value, but I pity the suffering of these performers for having been deprived of education. What is called the education of society? What is children’s education? So many young children who have been anaesthetized!

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Not all Li Jinhui’s compositions are a complete muddle. Some do have anti-feudal elements and some describe the unequal and widening gulf between the rich and poor classes. But what we need is not soft tofu but rather the hardness of real knives and real guns! Think about it. While the capitalists enjoy their wealth in their high buildings and large mansions, the workers silently cry and sweat it out under their machines! How can we find a savior for the laboring masses? . . . If artists continue to maintain that song and dance is created solely for song and dance, then there is absolutely no future at all for the art! Even if one continues for dozens of years! It is just like entering the mouth and going out the ass. No one can deny that disparities and the struggle between rich and poor will lead to the advance of society. My beloved originator of song and dance, don’t feel smug just because you have opposed feudalism! Can’t you hear the numerous masses of people on this earth around you who cry out like crazy? You must go down to those people, because therein lies fresh material to create a new and fresh art! Work hard! That is the great road of the times.129 The tone and ideas were classic Nie Er, but his political thought regarding the arts had now come under the sway of the League of Left-Wing Writers. After submitting the article to Cinematic Art, he participated in an editorial meeting with the leftist film directors Sun Yu and Bu Wancang and movie star Jin Yan, and received their affirmation. Jin Yan, who was also Nie’s friend and rival-in-love, exerted a profound influence on Nie Er. Nie confided that Jin Yan’s earlier article advocating that Chinese cinema should act to “dispel illusions about imperialism and the capitalist class” motivated him to write about his own views on the future of China’s arts.130 Less influential at this juncture was Tian Han. Nie supported Tian’s advocacy of popularization, but in 1932 they diverged on tactics. Only later did Nie find out that Tian Han disapproved of his criticisms of Li Jinhui, a fellow Hunanese and long-time friend whom Tian Han had sought to win over to the leftist cause. The essay reveals much about Nie Er’s and other left-wing artists’ critical views on commercial art. Nie employs a rhetorical style of criticism, denigrating Li’s song and dance music. Nie equates Li’s art with pornography, a charge that, as Andrew Jones explains, originated with performances of young girls dancing with bare legs, considered scandalous for violating social norms.131 Nie also describes Li’s art as having a poisonous effect on the child performers. Here Nie may be alluding to Li’s cultivating young starlets for the burgeoning film industry and in the process making them politically apathetic. The accusation that Li’s music had a numbing effect on China’s budding nationalist consciousness, espe68

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cially his love songs and Sinicized jazz, would be repeatedly leveled against Li throughout the course of the decade. Related to this, Nie underscores the political nature of art. He rejects the liberal discourse of the May Fourth Movement that claimed artists were autonomous from society, and that art was to be created purely for art’s sake. For Nie, the issue was to acknowledge a political function for music and make music a weapon. Nie concludes by acknowledging that Li’s prior work had progressive qualities in its depiction of inequality and criticism of “feudal” values, and then urges him to update his approach and adopt the new method of popularization. Within days, rumors began to circulate within the company as to the identity of “Black Angel,” leading Nie Er to confront Li and disclose his authorship. On hearing the news, Li acknowledged in between curses that the ensemble “wasn’t entirely opposed to erotic sex appeal, since it had to ‘adapt to society.’ ”132 According to Zheng Yili, Li felt betrayed, asking Nie, “How could you swear at me when you were fed by me?” Nie responded, “How can you say I swore at you? I had hoped that you would change your style of work. Can’t you understand that the times have changed, that decadent music (mimi zhi yin) is dead?”133 Nie confessed that he was guilty of a certain “glibness” in the way that he had criticized Li Jinhui. But once Li Jinguang mounted a rebuttal in the press, Nie began to relish the confrontation. The ensuing conflict allowed Nie to progress in a dialectical fashion. “I hope this type of struggle expands, because without struggle there can’t be any progress. My desire to throw down the gauntlet is also done in the belief that after the struggle I’ll find a new path forward from the song and dance world.”134 The episode fueled his ambitions to make something of himself outside the milieu of Shanghai’s entertainment world. As he wrote in his diary, “I need to leave. Because if I muddle along like this, my spirits will flag. To be honest, I don’t deserve to pass time with such hopeless people. I still want to accomplish many things! I am a revolutionary. I deserve to be spanked on the buttocks for pursuing this kind of lifestyle.”135 After a full meeting of the ensemble on August 5, 1932, Nie’s contract was terminated. Two days later he boarded a ship for Tianjin en route to Beiping. A public announcement appeared in Shibao that Nie Er had left the ensemble “on account of an incident. . . . Henceforth all communications and activities with this ensemble are terminated.”136 Just as Nie ended his tenure at Bright Moon, his relationship with Yuan Chunhui began to unravel. Over one hundred of their letters were destroyed in wartime bombing raids on Kunming; thus, it is possible to piece together only fragmented details regarding the relationship that Nie referenced in his diary.137 These references served as bookends for the year 1931. On February 9, Nie wrote that it was a day “I’ll always remember,” since it was the first snow he had experienced in Shanghai and also Chunhui’s birthday. Coming in with hands numb from the cold, Nie drew a bright red heart and wrapped it as a present for Chunhui.138 On Christmas

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Eve that year, Nie related how a letter from Zhang Yuhou sought to reassure him that nothing was amiss, despite gossip regarding Yuan Chunhui’s friendship with Li Huanruo. (Eventually they would indeed marry each other.) Nonetheless, Nie paid little heed. “It’s not that separating from her for over a year has caused me to become cold and indifferent, and in truth I believe she wouldn’t act in an extreme manner. I believe she, too, trusts that I wouldn’t do anything rash.”139 Communications between the two during the spring of 1932 suggest nothing was amiss. Nie noted how much he missed Chunhui. “Two years ago at this time, we had so much fun.”140 Watching the movie One Heart (Tongxin jie) also prompted Nie to recall his “happy student days,” “the past year of fragmented amorous adventures” and, finally, Chunhui, who was “more than just an afterthought.” In this same entry, Nie confided that Hu Jia, one of the leading actresses at Bright Moon, had declared her love for him. Nie dismissed the sentiment as a prank, although he wasn’t entirely sure if there might not be some truth to her declaration.141 Recalling Chunhui in his diary entries served as a gold standard to judge his other relationship with the young girls working for Li Jinhui. By midMay, Nie lamented how much energy had been sapped by his misplaced devotion to Xiao Bai. I’ve muddled through a year here. In this time that has been so easy to squander, I’ve learned some music, but I’ve already regressed greatly in other subjects. What grieves me the most is that Bai has caused me to expend a great deal of energy and thought to blindly pursue meaningless matters. . . . Should a so-called revolutionary youth like myself indulge in this kind of behavior? All day still caught inside this tangled net of loving or not loving!142 Within a month, Nie concluded that the current environment had led Xiao Bai astray. Her “innocence had morphed into hypocrisy. . . . Due to certain vanities, and these include very broad qualities, such as love for movie stars, grotesque things learned from the movies, the lure of money, pride, swearing, and the free development of various bad temperaments caused her innocence to naturally change.” Nie realized he had to “quickly break off the idea of loving her.”143 For Nie, Xiao Bai paled in comparison to Chunhui, who seemingly shared common goals with him. “When it comes to traveling the same road and acting with a common purpose, it is still my ‘Sanren’ [Chunhui] who is best. I haven’t received a letter from her in a long time so I don’t know if she holds the same thoughts as before? This evening I received a letter from her that had been forwarded from Shanghai, which comforted me a great deal.”144 It was this sentiment of shared goals with Chunhui that probably led Nie Er to encourage her to leave Yunnan (presumably to join him in Shanghai).145 70

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By the end of the month, however, Nie made the fateful decision not to marry Yuan Chunhui on grounds that his mission to serve society outweighed any personal considerations. Responding to his mother, who wanted to talk with Yuan’s family about the “marriage question” and implored her son to return home, Nie Er made what was likely a heart-wrenching decision. Compounding his grief, Peng Jikuan had related the tragic death of his friend Zhai Shuxian during childbirth. As he described reading his mother’s letter, “I think of her, the old lady writing with her brush in a trembling hand and describing a scene. My heart is so sad!”146 The following day, Nie Er wrote to his mother his intentions with regards to Chunhui. Dear Mama, I have received your letter! I don’t know why but I began to cry when I read it. Although it was a very simple letter it touched on many problems: 1. My marriage. 2. My return to Yunnan. 3. Life (career). Let me now respond! I feel my marriage issue is a very common matter and not something that a twenty-year old must resolve at the moment. Do you remember when I was at home how I often expressed the following opinion? “Once married, he or she will contribute less to society.” Even though this remark is a bit abstract it is still based in reality. I always hold the proper goal: “I was born for society, I don’t want anything to impede or stop me from transforming society, I want to achieve great things for society.” One can say that marriage is a decisive passage in life (what I described as “common” was meant to avoid viewing marriage as too mysterious, always close to one’s heart) one must be open minded and circumspect; I’m not willing.147 Here the letter breaks off. Perhaps Peng Jikuan did not keep the remaining portion; perhaps it was lost; perhaps family members or authorities destroyed it. We do know that Nie and Yuan continued their correspondence through the fall of 1932. By late July, in response to her letter, Nie expressed his admiration for Yuan’s frankness and couldn’t help but “kiss” her.148 Two other letters received that fall while Nie sojourned in Beiping contained words of encouragement that he attend a national university and forge ahead with a career in the film industry. It may have been Nie’s hope to postpone any decision about marriage with Yuan, trusting that neither of them would forsake the other. Extracting wisdom from his own experiences as a struggling musician, already a critic of the May Fourth Movement’s notion of autonomous art, and informed by readings that stressed that music was a social ideology, Nie joined a growing network of friends associated with the League of Left-Wing Writers. Moving forward, he would forge his identity as a “revolutionary new youth.”149 This

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entailed a complete rejection of Li Jinhui and the song and dance world, and a break with both Xiao Bai and Yuan Chunhui. Mirroring broader trends in society, as China became enmeshed in violence with the suppression of Communists in 1927 and the annexation of Manchuria and the bombing of Shanghai in 1931–32, love became subordinated to the revolutionary agenda. Haiyan Lee’s genealogy of the idea of “love” views the early 1930s as a turning point among radical intellectuals, who feared that love would impede their revolutionary project of politicizing aesthetics and everyday life. The solution, as Nie Er’s own course of action suggested, was to reject love as a symbol of the petty bourgeoisie. As Lee remarks, By equating the revolutionary project with the higher life, they [revolutionaries] peremptorily reduce love to a one-dimensional experience pertaining only to the lower and narrower sphere of the private individual, an unregenerate preoccupation that prevents one from rising above the pettiness of ordinary life and merging with the grand and heroic. Thus as revolution attempts to colonize daily life, daily life as the urban middle classes know it is denied of any intrinsic meaning or value.150 Free from any romantic attachment, Nie Er set out renewed and remade, ready to subordinate himself to society. Drawing on his critical observations of the world, Nie’s promise was to compose Chinese proletarian music.

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CHAPTER 3

The Politics of Music IDEOLOGICAL DEBATES AND POPULARIZATION

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umerous tracts translated from the international proletarian arts movement circulated in the leftist community of Shanghai between 1931 and 1935. Works of Soviet socialists, such as Plekhanov and Lunacharsky, were all represented in the intellectual agitation of the day. Nie Er’s politicization, too, was tied to this ferment. By advocating a political role for music and the importance of praxis for both music and musicians, Nie became the main ideologue of China’s proletarian music movement. Recent work on the leftist art movement has downplayed the influence of Soviet Marxism and Marxist ideology more broadly in favor of approaches that emphasize relationships and networks.1 Even Lawrence Wangchi Wong’s fine study of the Left League’s political agenda treads lightly on the actual cultural theories and ideological positions of the leftists.2 These studies ignore that a key mission of the Left League was to translate and research MarxistLeninist texts. Even on the basis of his personal ties, one can suggest that Nie Er was conversant with Soviet Marxist theories of art and literature. Tian Han, who brought Nie into the CCP by 1933, was a prolific writer on topics such as Gorky, Soviet cinema, and the concept of popularization of drama. He was a key influence on Nie’s theoretical formation. More difficult to ascertain because of a paucity of sources was the influence of Zheng Yili and Ai Siqi.3 Whether or not Nie Er had a sophisticated understanding of Marxist theory, the language of Marxism was widespread and supported a key principle of the leftist artists—popularization. Building on Philip Bohlman’s insight that nationalist music is created through competition, Nie Er’s advocacy for a “new and emerging music” (xinxing yinyue), which would employ the method of popularization, was also the outcome of competition. Whereas Bohlman examines competition between nation states, this competition was limited to China although shaped by international discourse. Nie Er and his comrades, the dramatist Tian Han, songwriter Lü Ji and literary 73

critic Zhou Yang, relied on Soviet Marxism Leninism to buttress their positions as they engaged in polemical debates within China over the ontology, form and function of art and music. In championing the “new music,” which he also referred to as “revolutionary music,” Nie shared the patriotic fervor of his predecessors associated with the “national music school.” But his politicization of music redefined national music into nationalist music. Based on his association with the Left League, Nie promoted a mass orientation as part of the proletarian art movement in the early 1930s. Proponents of popularization aspired to create an art that represented the people and gave voice to the laboring masses as a means to mobilize them against the twin evils of feudalism and imperialism. Nie and his associates, especially the musician and theoretician Lü Ji, advocated popularization via new compositional methods requiring musicians’ societal immersion. On the theoretical front, the leftist musicians conceived of music and music criticism as being based on historical materialism and as part of a broader ideological formation. Armed with this view, they attacked their adversaries, the liberal aesthete Qing Zhu and the popular songwriter Li Jinhui, who represented divergent wings of the New Culture Movement and believed in the notion of an independent art, created for art’s sake. The ferocity of the criticism and vilification of their opponents only strengthened the leftists’ position that music had a utilitarian social function, and served to enhance popularization as the dominant value among musicians. By the time Nie Er died in 1935, music discourse had moved away from the pluralist discourse and principles of enlightenment of the May Fourth era to a singular discourse concentrated on national salvation.

In Search of a “New Chinese Music” China’s national crisis prompted a personal crisis for Nie Er and much soulsearching about the role of music. Within weeks of the bombing raids, Nie would write his oft-cited quote: “How to make revolutionary music?”4 At the heart of Nie’s concerns was how to develop a revolutionary music that would mobilize the people in defense of the nation. The threat of imperialist invasion loomed large in Nie and his contemporaries’ efforts to create a “new music” based on absorbing the tenets and practices of Western music. This goal was a longstanding one, enunciated before the New Culture Movement and widespread throughout East Asia. Mina Yang, for instance, ascribes Meiji Japan’s motives in importing Western music to their nation-building project. “Nationalist policies that equated science and technology, i.e., modernity, with greater economic opportunities and sovereignty promoted the conversion to the ‘scientific’ rigor of Western music, with its rationalized notation, theory, and industrialized instrumental production.”5 The uncritical acceptance of Western 74

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norms coincided with a rejection of indigenous musical traditions. By the late nineteenth century, Chinese intellectuals, fearful that China could not compete in the Darwinian struggle for survival, blamed their own musical heritage for China’s inability to protect its national sovereignty. As the scholar Liang Qichao asserted, “old music” could not “promote a vigorous spirit” among the citizenry and, in particular, among the Chinese military.6 Liang thus championed martial songs and marches to embolden the soldiers. Chinese reformers were also impressed by Japan’s use of songs (typically nineteenth-century European and American hymns and folk songs set to Japanese texts and lyrics) to inculcate proper morals and patriotic sentiments among children and students throughout all levels of education.7 By 1905, music courses became prevalent in China’s “new style” schools, especially at the elementary and middle school levels. Modeled after Meiji Japan’s experience, the Qing government’s education reform introduced “school songs” (xuetang yuege) in order to “awaken the national spirit” (guomin jingshen). Borrowed from Japan, the songs consisted of Chinese poems and texts set to simple tunes that ranged from the Protestant hymnal tradition to European folk songs. According to Hong-yu Gong, some 1300 songs were published in dozens of music textbooks between 1903 and 1919. With song titles and lyrics espousing patriotism and racial nationalism and demarcating national landscapes, the school song movement contributed to making a national music.8 The New Culture Movement ushered in a concern about foreign and Chinese musical exchange that was manifest in the formation of a “national music school” (guomin yuepai). Along the lines of the late-nineteenth-century ti-yong formulation, “Chinese learning for the essence, Western learning for the application,” the figures associated with guomin yuepai stressed synthesizing Western techniques with traditional Chinese music and folk tunes to create a new music that would capture the Chinese national characteristic. Among the first generation of musical scholars associated with the national music school was Cai Yuanpei, who, as president of Beijing University, also directed the “Beijing University Music Research Association.” He established groups to sing choir music, and to study and perform on both traditional Chinese instruments and Western instruments. The association’s publication Music Magazine (Yinyue zazhi, 1920–21) described its guiding principle as to “research early and contemporary Chinese and foreign music, judge their merits and shortcomings, investigate their similarities and differences, cut the lengthy and amend the short, smelt both Chinese and foreign in the same furnace to foster greatness and glory.”9 Supporting Cai, the comparative musicologist Wang Guangqi in 1924 encouraged “a national music that would represent the Chinese national character.” This music should be based “on our country’s ancient music and contemporary folk tunes.” The route to achieving national music echoed methods employed

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by cultural nationalists in Germany, where Wang resided from 1920 to 1936. “Now we must first systematize our country’s ancient music and work hard to collect folk and popular tunes. Then we should use the scientific methods of Western music to produce a national music. The duty of this national music is to express the basic spirit of the Chinese nationality so that when the common people hear it they will jump for joy and resolve to advance.”10 The linguist and accomplished amateur songwriter Zhao Yuanren and the composer and music educator Huang Zi proposed more specific ideas about what kind of Western music to emulate. Both viewed the nineteenth-century Russian national school of music as an appropriate model. Huang, the standard-bearer of the “national music school,” supported using “the best Western musical methods” to “research and systematize our country’s old music and folk tunes (minyao). Consequently, it will be easy to nationalize a new music.” Huang offered a nuanced approach to cultural exchange, endorsing neither wholesale mimicry of the West nor stubborn preservation of China’s past. “It is suicidal to have a wholesale and mechanical copying of Western music.” Although Huang opposed the misconception “that old music was rotten wood that could not be carved” and believed that “the special quality revealed by the folk melodies of our old music was in essence the manifestation of our national character,” he was just as opposed to the “quintessential Chinese culturalism” camp. Huang criticized “the misconception that the only method of reinvigorating Chinese music was by restoring the ancient ways ( fugu).” Since culture is inherently in flux, it was foolish to try to preserve Chinese culture. As Huang put it, “Those who seek to protect our socalled national music forget that it was once the sounds of barbarians.”11 The primary goal of all these composers was to use traditional music and folk tunes as a basis for creating a new national music. Nevertheless, they shied away from popularizing music, perhaps because so many confined themselves in the ivory towers of academia. Moreover, although many of these Western-educated musicians favored the study of compositional techniques and idioms of the European musical heritage to create a national music, the iconoclastic attacks on Chinese culture during the New Culture Movement made it difficult to parse technique from essence. Ultimately, cosmopolitan composers, such as Huang Zi, who had attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Yale University during the late 1920s, betrayed an inferiority complex regarding Chinese music. In his 1934 article “How can we develop our country’s national music?” Huang compared the Chinese musical notation system and instruments with their Western counterparts and concluded that “Western music was truly more progressive than Chinese music.” Huang went so far as to pronounce, “Using an historical perspective, the level of development of Chinese music is comparable to that of European music during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.”12 Despite his own May Fourth iconoclasm, one would be hard pressed to find 76

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Nie Er expressing similar derogatory attitudes towards China’s musical tradition. Furthermore, despite sharing similar goals of creating a modern Chinese music, Nie Er parted company—literally and figuratively—with national school of music adherents on how to achieve this goal. By dint of their educational backgrounds, the latter were avowedly cultural nationalists, whereas Nie Er was more of a political nationalist in his view that music served a mobilizing function. Besides differences in their training and education, there was a deep social divide between musicians such as Huang Zi, who occupied prominent posts at the National Conservatory, and Nie, who worked in the trenches of a pit orchestra. It is not surprising that Nie became attracted to proletarian internationalism with its stress on creating a nationalist music that retained both national and class characteristics. While China’s crisis pushed Nie to create a nationalist music, his own work experiences and distaste for the crass commercialism of Li Jinhui’s troupe motivated him to search for a music that would give voice to the subaltern. Nie’s path to proletarian music was fueled by his readings of Marxist critical theory on the arts and by his involvement in a growing network of friends and associates involved in the League of Left-Wing Writers and its subsidiary organization, the League of Left-Wing Dramatists. Nie Er’s views on art resonated with some of the chief concerns of the proletarian art movement, which promoted popularization while rejecting the liberal discourse of the May Fourth Movement. Some intellectuals still endorsed the view that art was to be created purely for art’s sake. The view of music as independent and supreme was most closely identified with the writings of the music aesthete Qing Zhu, a follower of Hermann Bahr, the fin-de-siècle Austrian playwright and expressionist critic. Qing Zhu’s core belief that art was independent and had a spiritual dimension stimulated a rebuttal by a certain Xia Mandi, who argued that artistic creativity was best explained by adopting the principles of historical materialism. Xia maintained that the production of art was not autonomous but rather shaped and constrained by its social environment. Xia wrote, Music is a social ideology, and social ideology is the combination of society and psychology. . . . Music is not an art that is difficult to grasp, that is mysterious and supersedes all else. . . . In truth, music cannot be detached from everything. Music doesn’t fall from the sky or emerge from the ground. . . . ​ First, material conditions of a social environment inform the writer’s thoughts and feelings from which is derived consciousness; thereupon, the writer arranges this consciousness and uses staff line notation, notes and performs its emanation. Nie Er was so impressed by the article that he copied the above passages verbatim and duly pronounced, “1:30 a.m., written with much joy.” Nie remarked

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that he was “highly satisfied.” The article, he concluded, “spoke from the standpoint of the masses.”13 Moreover, if art had a class basis grounded in material reality, it also served a political function. By the early 1930s, with Japan posing an ever-greater threat to the Chinese nation, musicians opined that art should serve as a political weapon, a belief that became mainstream over the course of the decade. In his essay “Remembering the Manchurian Incident,” Nie Er’s patron Tian Han argued that the successful organization of the laboring masses in opposition to imperialism dictated that “the participants in the cultural movement must use all cultural weapons.”14 Lü Ji asserted that music was a “weapon in the great masses’ struggle for liberation.”15 Nie, too, compared Li Jinhui’s music to “soft tofu” and called for a new music endowed with “the hardness of real knives and real guns!”16

Tian Han and the Call for Popularization Nie was sympathetic to the call of the Left League, and his emerging political views on art were stimulated by his readings and contacts with associates and friends in leftist circles. No man was more influential in this regard than Tian Han—the dramatist, cultural impresario, and leader of the League of Left-Wing Dramatists. In the spring of 1932 when Nie Er first met Tian, Nie spoke about his passion for music and growing discomfort with Li Jinhui. Tian recalled their discussion. He loved music and felt an urgent need to master musical technique, violin and composition; he wanted to understand how music as a weapon could serve the revolution. . . . At the end of our discussion he mentioned that he loved the Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe. The young artists were a dynamic force, but he was dissatisfied with the leadership of Li Jinhui. He felt Li had certain unhealthy practices and was poisoning the dynamism of these enthusiastic youth by making them temper their assault against feudal things.17 Common experiences and motivations between the two artists solidified their friendship. Both men had sympathies for the downtrodden, having been brought up by widowed mothers in difficult circumstances. Both had a powerful artistic drive and had struggled to fulfill their aspirations. Both held critical views of the Nationalist government’s policy of appeasement vis-à-vis Japan but shared a common admiration for Japan’s leftist culture and its mediation of Marxist internationalism. Moreover, both felt that mass work could liberate the individual from the sufferings associated with love and family. To both men, this meant that 78

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art should not underscore an individual’s emotions nor focus on the personal, but rather manifest the individual’s participation in society.18 It is very likely that without Tian Han there would not have been a Nie Er. Soon after Tian introduced Nie to the League of Left-Wing Dramatists and its subsidiary group focused on cinema, Nie became a member. In the spring of 1933, when Tian recruited Nie into the CCP, Tian also introduced Nie to other young leftist musicians whom he had organized into the Soviet Union Friendship Society’s music group. Besides helping Nie expand his network of progressive friends, Tian became Nie Er’s most frequent artistic collaborator. Tian’s song lyrics were used principally for the burgeoning leftist film industry and secondarily for the theater. Tian’s key ideas during the early 1930s about the relationship between art and revolution decisively influenced Nie’s artistic and political perspective. Several biographers, when describing Tian’s work during the 1920s, look closely at his critical retrospective essay, “Our Self-Criticism” (1930). Tian’s 1920s work is viewed as being dominated by romantic modernist concerns, whereas in the following decade, his interests were supplanted by Marxist critical theory.19 After residing in Japan between 1916 and 1922, Tian returned to Shanghai, where he became an active playwright, translator, and publicist for modern drama. During the 1920s, Tian directed the Southern Drama Society (Nanguo she), and by the end of that decade was staging his plays throughout southern China. In general terms, Tian’s early experimental work voiced his criticism of religion, patriarchal despotism, and the exploitation of the working class. To use Tian’s own words, they were “gradually clarifying revolt against the rotten state of the world.”20 But by the end of the decade, the plays—focusing on the individual tragedies of urban intellectuals—had become suffused with romantic melancholy, mirroring the disillusionment held by intellectuals after the failure of the Nationalist Revolution. Tian’s creative work in the 1930s turned to the problems of social class. As he would indicate in “Our Self-Criticism,” “the dramatist tinged with the sentimental moods of the petty bourgeoisie now threw himself into the fire of revolutionary struggle.”21 His plays leading up to the War of Resistance are a collective call to arms in which new subjects—peasants, workers, and soldiers—are heroes resisting feudal oppression and imperialist aggression. On the theoretical front, Tian Han became a leading spokesman for popularization of the arts. Tian was one of many intellectuals during the early 1930s to address the question of why revolutionary literature and drama were needed, and how to go about creating them. Both the League of Left-Wing Writers and its drama section threw their institutional weight behind popularization. In August 1930, the Left League called on all artists to “go to factories, the countryside, battlefields, and among the oppressed masses.”22 This was not the first such call. By 1927, individual writers were appealing for a revolutionary literature accessible

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to their target audience—the laboring masses. In his essay “From a Literary Revolution to a Revolutionary Literature,” Cheng Fangwu proposed, “We must endeavor to acquire class consciousness, we must make our medium approach the spoken language of the worker and peasant masses, we must take the workerpeasant masses as our target.”23 The following year, Ke Xing indicated, “From my perspective revolutionary literature must expand to the worker and farmer masses, thus language must be popularized and should reflect the consciousness of workers and farmers.”24 These essays highlight that popularization was a topic of intense discussion even before the early 1930s. Judging from Nie Er’s comments during the fall of 1930, the idea of popularization struck a chord. I read several articles on revolutionary literature indicating the centrality of popularization to the current art movement. Individualism and isolation from the great masses are relics of the past, no longer pertinent to contemporary society. . . . Henceforth, I changed the guiding principles for my research and for literary and artistic work. I no longer will express individual suffering or create individual revolutionary characters to influence the masses. I can’t say I didn’t have any impact, but it bears no comparison to immersing oneself [in society] and participating in the new artistic movement.25 Tian’s contribution, “The Dramatization of Popularization and the Popularization of Drama,” was part of a “second phase” in the debate over popularization that took place in late 1931 and 1932. This debate centered on why popularization was necessary and on the relationship between the author’s consciousness and the literature’s content.26 Catalyzed by the Manchurian Incident, the Left League pronounced popularization as the most pressing issue in the construction of revolutionary literature. In his essay, Tian repeatedly placed popularization in the context of a global proletarian movement, and stressed the difficulties of its implementation. As for the goal for popularization, Tian echoed Lenin, who had recalled Clara Zetkin’s words: “Art must have its deepest roots in the broad mass of workers. It must be understood and loved by them. It must be rooted in and grow with their feelings, thoughts, and desires. It must arouse and develop the artist in them.”27 Similar to Lenin, who encouraged cultural work and education among farmers and workers so “that art may come to the people, and the people to art,” Tian Han blamed China’s high rate of illiteracy for why art and literature had not become one [with] the people. “The laboring masses have been robbed of educational opportunities under the oppression of imperialism and feudal warlords, thus . . . they are either illiterate or unable to afford works of literature.”28 In getting at popularization, the theater had more potential than literature, since the inher80

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ent nature of drama necessitated using everyday speech. “If your speech is not understood or loved by the audience, they can be rude and ‘throw stones and open up the floodgates’ [of abuse]. Aristocratic plays might as well be performed for oneself.” Despite these harsh reminders from the audience if a playwright lacked the common touch, Tian lamented how, up through the Manchurian Incident, “proletarian theatre” was still a case of “wishful thinking.” “No one wearing blue cotton clothes comes to watch proletarian drama or if they’re forced to come and don’t understand they lose interest,” he wrote. Linguistic barriers were an impediment to popularization, and they stemmed from the class divide between intellectuals and workers. “Most proletarian artists and writers come from the ranks of the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie; they have been constrained to target as their reading audience members of their very same class and have not sought a much broader reading public.”29 Tian credited his own ensemble, the Southern Drama Society, for having moved away from an “art above all” worldview. Still, he found that the Society’s plays lacked class consciousness. “Needless to say they haven’t reached the masses of workers or farmers and don’t even have much influence among the petty urbanites.”30 Tian Han’s solution to popularization was encapsulated by the Left League Dramatists’ slogan: “Proletarianization of the Expert and Specialization of the Proletariat.”31 Through a dialectical process, playwrights and actors would immerse themselves in the lives of the proletariat, while workers would become engaged in theater. In this way a new proletarian theater would come into being. In advocating a method to which he applied the term “dialectical materialism,” Tian distanced himself from Qu Qiubai’s proposed “proletarian realism,” or what in the past the Japanese proletarian art movement had described as “proletarian realist writing.” Instead, he aligned himself with contemporary international proletarian art organizations, which had “discarded” proletarian realism as a “mechanical materialist disease.”32 To implement these ideas, Tian and other Dramatist members coordinated with unions to establish night schools to teach literacy and acting. To achieve their goal of “going amongst the urban proletariat masses,” League members organized factory workers into some seven Blue Shirt ensembles (lanyi jutuan), and “helped workers create scripts based on their own lives, struggles and demands.”33 Dramatist members revised scripts with the help of workers if the language carried too much of an intellectual flavor and encouraged workers to use Shanghai dialect. Most plays were one-act and took the w ­ orking-class struggle as a main theme and the working class as their main subject. Besides popularizing drama, Tian Han was a forceful sponsor of left-wing cinema and a champion of Soviet film. While directing the Southern Drama Society in 1926 he screened Soviet films, and in 1930 the ensemble’s monthly, the Nanguo yuekan, devoted a special issue to the topic.34 Just as he had defined

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­ roletarian art by quoting Lenin, Tian found inspiration in Lenin’s pronouncep ment: “Of all the arts, the most important is cinema.”35 In his essay, Tian argued that film, among all the arts, was “the best means of organizing and educating the people.” Tian thought China needed to reject entertainment and martial arts films that were leading the nation “down a path of suicide.” Instead, he proposed following the lead of the Soviet film movement, which, as a wing of the revolutionary movement, “reflected and guided the revolution.”36 After lauding the work of the Soviet playwright Sergei Tretyakov and of Vsevolod Pudovkin, who had directed Roar, China, and Storm over Asia, Tian concluded with an appeal to pan-Asianism and agency. “The Asian storm has arrived! Those who best understand the hearts and minds of Asians are Asians themselves. We need to use our own camera, our own eyes to observe and create our own era.”37 In a retrospective essay written in 1934, Tian posited that the creation of a revolutionary national film movement was a reaction to Japanese imperialism. The Japanese bombardment of Shanghai’s Zhabei district had inflicted psychological shock and destroyed no less than five movie studios. Nevertheless, the demand for revolutionary films had risen from the ashes. Audience members have gradually cast aside vulgar films about feudal gods and spirits along with those sex appeal films that copied the debauched lifestyles of capitalist countries. Chinese films have begun to use realist material to oppose imperialism and feudalism . . . along with importing a few Soviet films as well as being influenced by progressive German and American films. This has led to the production and new look of the “Chinamade film.”38 Almost in the same breath, Tian acknowledged the challenges facing the fledgling film movement. He pointed to foreign and domestic repression of the anti-imperialist movement as well as renewed competition from “thigh films” dealing with decadent urban life. He drew attention to the continued popularity of martial arts films and the state sponsorship of “ethical films.” In addition, he wrote of the weaknesses within the leftist film movement, with writers unable to “grab hold of [realistic] material” and critics who applied artistic theory in mechanical or superficial ways.39 Andrew Jones’s work on the introduction of the phonograph and its use by leftist musicians, many of whom were employed in multinational corporations such as Pathé-EMI, suggests that the musicians enthusiastically embraced the latest products of global capitalism even as they denounced capitalism and its entanglement with imperialism. In Tian Han’s case, he openly expressed his admiration for capitalist management of the film industry and was receptive to adopting their technology and organizational methods. He simply thought they had to be merged 82

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with the socialist values embodied by Soviet films. Tian urged China’s film industry to follow the Soviet Union’s lead, using a socialist perspective to cast light on capitalist corruption and its inevitable downfall, and to absorb the progressive elements of capitalist production for use in the socialist film industry.40 Tian Han’s criticisms of the capitalist film industry focused more on the immoral content of entertainment films that allowed capitalists “to promote their interests and hegemony” and detracted from the struggles of workers and farmers.41 Tian’s moral criticism of capitalism would have a deep influence on Nie Er, who equated Li Jinhui’s popular love songs with decadent (capitalist) music.

Nie Er’s “Turn to the Left” Nie’s meeting with Tian Han had an immediate effect on the young musician. Within a month, Nie followed Tian Han’s example of “turning to the left” in the spirit of self-criticism by noting in his diary how he had developed a more critical opinion of his previous artistic road. Nie bemoaned the time spent “whittling the days away,” exerting his energies in thinking about Xiao Bai while regressing in his language studies.42 Nie’s doubts combined with an increasing dissatisfaction towards Bright Moon, especially after their tour to Nanjing and Wuhan. A sense of despondency emerged after a series of poor performances, caused in no small part by the exhaustion of putting on four shows in one day. Bright Moon’s prospects are truly pessimistic! . . . Our performance this time in Wuhan was a disaster. Our failure was inevitable and foreseeable. . . . The press also tore into us. What they criticized as our shortcomings in no way can be denied. The fundamentals of our program were totally flawed—the acting was under-rehearsed, the stars’ voices were muddled and they had to be replaced.43 Nie’s increasing disillusionment with Bright Moon and with the idea of individual artistry mirrored his own drive to submerge the self in service to society. That same spring, Nie Er rejected his mother’s plea to return to Yunnan and marry Yuan Chunhui. Nie was wrestling with his aspiration to serve society. In June 1932, upon returning to Shanghai from the Yangzi River port tour, Nie, via Tian Han’s introduction, joined the League of Left-Wing Dramatists and a film criticism group associated with the CCP. This group famously included the playwright and screenwriter Xia Yan. Nie seems to have taken to heart the film group’s manifesto that declared, “Wherever there is poison, expose it; wherever there is good education, publicize it.”44 In reviews published that July in the leftist film journal Cinematic Art (Dianying yishu) and Film Times (Dianying shibao),

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Nie adopted the penname “Black Angel” and articulated his conception of the role of art in society. He began a series of blistering attacks on Li Jinhui and other artists. His first article, “Low Class,” took aim at the film director Cai Chusheng, who had confided to Nie Er that he wanted to make a film about the underclass. Nie praised his friend’s work ethic and talent, but exhorted him to avoid the value judgments of the bourgeoisie. Nie hoped that Cai would explore the root causes of poverty and not adopt the moralistic and disparaging attitudes of the bourgeoisie, who defined “low class” as “obscene and dirty.” If Cai’s films propagated the dominant values of the bourgeoisie, Nie wrote, he would be reinforcing their cultural hegemony. “Otherwise the film is an instrument wielded by the ruling capitalist class to cheat and poison the masses!”45 Nie’s concern that cinema delve into the structural causes of poverty also shaped his review of Bu Wancang’s film Humanity (Rendao). The plot centers on the transformation of Zhao Minjie (played by Jin Yan), the single son of moderately well-off farmers who invest their life savings in his education. After marrying in the countryside and having a child, Minjie goes to university in Tianjin, where he is corrupted by the urban lifestyle and has a love affair with a socialite—a fellow student and daughter of a wealthy banker. While preparing for his second wedding, Minjie’s parents notify him that famine has broken out in Shaanxi. Rather than help his parents, Minjie spends his savings from his recently acquired office job on the lavish wedding. By the day of the wedding, both of his parents have starved to death. Minjie is jolted out of complacency when his new wife becomes attracted to another man. In a pique of anger, Minjie leaves her and returns home, only to discover that his parents have died and that his first wife has just breathed her last. Regaining his sense of humanity, Minjie works all night to build a tomb for his first wife that he places alongside that of his parents. In contrast to the Ministry of Education, which awarded the film a prize, Nie Er criticized the implications of the plot, which suggested Minjie’s actions were determined not by his environment, but rather by his conscience—or lack of conscience. “Using the slogan ‘where is your conscience?’ meant abandoning materialism for idealism.” Since Nie’s understanding of historical materialism was accompanied by hostility towards religion, he criticized the film for portraying the farm family as fatalistic and superstitious, “relying on heaven for their food.” Furthermore, Nie added, Bu Wancang should have indicated why the crop failures and famine occurred. Too much attention was paid to the individual while ignoring the mass of famine victims, their collective “souls and desires.”46 Nie’s Marxist-inspired critique extended to exposing the pernicious effects of cultural imperialism. In a review of the documentary Soldier of the 19th Route Army, Nie praised the subject matter—the struggles of a Cantonese soldier who had enlisted in the 19th Route Army and was wounded at the Battle of Shanghai. Nie was less complimentary about the disjointed editing, and he was scornful 84

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that a foreign company, Jensen Color and Sound Film Studio, sought profit by exploiting Chinese nationalist sentiment.47 Nie was more pointed in his criticism of the newly established Chinese Education Film Association (Zhongguo jiaoyu dian­y ingxiehui), a government institution that he accused of being a prop for imperialists, perhaps because of its close ties to Mussolini’s fascist regime.48 Nie’s criticisms parallel Tian Han’s views on the “poisonous,” opiate-like effect of Hollywood films. Nie wrote, Imperialism’s cultural invasion of China has made people unaware of its stealth attack; imperialism can take hold of China’s cultural institutions to aid the ruling class in its suppression of the New Culture Movement. To be honest, cultural imperialism promotes entertaining, sugary, alluring films of capitalism’s declining days that are viewed by idle madams, young masters and misses. Investments in a Chinese film trust to build a Chinese Hollywood have led our film industry to make several films about martial arts, the gods and spirits, and Western style romance. This leaves the [industry] little remaining strength to even faintly echo the injustices facing the toiling masses. In truth, imperialist conspiracies don’t stop here. Their ultimate goal is to control all the levers of power.49 Nie’s concerns that Chinese artistic production was failing to address the national crisis was most evident in his criticism of Li Jinhui. In his review of the filming of Li’s song and dance production, Poem Written on a Banana Leaf, Nie quoted directly from Li’s essay on the cinema and song and dance to cast doubt on Li’s motives. China’s song and dance and film at present has a pure goal, that is to stimulate the audience, using primarily music of “power and grandeur” (xiongzhuang), singing that is “enthusiastic,” and dance that “unfolds.” Under these conditions the material from this sound film will solidify the “nation’s defense.” One can also add a triangular, four, five or six-person relationship for the love scenes and hint at “the hardships of the people” and the “impending national calamity.” But at the very least your humble servant is not willing to imitate completely the works of the American-style money faction or pander to those works full of old customs, deities and martial arts.50 Given that Nie annotated many of his own march songs with the instruction “xiongzhuang,” a term in vogue during the mid- to late 1930s aimed at creating a martial and masculine music befitting the resistance against Japan, one can assume that Nie shared Li’s view on this type of music. But in other regards, Nie felt Li had compromised himself by including romance in his plots and merely

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hinting at the “hardships of the people” and the national crisis. Nie’s most celebrated essay, “Short Treatise on Chinese Song and Dance,” criticizes Li as a crass commercialist despite Li’s denials that he “wasn’t imitating the American-style money faction.”51 After the rupture with Li Jinhui, Nie left for Beiping on August 7, 1932.

Interlude in Beiping Although Shanghai is often associated with China’s proletarian arts movement during the early 1930s, Beiping is where Nie Er forged key contacts with leftist dramatists and became more politically active and committed to composing revolutionary music. Nie spent only two months in the former capital, but the renewed friendships with his fellow Yunnanese, and his life as a sojourning “tourist” in Beiping, paradoxically pushed him to engage with national politics. Arriving in Beiping on August 11, 1932, Nie stayed at the Yunnan huiguan located to the south of Xuanwu Gate. The huiguan, or native-place association, served as an inn and focal point for Yunnanese staying in Beiping. Although Nie spent much of his time with fellow provincials—sightseeing, entertaining them, with his jokes and musical skills, and discussing politics—the contacts he forged at the huiguan had the effect of underscoring national rather than regional concerns for Nie. In part, the Yunnan huiguan had the reputation of serving as a forum for revolutionary politics. In 1924 some fifty Yunnanese students in Beiping had formed the New Yunnan Association and based their Marxist study sessions at the huiguan. A portion of New Yunnan Association members joined the party and continued to use the huiguan as a liaison office between the CCP and the party’s provincial committee.52 When Nie reached the huiguan, he roomed adjacent to Lu Wanmei, an acquaintance from Kunming who was now an underground Communist Party member and a member of the standing committee on cultural affairs. Since Lu oversaw linkages between the party and leftist artists, he proved the perfect contact for Nie. According to Lu, by the early 1930s the approximately forty huiguan members could be categorized into four groups based on their political orientation. A small number of residents had once been involved in revolutionary activities but became depoliticized after serving prison terms. They sought an education before forging careers in Yunnan. A second group consisted of progressive intellectuals, former members of the Communist Youth League or the Hujihui (a mutual aid society) who had lost touch with the Yunnan party organization during 1929–30 once it was forced underground. A minority of these youth had just been released from jail and quickly left Yunnan for Beiping to attend university.53 The third and most numerous group comprised scions who had come to 86

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Beiping to broaden their vistas, to network, and to obtain a degree so that they could return to Yunnan and find lucrative positions. Lu describes the group in unflattering terms, suggesting that they registered their names at a private school but rarely went to class, since they preferred to lead a profligate lifestyle. “They wore extravagant clothes, immaculate Western style suits, idled away their time in eating and drinking, playing mah-jongg (sometimes playing for two to three days until they collapsed to the floor), smoking opium, visiting brothels, and running amuck.”54 A fourth group of political reactionaries, albeit a minority, participated in and encouraged decadent lifestyles to find incriminating evidence that they could report to the Guomindang (GMD) party branch. Within days of his arrival, Nie Er’s encounter with the GMD spy Ma Kuangguo may have influenced his behavior at the huiguan and his rapport with other huiguan members. After graduating from the first class of the Nationalists’ Central Politics School, Ma had gone to Yunnan in 1927 and become the director of a detective squad, investigating revolutionary organizations and helping to arrest activists. In fact, Ma had sought to arrest Nie in 1930. He claimed to be in Beiping to attend university, although his advanced age (mid-30s) rendered him suspect in the eyes of his critics.55 On his second evening in Beiping, Nie noted that Ma invited him to a show of singing and acrobatics at the Qingyun pavilion. In the same diary entry, Nie complained of headaches and decided to change his diary writing style to adopt a terse “accounting style,”56 testimony in Lu’s view that Nie sought to conceal confidential material from Ma, whom he already suspected of being a spy. Lu adds that the encounter influenced Nie’s subsequent behavior during his first month in Beiping. “He purposefully indulged himself in a leisurely lifestyle and provided entertainment—singing, comedy routines, holding ‘fools’ meetings’ (caobao dahui)—to befriend his fellow huiguan residents and deflect any suspicion on the part of Ma Kuangguo.”57 Nie even looked on as his neighbors smoked opium and partook of the drug, although this seems to have been an experiment motivated by the desire to combat a serious bout of dysentery.58 Characteristically, Nie was quick to reprimand himself for his choice of lifestyle. As other youth planned demonstrations in anticipation of the first anniversary of the Manchurian Incident, Nie lamented that he had loose bowels after gorging on mooncakes and fruit. “Other people have proposed a hunger strike on September 18, but we are fasting because of our diarrhea.”59 Nonetheless, Lu’s interpretation seems a bit forced in ignoring the pleasure that Nie took in displaying his entertainment skills.60 Nie’s friends, referring to him as Dr. Nie, cajoled him to “perform many programs which left them laughing hysterically.”61 Nie also took advantage of his sojourn in Beiping to go on excursions in and around the city with his Yunnanese friends. Although Nie bemoaned, at the end of his stay, how he had frittered away his time, his tourist activities had also

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s­ timulated his pride in China’s heritage. On his evening walks through the hutong (alleys lined with traditional courtyard residences) near the huiguan, Nie recalled China’s “knights-errant” tradition. “I walked home under the moonlight and thought of the old stories of martial artists leaping onto roofs and vaulting over walls—these weren’t simply empty tales.”62 Echoes of the city’s imperial past intrigued Nie as he repeatedly visited Zhongnanhai Park (the former imperial garden adjacent to the imperial palace) to meet friends, enjoy the pavilions at sunset, and drink tea.63 In a trip to the Fragrant Hills, Nie was struck by the vistas of imperial grandeur—the Beihai pagoda, the imperial ancestral temple, as well as the ruins of an imperial palace at the Gongmen Gate.64 Nie contrasted the ruins of China’s imperial past with numerous forts that dotted the landscape, which suggested the ongoing military preparations in case of Japanese advances. Tianqiao, the entertainment district that was home to many of the city’s laborers, was the most significant site for Nie Er in terms of stimulating his class concerns and nationalist sentiment. Typically, he looked at it through the lens of social class. “Here was a snapshot of the lower class society, all kinds of people making a living off their performing, opera singing, acrobatics and so forth.”65 After having walked from his violin teacher’s home in a foreigners’ upscale residential area, where the streets were “exceedingly clean” and lined with trees, Nie Er’s description of Tianqiao corresponds to stereotypes of the menacing “other.”66 An old man who wore a deathly pale face was rolling back and forth on the ground. As he stood up his entire body was covered in mud. His scary face and the movement of his hands took on a madman’s appearance. I looked at him for quite some time before realizing he was a martial arts performer. Nie proceeds to describe the cacophony of voices, but affirms the potential nationalistic use of such energy by comparing Tianqiao’s shouts to a militarized force battling the enemy. Nie’s description foreshadows his goal of composing mass songs to represent the voice of the people and serve as a mobilization force, and it is very likely that these trips to Tianqiao provided Nie with some of the folk melodies that he would later arrange for his traditional Chinese instrumental music. I made my way into lower class society. It was full of workers, [rickshaw] drivers, and I could witness the sweat and ugliness of refugees and the proletariat. They let out unrestrained shouts and screams as if they were mad men producing all kinds of strange things. Some were selling their voices, others their martial art skills. These roars (housheng) were like the clashing sounds of real swords and spears. The sound of drums. . . . This was their life struggle, their bugle cry as they charged the enemy.67 88

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The sounds and sights at Tianqiao, combined with his introduction into the leftist artist community in Beiping, stimulated his desire to write about revolutionary music theory, collect musical material, and compose music. Just a week after visiting Tianqiao, Nie met Yu Ling and Song Zhide (leaders of the Beiping chapter of the League of Left-Wing Dramatists) who had been introduced to Nie by Zhao Mingyi, a founding member of the League of Left-Wing Dramatists and, by 1932, its party secretary. Yu and Song requested that Nie contribute an article on the Shanghai film world to their leftist journal, Drama and Film (Xiju yu dian­ ying). After delivering the essay in person, Nie noted Song’s voracious reading habits and facility in foreign languages. “His bedroom was full of Japanese and Russian books and he was in the midst of writing. I saw that he was a voracious reader, and realized that I paled in comparison to him. I had the feeling of being exceedingly shallow!”68 Despite his sense of inferiority, Nie exhorted himself, “In terms of music I’ve recently ignored the work of composition and as for the writing of revolutionary music theory it is something I must also note. My primary tasks: collect Yunnan mountain songs, urban melodies and compose songs.”69 Through his association with Yu Ling and Song Zhide, Nie began to frequent leftist dramas and became a participant in the activities sponsored by the Beiping chapters of the left-wing musicians’ and dramatists’ organizations. A day after meeting them, Nie watched a performance of Maxim Gorky’s The Inn presented by the Baoliba jushe (Struggle Theater), a Soviet Russian–inspired ensemble established by Yu and Song in May 1932.70 Nie also sought to attend a series of short plays commemorating the first anniversary of the Manchurian Incident. Titles such as Bombs (Zhadan) and Blood-Stained Clothes (Xueyi) betray their militant nationalist tenor. That evening, Nie arrived late to the theater located at the Law University only to find the iron gate to campus locked. Numerous police were standing around after having shut down the program. Nie described a city on edge as students sought to mobilize to protest Japan’s occupation of Manchuria. “These few days the mood in Beiping is very tense. Every school and mass organization is busy preparing for September 18 demonstrations, the boycott of Japanese goods, and performance drama movement. Despite the government ban, the prohibition has had no effect. Yesterday there were skirmishes between the police and students.”71 Nie’s association with leftist dramatists culminated in a violin performance of “The Internationale” in late October at Qinghua University. Proceeds from ticket sales went to fund volunteers in the Northeast resisting the Japanese.72 Nie also continued to hold out dreams of a career on violin. Several lessons with the Russian Professor Tonoff, who had also taught Wang Renyi, kindled Nie’s hopes and led him to practice as much as eight hours one day. “It has to be like this because Tonoff sets such high standards for me. The piece he has assigned [Viotti’s Concerto no. 22 in A minor] exhibits one’s technique. The composer Viotti and the virtuoso Paganini enjoyed equal fame and the piece has some quite

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difficult passages.”73 Nie took pride in noting that Tonoff was “extremely satisfied” in listening to him play in 7th position [high up on the fingerboard] and perform virtuosic showpieces—Wieniawski’s Souvenir de Moscou and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen. The demanding repertoire indicates the rapid progress that Nie had made in just two years and the time commitment he had invested. By midOctober, Nie had hatched a plan that he would continue studying with his “excellent teacher,” return to Yunnan and hold several performances before requesting to study abroad in Japan.74 Nie even took hope after reading about Richard Wagner, who led a life “full of bitterness and struggle.” “Forward!” he encouraged himself. “From Japan to the U.S. and Europe. Do I need to think twice?!”75 In the end, circumstances curtailed Nie’s grandiose plans. As a practical matter, Nie had run out of money, had pawned his winter coat once again, had no job, and despaired that his patron Zheng Yili had not responded to his request for money.76 Despite or because of his political activities, Nie had become disenchanted with his relaxed lifestyle and concluded that leisure was an enervating force. The only remedy was work, and Shanghai offered the promise of regular income through a position at Lianhua Studios, with a “life of stimulation and plenty of opportunities to listen to music.”77 Lacking the means to remain in Beiping, which he conceded was akin to “studying the violin like an aristocrat,” and without any warm clothes for the impending winter, Nie boarded the train back to Shanghai on November 6.

Putting Popularization into Action Although Nie’s sojourn in the former capital proved short-lived, contacts forged with left-wing dramatists and his experience drafting the organizational charter for the Beiping League of Left-Wing Musicians put him in good stead. The Beiping League of Left-Wing Dramatists recommended to their Shanghai counterparts, Tian Han and Zhao Mingyi, that Nie be accepted into the Communist Party.78 In the spring of 1933, Nie joined the CCP through the introduction of Tian Han, who also assisted Nie in landing a job at the Lianhua film studio. At Lianhua, Nie began to organize study groups with other leftist musicians. The Soviet Union Friendship Society (Sulian zhi youshe), established in February 1933, facilitated Shanghai’s leftist musicians’ creation of a new Chinese music. With the resumption of formal diplomatic relations between China and the Soviet Union on December 12, 1932, the Friendship Society established study groups in drama and music. This worked in tandem with the sponsorship of the CCP, which sought to promote understanding of Soviet accomplishments in the fields of economics, education, and culture. With Tian Han’s assistance, Nie formed the music group with Ren Guang, An E, and Zhang Shu.79 The four 90

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members had close personal ties to Tian Han and shared his ideological convictions. Tian was passionately in love with An E, a revolutionary playwright and poet who had joined the Communist Party in 1925, studied at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow during 1927–1929, and embodied his ideal of a loving woman and revolutionary artist. As Xiaomei Chen describes, “Falling in love with An E necessarily meant for Tian Han embracing socialist ideology.”80 The music group periodically convened in the French Concession at the Western-style villa of Ren Guang. Although the CCP underground recognized Ren’s progressive sympathies, they targeted him primarily because of his job as director of Pathé-EMI’s music division. In Tian Han’s vision, cultivating the relationship with Ren and the recording company, even at the risk of losing An E (there is some speculation she became romantically involved with Ren after she joined Pathé-EMI), would provide the CCP with a foothold that it could then use to disseminate its leftist views. Holding the meetings at Ren’s upscale home might also deflect any suspicions held by the authorities. Ren, a pianist and piano tuner by trade after having studied and worked in France and Vietnam, also had a piano and a radio. The radio allowed the group to listen to short-wave broadcasts of Soviet music, study the history of Soviet songwriting, and engage in theoretical debates on the proletarian arts movement. One can assume that members of the study group were familiar with the latest issues of Mass Art and Literature (Dazhong wenyi). The Left League’s periodical had recently published “Music Development in Soviet Russia during the Revolutionary Decade,” “Historical Materialist Analysis of Music,” and other articles introducing Soviet revolutionary music and Marxist music criticism. These articles called for the construction of a “new emerging music” for the laboring masses, which would grow out of leftist musicians immersing themselves in society and utilizing various folk art forms. Judging from Nie Er and his colleagues’ compositions, the writing that had the most direct impact on their work was a short essay written by Left League leader and literary theorist Zhou Yang (using the name Zhou Qiying). Written as an afterword to his 1932 translation of the essay “Soviet Music” by the American socialist Joseph Freeman, Zhou Yang called for using a new mass form of proletarian internationalism. In copying the slogan of the Soviet Proletarian Musicians, Zhou asserted that “the main task” for proletarian composers was to create a “new style of music that was proletarian in content, national in form.”81 To help Chinese musicians achieve this task, Zhou introduced Soviet mass songs to his readers, highlighting the work of Boris Shekhter and Alexander Davidenko, whose mass songs reached their height of popularity in the early 1930s. Mass songs were extremely popular in the first phase of proletarian composers’ works. In the battle for socialist construction they are forceful

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weapons of the proletariat. In this short but emotionally rich form, workingclass struggle and enthusiasm for labor are effectively expressed. Davidenko is the most outstanding composer of this new genre. He has composed, “First Cavalry Army,” “Budenny’s Cavalry,” “Song about Commissary” and “The Street Is Alarmed,” which take the February Revolution as its subject matter.82 Although the mass song was to use a “national form,” which was best expressed through folk music, the content of the songs was explicitly internationalist in promoting working-class solidarity and implicitly so in rejecting regional references. Nationalist content was to be avoided. As Zhou described, “they [Soviet proletarian music composers] must negate the possibility of Russian chauvinism impeding ethnic minority groups’ proletarian culture. They must also avoid favoring the local patriotism of bourgeois nationalism. The present task for current proletarian composers is to create music whose content is that of the proletariat and whose form is national.” Zhou Yang’s description also served as a model for understanding popularization. Zhou explained that the chief mission of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians had involved “cleansing music of its decadent bourgeois past and introducing the essence of its past as well as proletarian mass songs.” Popularization was achieved by forming worker-based music groups, allowing mass songs to “penetrate the ranks of the working class, the Red Army, state run and collective farms, thus replacing the vulgar music of the petty bourgeois.”83 To be sure, without state support and facing a hostile political environment, it was nearly impossible for Nie and his comrades to organize a proletarian music movement. Their first foray into the world of labor, which they modeled after Tian Han’s call to popularize the theater, involved teaching songs to workers at night school. Nie Er’s associate Lü Ji recalls their strong desire to engage with the working class so they could create an authentic proletarian music. We recognized that if we ignored workers’ living conditions, their hopes and moods as well as their own musical interests, then despite our efforts we would lack a basis [for our compositions]. Our theater comrades can often go to factories and perform for workers and listen to workers’ opinions about their performance, which benefits their work. If we had this opportunity, would Nie Er have needed to go to nearby Xiaoshadu Road, walk among the women workers going to work to listen to their conversations, observe their moods, converse with them? In the fall of 1934 he finally had the chance when Zhao Mingyi introduced him to a position teaching women workers singing at their night school. Until early 1935 I also worked at three night schools for women workers.84 92

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Just as left-wing Dramatist members brought the theater into the factories, Nie Er was also one of the first to organize women textile workers into the night school song group for the film The New Woman (Xin nüxing). Even if the film was pure fiction, the idea of having the direct participation of workers in the artistic process was underway. In the meantime, the small group of leftist musicians was waging an ideological battle against the “petty bourgeois” music of Li Jinhui. They championed a “new music of China” that they insisted must be “similar to the other arts—poetry, the novel, and drama—in representing the masses crying out (nahan).”85 As Tian Han recalled, “They were exemplary in developing the struggle against the yellow music and the art of the bourgeoisie. Through theory and their works, they gave a forceful rebuttal to their enemies and opponents.”86 Judging from his diary entries, Nie seemed a bit put off by his colleagues’ theoretical discussions and more interested in the production and circulation of his music. Despite his public writings and championing of a new music, Nie was not a theoretician but rather a doer, a man of action. “To build a [music] movement is no easy matter and even less possible if one simply engages in empty talk about theory. . . . An E’s recent political opinions make sense as far as theory goes, but she holds a fairly superficial understanding of reality.”87 Perhaps for this reason, or perhaps in compliance with the Left League’s division of labor, with members engaged either in artistic production or criticism, by 1934 Nie Er had devoted himself to music making. This allowed Lü Ji to emerge as the main theoretician of leftist music. Lü must have welcomed his new role, since it allowed him to put to rest any lingering doubts over his political loyalties given his past ties to anarchists.88 In the fall of 1934, under the penname Mu Hua, Lü Ji affirmed the materialist basis of music in a polemical debate held with his friend and former Changsha classmate Zhang Hao, a student at the National Conservatory of Music. Using the alias Ting Shi, Zhang had penned an article bemoaning the transformation of music into a pragmatic, utilitarian object and lamenting society’s obsession with pragmatism—“to view life as simply a process of eating, wearing clothes and satisfying material needs.” Pitching his appeal to other intellectuals, whom he accused of a myopic pragmatism caused by the legacy of the civil service examination system, Zhang stressed balancing the spiritual (art) with the material world. Otherwise, if China emphasized the pragmatic, its youth would be led down an “illegitimate road, confined to an evil, crippled, dark, foul, callous and abject character.”89 Only by expelling shortsighted pragmatism would the people be liberated from their shackles, he concluded. In a series of rejoinders, Lü Ji accused Zhang of philosophical idealism and ignoring the determinative relationship between the base of material life and the superstructure of spiritual life. In Lü’s view, Zhang’s ivory-tower existence had blinded him to the contemporary crisis facing China, the “impending collapse of

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China’s semi-colonial economy,” which could only be resolved through social transformation. “At best we can demand improvement in cultural life, but this improvement must be based on a better material life and our hopes alone won’t lead to an improved material life in this old social system that collapses with each passing day. It is clear that we must transform our existing social institutions.”90 In his essay “Chinese Music during the Past Year,” published in Shenbao on January 6, 1935, Nie Er affirmed Lü Ji’s orientation. After summarizing their debate he added his own criticisms. “Mr. Ting Shi’s proposal to balance the people’s material lives with spirituality is not only futile but detrimental.”91 Nie reserved most of his condemnation for popular songs, the broadcasts of young women vocalists, who he denounced for vulgarity and lack of musical competence. Nie paid Li Jinhui a backhanded compliment for having published three to four hundred new songs in a ten-volume collection. “One can say this is a grand event. . . . I’ve heard that their content can cultivate and affect one’s emotions and vitality and increase the joys of life, but I’m not convinced they had this effect.”92 Nie predicted that “popular and vulgar” music would still make an occasional splash in the entertainment industry, but that its days were numbered, whereas the new music (of which he touted his compositions) was on the ascendancy. If Lü Ji aspired to the correct ideological view, much more appealing to Nie Er was putting theory to work. This he did by means of a collaborative process of songwriting that he pursued with the Soviet Union Friendship Society music group. Using this group as a base, Nie established the Chinese New Music Research Society with the goal of pooling participants’ efforts to create a new Chinese music that would express the “masses’ cries” and maintain high artistic standards. Acknowledging the challenge of composing songs of a high artistic quality, Nie anticipated the frequent criticism of revolutionary music in China, and elsewhere, that the music of protest tends to be bad music. The people demand a new content and performance of the music as well as a new attitude by the composer. They feel that the leisure class’s romanticism, aesthetics and sentiment are inappropriate and that they numb the people’s consciousness. Those composers supporting the revolution have tried [to meet] these demands, but it is difficult to create revolutionary music at a high artistic level.93 With Ren Guang on piano and Zhang Shu singing, the group explored how to develop a Chinese revolutionary music.94 According to Tian Han, the discussions became heated when the musicians critiqued each other’s work. “To help the composer remedy any weaknesses they frequently argued until they were red in the face, but once they agreed on a solution they would calm down and harbor no ill feelings.”95 94

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The group members such as Lü Ji, Zhang Shu and Ren Guang were music workers both in and outside the party. In the organization, they criticized each other’s musical work. It must be pointed out that Nie Er’s tremendous progress in such a short time span was in large part owing to the organization’s help, and did not result from groping around on his own in his garret. While he was in this organization he also joined the party.96 Writing in 1960 during the Great Leap Forward, Tian Han may have exaggerated the role of the party organization and diminished Nie’s own individual creativity; nonetheless, the collective approach to artistic creation was in harmony with Nie Er and his colleagues’ political orientation. Besides this collaborative approach, there was always the issue of popularization, achieved through immersion in the lives of the people. Nie had exhorted Li Jinhui to subscribe to a new form of mass art: “Can’t you hear the numerous masses of people on this earth around you who cry out like crazy? You must go down to those people, because therein lies fresh material to create a new and fresh art!”97 To his own question on how to define the new music, Nie responded, “With the imperialist occupation of the Northeast and the massacre of the masses, we know that music is similar to the other arts—poetry, the novel, and drama—in representing the masses crying out (nahan). . . .” A “new era of musicians” was in the making. These musicians, with whom he self-identified and contrasted to an older generation of composers, have been “forged by the revolution and concentrate on life [of the people] based on their attitudes towards life and art.”98 Thus, most of Nie’s songs concerned the laboring masses. Creating a music capable of expressing the masses’ cries became for Nie Er the essence of his compositional philosophy. As Wang Yuhe explains, “Henceforth the central subject matter of Nie Er’s song compositions was the representation of the life and emotional content of the laboring masses under oppression; in particular, his central goal was to create pieces about the oppressed working class.”99 Nie Er’s focus on the marginalized groups in society was a stark change from Li Jinhui’s love songs or the art songs of Huang Zi and Zhao Yuanren.100 Rather than highlight the heroic or the sentimental, Nie composed pieces based on lyrics about stevedores, cotton mill workers, newspaper vendors, farm girls, child laborers, dockworkers, and miners. To better understand the language and daily rhythms of the oppressed, Nie observed construction workers, witnessed female cotton mill workers trudging to work at the break of dawn, and befriended newspaper vendors. A partial listing of his song titles—“Mining Song” (Kaikuang ge), “Song of the Poverty Stricken” (Jihan jiaopo zhi ge), “Dockworkers” (Matou gongren), “Coolie Song” (Kuli ge), and “Shepherd Girl” (Muyang nü)—indicates his efforts to give voice to the subaltern through his music. Most of the songs dealt with subordinate social groups—children, women, workers, and peasants—while several,

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most famously “March of the Volunteers,” expressed the Chinese people’s struggle for national liberation. To reach the masses, Nie used the technological innovations of his day, sound film and the phonograph. Similarly, leftist intellectuals and artists, despite their aversion to capitalism, did not hesitate to avail themselves of the emerging media technology in Shanghai and other urban centers. In 1928, literary critic Guo Moruo exhorted, “Don’t just blow your broken trumpets (bourgeois ideology). Become phonographs for a while!” Following this injunction, Nie Er, with the assistance of Tian Han, sought to use the phonograph to capture the realism of the oppressed people’s struggles and then play it back to society for the purpose of political mobilization. For urban intellectuals, recorded music could give voice to the subaltern or, to use Nie Er’s terms, “cry out on behalf of the masses.” As Andrew Jones notes, the phonograph could seemingly bypass the class divisions and relations of power inherent in fictional representation, which played on polarities between literacy and illiteracy, subject and object. “Recording, then, may well have seemed a conveniently neutral medium for those same intellectuals, a mechanical process from which the ‘taint’ of the cultural producer’s bourgeois subjectivity is magically removed.”101 With the first Chinese sound film appearing in 1932, leftist artists eagerly anticipated the effects a social realist approach would have on “awakening” the masses. Their hopes were confirmed when the film Song of the Fishermen (Yuguang qu), directed by Cai Chusheng and produced by Lianhua Productions, was released in June 1934. The film, a story about the tragic life of an impoverished fisherman and an indictment of capitalist exploitation, ran continuously for an unprecedented three months, helped in no small part by its eponymous title song, composed by Ren Guang with lyrics by An E. The success of such songs allowed Ren Guang, who now served as a “musical comprador” at the Pathé Orient Record Company (of EMI), to recruit his leftist friends, including Nie Er.102 Working under the supervision of Ren Guang, Nie Er was responsible for the studio music ensemble and used his position to promote sonic nationalism—composing and recording progressive songs for the emerging sound cinema.

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CHAPTER 4

Composing for the Revolution

When Nie Er returned to Shanghai in November 1932, he launched an artistic

career in both the film industry and the music profession. By year’s end, Tian Han had helped Nie find employment as log keeper at Lianhua Productions. Over the course of 1933, Nie found bit parts in a series of leftist films produced by Lianhua in keeping with the company’s mandate that its employees act in “people’s” (qunzhong) roles for its films.1 His violin skills drew attention on the set of New Year’s Eve (Chuxi) when he played a haunting melody to recreate a mood of despair for the actors to emulate. By March 1933, Nie was band director for Lianhua’s First Studio, responsible for accompanying film music and coaching actors to sing. That same month, he assumed the job of stage manager for the production of Maternal light (Muxing zhi guang), acted in the role of a miner, and composed his first film song, “Mining Song” (Kaikuang ge)—likely one of the first Chinese songs to reflect working-class consciousness. Despite his youth, Nie’s artistry and organizational talents made him a household name in Shanghai’s artistic circles. After the Association of Chinese Film Culture (Zhongguo dianying wenhua xiehui) was founded on February 9, 1933, Nie served on its executive committee and was appointed its organizational secretary.2 Nie’s tenure at Bright Moon had already led to friendships with rising stars of the silver screen, most prominently Wang Renmei and Jin Yan, but his participation in the film association broadened his contacts among leftist-leaning directors and screenwriters. In September, Lianhua Studio director Cai Chusheng chose Nie to direct the background music for Song of the Fisherman. Eventually Nie Er’s activities with the Left League raised suspicions at Lianhua, and in January 1934 the studio dismissed him, although their stated reason was that he should convalesce after a bout of illness during the fall. In part because of its foreign ownership, which offered more protection against Nationalist government interference, his next and final job in Shanghai was at Pathé Records, later 97

managed by the Electric and Musical Industries, EMI. In addition to composing music for songs, Nie directed a traditional Chinese music ensemble for PathéEMI, a brief but formative experience in the young musician’s quest to compose a new Chinese music. The establishment of the Denton (Diantong) Film Company as a front for the left-wing artists’ movement provided further opportunities for Nie, who composed his celebrated “Graduation Song” (Biyege) for Denton’s first production, the dramatic film Plunder of Peach and Plum (Taolijie). Nie’s last composition—“March of the Volunteers”—was written for a Denton film, Children of the Storm (Fengyun ernü). During 1934, aptly described by Nie Er as “my year of music,”3 Nie threw himself into musical composition, worked for Pathé-EMI, acted in and directed Tian Han’s musical drama, Storm on the Yangzi River (Yangzijiang baofengyu), and continued his own musical training. On the verge of exhaustion, he nevertheless took violin lessons and studied piano and music theory with National Conservatory School of Music professor Sergei Aksakov. Between 1933 and 1935, Nie Er composed 42 works, including two harmonica works, the arrangement of four “traditional” instrumental pieces, a piece for songand-dance troupe, and 35 songs.4 Although best remembered for “March of the Volunteers” and a few other “mass songs” characterized by their martial vigor, Nie’s song output was quite varied, ranging from lyrical love songs to children’s rhymes. Wang Yuhe, an authority on Nie Er’s music, classifies Nie’s songs according to the social groups that the songs sought to give voice to, such as “oppressed women,” “laborers,” and “revolutionary youth.” In doing so, Wang accepts at face value the criteria adopted by the leftist musicians who promoted their own music as the “new Chinese music” for its progressive political stance on the national crisis. Thus Wang classifies songs such as “Graduation Song” (Biyege, 1934), “March of the Volunteers,” and “Refugee Song” (Taowangqu, 1935) as the “sounds of an era” for their commitment to the anti-Japanese resistance. Likewise, he categorizes songs involving youth, some of them lyrical love songs, as “revolutionary youth songs of the new era.”5 The Hong Kong–based music scholar Liu Chingchih adopts more politically neutral stylistic categories that group the songs as children’s rhymes, work songs, lyrical songs, and anti-Japanese and militant pieces.6 I follow most of these categories, but recognize them only as heuristic devices, since songs often overlap boundaries. Musicologists diverge in the criteria they use to analyze Nie’s music. Trained as a historian of European concert music, Wang Yuhe is prone to analyze Nie’s music in terms of Western compositional techniques, whereas Liang Maochun highlights Nie’s use of Chinese folk song forms and pentatonic modes and his adroit handling of the Chinese language’s inherent musicality when setting music to lyrics. Both interpretations agree that Nie Er’s music was a foundation in the construction of a new Chinese musical genre that draws on European composi98

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tional techniques and idioms as well as the Chinese folk song tradition. But each accords a different weight to these respective influences. At heart is a divergence of opinion on how well versed Nie Er was in Western music theory and whether he should even be considered a “composer.” 7 Critics point out that he wrote many of his songs using cipher rather than staff notation. To be fair, Chinese composers used numbered musical notation because it was easier to read and offered more freedom to the singer according to his or her vocal range. Nie’s limited piano skills are also seen as an impediment to composition. He may have composed at the piano, but only to check proper pitch and intervals, not to compose harmony. His vocal works were sung in unison with one melodic line.8 Although never formally trained as a composer like some of his contemporaries associated with the National Conservatory of Music, most prominently Huang Zi, neither was Nie Er a complete autodidact. As we have seen, he was dedicated to the violin and studied intensively for over a year with the Russian teachers Josef Podushka in Shanghai and Tonoff in Beiping. Nie also studied piano, counterpoint, and harmony with Aaron Avshalomov, and from August 1934 through the spring of 1935 Nie took lessons in piano and composition with the Russian pedagogue Sergei Aksakov.9 Nie Er was well acquainted with the European music tradition. At the same time, he was well versed in traditional Chinese music from his experiences in Yunnan. According to Li Jinhui, Nie had

Nie Er posing as violinist for the 1933 movie Night City. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

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Nie Er singing (1933). Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

a solid foundation in traditional Chinese music and folk music upon joining Bright Moon. “He already had a basis in the erhu (two-stringed bowed fiddle) . . . He had also studied traditional folk music: the musical notations for the sevenstringed zither, Kun opera, folk songs of various regions, traditional opera, yayue (refined or ritual court music), and all types of recordings.”10 In short, Nie Er drew on multiple sources for his compositions, both Chinese and Western. However talented he was, though, Nie was but one of many musicians of his generation who “creatively blended Chinese elements into a mostly Western music frame and aesthetic, producing new styles of music that further pushed the limits that defined Chinese music.”11 It is his choosing of the subaltern classes as his subject matter and his creation of a mass song style that sought to mobilize the people that makes Nie Er a pioneering and radical songwriter. In the following survey of Nie’s compositions, I choose representative works from the major song forms—children’s songs, work songs, women’s songs, and march songs—that promote a revolutionary and nationalist agenda. Despite their variety, the songs share a common theme of social injustice articulated by subordinate groups in defiance of class oppression and imperialist domination. Nie composed songs with limited vocal range and rhythmic patterns that could articulate each word of the vernacular free-verse poetry and lyrics written by prominent left-wing and self-consciously realist writers. The underlying message of most of his song lyrics was both progressive and patriotic, promoting “class-inflected nationalism” that was reinforced by the sonic and visual power of film and by Nie’s musical 100

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language, which sought to Sinicize the music. Stylistically, as Nie gained experience as a songwriter, the songs took on the coloring of folk songs by relying on pentatonic modes,12 strophic forms, and labor chants.

The Search for Folk Music and the Creation of National Music Although Nie Er’s attraction to the mass song stemmed in part from his study of Soviet mass songs and the aesthetic principles of social realism, as part of a broader national music project he aspired to create a new song form that synthesized elements of Western music with Chinese folk music. To meet this goal, Nie sought out traditional melodies and folk music. Within months of composing “Mining Song,” Nie wrote to his mother, “Now I would like to research thoroughly the folk songs of every region. Please ask Third Brother to collect some and send them to me. I’d like all types no matter whether they are popular tunes, Dongjing melodies, mountain songs, or Yunnan opera models. It’s urgent!!!”13 Originally an impulse of the New Culture Movement, the interest in folklore coincided with the growth of nationalism. In combatting the traditional mores of Confucian culture, intellectuals turned to folk literature (typically written in colloquial Chinese [baihua] and conveying a direct emotional appeal) to satisfy their romantic sensibilities and discover material that could revitalize a “national” culture.14 Between 1918 and 1925, Beijing University’s Department of Folksong Collection, led by Gu Jiegang, spearheaded the research and classification of folksongs with the aim of revealing the “heart sound of the nation’s people.”15 Gu and other intellectuals viewed folk literature and songs as an expression of the people and thus a means to save the nation. Both of Nie’s mentors, Li Jinhui and Tian Han, endorsed the movement; Li was a pioneer in the collection of folk songs.16 Nie’s motivation to study folk music was also spurred by nostalgia and homesickness for his native Yunnan. The urge to collect folk songs from Yunnan became a steady drumbeat in his diary and correspondences. While in Beiping during the fall of 1932, he noted, “My first job is to collect Yunnan mountain songs, xiaodiao, and create songs.” Half a year later, he exhorted himself, “Pay attention to Yunnanese music.”17 And in the fall of 1934, Nie communicated to Zhang Yuhou, “I had no idea you would travel to so many places [in Yunnan]. I regret I didn’t send you a plan of work to survey the music of the borderlands.”18 Nie’s interest in folk music also had a practical application. Between April and November 1934, he served as the director of Pathé’s traditional Chinese instrumental ensemble. Based on his own research and his collection of folk music from disparate regions of China, Nie arranged seven instrumental pieces and recorded three of those. These were among the first recordings of instrumental ensemble

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pieces of Chinese traditional music, noteworthy given the ebb in traditional music’s popularity during the 1930s.19 It is hardly surprising that several of Nie’s arrangements were based on music of his home province, yet Nie identified folk music more in terms of its national import rather than its regional or local particularity. Once Nie began adapting folk melodies for his instrumental music recordings, it is interesting to note that his arrangement “Mountain Kingdom Lovers” (Shanguo qinglu) combines folksongs from opposite regions of China. Composed using a ternary (ABA) form, the first and third parts are based on the Yunnanese Flower Lantern melody, “Yu E’s Lover” (Yu E lang), whereas the middle section uses the folk melody “The Great Red Rooster” (Dahong gongji), popularized in Suiyuan, near the present-day capital of Inner Mongolia.20 According to one musicologist, “Although the distance between the provenance of the two folk songs is vast, they fit hand in glove.”21 The titles for Nie’s musical arrangements were also symbolic of the confluence between nationalism and regionalism. Nie’s regional affinities determined his choice of Kunming’s Green Lake (Cuihu) as the title of the instrumental piece “Spring Dawn at Green Lake” (Cuihu chunxiao). The piece evinces his pride, fondness, and nostalgia for the site of many meetings with friends where they made music together. Upon leaving Yunnan, though, Nie assigned the lake a national significance. After a trip to Hangzhou, for instance, Nie compared its West Lake, made famous by the 1929 “West Lake Expo,” to Cuihu. “We went to Hangzhou to take photos of the scenery. It was very interesting but I’m sure that within a few years, Green Lake will be second to none, even compared to West Lake.”22 In his most famous arrangement, Nie changed the more generic title of a Kunming folk piece, “Dao ba ban” (inverted eight beat), to “Golden Snake’s Merry Dance” (Jinshe kuangwu). Nie’s title evokes the excitement of the lantern festivities and boat races held in the Lower Yangzi region during the Dragon Boat Festival. The lanterns reflect like a golden snake dancing in the river. Nie Er associated the piece with the dragon, a symbol of imperial authority. In a modern context, Jinshe kuangwu symbolizes the awakening and rise of the Chinese people, reflecting Nie Er’s own nationalistic sentiments. Finally, rather than use the formal name “Pathé National Music Association,” Nie opted for the Leafy Luxuriant Chinese Music Troupe (Sensen guoyuedui), evoking the beauty of China’s natural landscape. Nie Er’s songs were never purely “Chinese,” and neither were his arrangements of traditional Chinese music, which bore the imprint of Western concert music in terms of harmony and orchestration. These were examples of transculturation “that not only incorporated Western music into the nation’s soundscape but also used it as a model of reform that resulted in many musical changes in indigenous traditions.”23 Although Nie did not express his reforms in terms of Westerniza102

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tion, his advocacy of a scientific approach aligned with May Fourth intellectuals’ tendency to contrast progressive and scientifically based Western cultural forms with Chinese traditional culture. In a letter to his brother, Nie Er recounted with pride how he had updated his traditional Chinese instrument ensemble. I organized the “Sensen” ensemble using only Chinese instruments to perform Chinese music in which I’ve added scientific organization and harmony to produce a new form of Chinese music. We’ve performed several times in Shanghai and caused a sensation.24 The ensemble’s popularity derived from its new methods—the use of scores, harmony, and conductor. Wang Weiyi, the erhu player in the ensemble, confirms Nie’s innovative use of harmony. “Traditional Chinese music was performed in unison, but now it was changed to playing in harmony with each instrumentalist playing his own musical phrase making it very harmonious to the ear . . .”25 Nie’s scientific approach involved using notation, still considered a modern Western import, and a more structured instrumentation. Finally, one should note Nie’s role as conductor of the ensemble. Disregarding the injunctions of the Pathé recording studio, Nie and his associates performed several times at venues such as the Minzhu Girls’ Middle School, where, dressed in a dark Western suit, Nie conducted from a podium.26 Despite his success and keen interest in the traditional instrument ensemble’s work, in November 1934 Nie resigned as director to protest Pathé’s plans to reorganize the group as an expanded Western-style orchestra that would record dance-hall music. As a result, Nie turned again to his quest to create a “new Chinese music.” His experience with the traditional music ensemble and his interest in folk music, however, may not have translated directly to his songwriting. Similar to European national composers, Nie’s songs do not quote traditional folk songs. But his attention to the genre allowed him to impart the feel of a folk song; for example, the sense of a work chant in his labor songs or the pentatonic melodies of his children’s songs.

Children’s Songs Given Li Jinhui’s mentorship, it is not surprising that Nie Er would continue to develop the genre of children’s songs that Li had pioneered. Li was best known for a dozen children’s operas, starting with Sparrow and Child (Maque yu xiaohai, 1920) and concluding with The Little Painter (Xiao xiao huajia, 1928).27 Li encouraged using his productions to foster a greater appreciation for the arts and to promote language reform. As he explained, “Singing is the best way to learn

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s­ tandard ‘national’ Chinese (guoyu) . . .”28 Educators began to perform Li Jinhui’s operas in their schools, thus diffusing the works throughout the country. Li’s popularity among youth stemmed from his use of simple language, lively melodies, and creative plots involving children and animals placed in fable-like settings. By the late 1920s, Li had become sufficiently confident to produce his own songs, lyrics, dances, and even stage designs for his operas. Throughout the decade, Li also wrote “performance songs” for children, such as the popular “Poor Qiu Xiang” (Kelian de Qiu Xiang)” and “My Good Friend Has Arrived” (Hao pengyou laile). To render them easier to sing, Li used colloquial Chinese and matched his melodies with the lyric’s pronunciation and tone, often using one note per character to reinforce articulation. Lively rhythms that complemented dance movements and the techniques of antiphonal and unison singing also made the songs more accessible. Li’s interest in collecting music of the common people ( pingmin) frequently led him to use folk melodies or compose melodies with folklike qualities from a variety of regions, although his insistence on using music to promote standard Chinese stripped the language of its dialects. Li’s attention to the Chinese language and its relationship to music was a key lesson that he imparted to Nie Er. To Li’s delight, Nie was a quick study. Having learned from experience that one had to merge lyrics and language to create the new folk style songs, he [Nie Er] was determined to study the pronunciation of characters and expand his knowledge of the national language. I recall that he learned in one night a lesson that others would have taken an entire week; even before two months had passed he understood and mastered an outline of Chinese language, principles of tones [of Chinese characters] and their changing patterns, and the methods of combining words and phrases.29 Nie Er’s children’s songs bore the mark of the 1930s proletarian-arts movement and thus marked a departure from Li’s approach, but both men shared a love of children, which inspired their interest in the genre. The common perception of a child’s psychology as pure and playful influenced the style of their children’s songs, such as Nie’s “Wild Kitten” (Xiao Yemao). Composed in the spring of 1934 to lyrics by Chen Bochui, the editor of Children’s Magazine, the playful song describes a friendly kitten, frustrated because of its inability to befriend a mouse, as expressed in the first verse. Miao, miao, miao! Miao! My name is cat. Miao! I smile when I see the mouse, Mouse sees me and flees 104

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I’m so upset I give chase with a stick. When I capture him, I ask: “Why do you fear me?” Mouse has nothing to say, chirping only ji ji ji!30

Li Jinhui’s influence can be noted in terms of the song’s subject matter, its liveliness, and its use of simple language to facilitate singing. The use of onomatopoeia at the song’s start and end as well as a rhythmic pattern of dotted eighth, sixteenth, and eighth notes injects a dose of humor. Nie places a scale-wise figuration in D major in measures (mm.) 5–6 and 21–22, respectively, which facilitates the ease of singing. To impart a more “Chinese flavor,” Nie follows with notes of the pentatonic scale in mm. 15–16 and 25–26. The composition illustrates Nie’s ability to shape a melody around the contours of the language where he uses an ascending 6th interval in measure 20. Nie distorts the tone of the character “Ni” for artistic effect to highlight the cat teasing the mouse. Nie Er gives his children’s songs a politicized edge by addressing poverty and the social ills of child labor, which had reached its peak in Shanghai during the late 1920s.31 Nie Er composed four songs dealing with child labor: “Little Worker” (Xiao gongren, 1933?), “Shepherd Girl” (Mu yangnü, 1934), “Voice of the Newsboy” (Maibao zhi sheng, 1934), and “Song of the Newspaper Seller”

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(Maibaoge, 1933). The radical poet An E’s lyrics for “Little Worker” give agency to the downtrodden: they are sung in the first person and articulate a spirit of defiance. I am a young worker, making carts and wheels. My body aches from working all day, while others go for rides in their cars. I am a young worker making all things on earth. If you doubt my strength, My fist will send you crying to your mom.32

Written in 1933, “Little Worker” was historically significant for being one of the first Chinese songs to depict a child laborer, and its sociological interest trumps its musical merits. The song is in strophic form, comprising four phrases of equal length and seven characters per phrase. Although lacking the rhythmic vitality and variety of his later work, one favorable interpretation posits that Nie may have maintained the steady rhythmic pattern to depict the “arduous labor of a child standing beside the rotating machine.”33 Nie’s first children’s song, “Song of the Newspaper Seller,” reflected his efforts to go among the people to witness their struggles and then inject the music with the sounds and rhythms of their daily lives. The inspiration for this song came from Nie’s friendship with a ten-year-old girl known as Xiao Maotou (real name Yang Bijun), whom he saw everyday hawking newspapers as he went to work at the Lianhua Studio. Xiao Maotou’s migrant family had fallen on hard times after her father, a textile worker in Suzhou, had died. On nights when Xiao Maotou had not sold her papers, Nie would help out by buying a bundle from her to distribute to his friends. The girl’s resilience and clear, ringing voice inspired Nie to ask An E to write lyrics for a newspaper seller’s song. Once he finished putting the lyrics to music, Nie tested the song on Xiao Maotou, who suggested he quote the newspaper price. Thus, Nie injected this note of realism: La, la, la! La, la, la! I am a young newspaper seller Before dawn I deliver the papers, running and shouting Today’s news is truly good Seven coppers can buy two papers. La, la, la! La, la, la! I am a young newspaper seller Fierce winds and heavy rains fill the streets as I run, the going is rough and I slip and fall, My body caked in mud makes people laugh, Only I know the hunger and cold.

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La, la, la! La, la, la! I am a young newspaper seller Enduring hunger and cold while running the streets, Not eating my fill, not sleeping well, To whom can I relate my suffering? There will come a day when the light dawns.34

“Song of the Newspaper Seller” is one of China’s most enduring children’s songs.35 The song’s pentatonic melody and its folk-song-like character endear it to the listener. Moreover, the song’s effectiveness lies in Nie’s skill in juxtaposing the lively rhythm of a children’s song with An E’s lyrics of suffering. Nie captures the newspaper girl’s innocence and optimism but also injects a social commentary to galvanize public sympathy for the girl’s struggle. Nie achieves this effect by using a compositional structure that conforms to the classical quatrain ( jueju) poem in using qi, cheng, zhuan, he, a four-part structure common to Chinese folksongs. In the introduction (qi) (mm. 1–4), Nie’s repeated use of the C in the song’s first two measures—a relatively high pitch in the vocal range—and his eighth-note patterns attract the listener’s attention to both the melody and the newsgirl’s sales pitch. The elaboration (cheng) of the melody in mm. 5–8 creates



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the image of the young girl’s movement—running and shouting. Moreover, the song’s first verse is full of optimism, heralding the hawker’s energy and the “truly good news” related by the press. By contrast, the second and third verses relate, from the hawker’s perspective, her struggle to survive the physical toil, the harsh elements, and societal scorn. The zhuan section (mm. 9–12) provides a transition by introducing a rhythmic, dynamic, or tonal change. In this case, Nie Er achieves the song’s climax by raising the pitch and dynamic levels relative to the three other phrases. Meanwhile, by inverting the rhythmic pattern of measures 8 and 9 to a quarter note and two eighth notes, and by using slurred notes and a lengthy half note, the melody shifts from a playful to a lyrical mood with elongated phrases. In contrast to the first two sections, where each note accompanies one c­ haracter— typical of narrative song (shuochang)—the zhuan section has far fewer words (eight compared to fourteen in both the first and second sections). This allows for a broader and more melodic phrase, which reinforces the emotive force of the lyrics. “Today’s news is truly good; people laugh at my body cloaked in mud; to whom can I relate my bitter life?” The transition highlights the irony of the lyrics and the girl’s isolation and despair. She has no one to tell of her struggles. The final cadence in mm. 13–16 hints at elements of a synthesis (he) by repeating the song’s initial rhythm and first note. Never as widely circulated as Li Jinhui’s children’s songs, which were popularized in the school system—or, for that matter, his own “mass songs”—Nie Er’s children’s songs nonetheless represented an important breakthrough. For the first time, the songs took the lives of impoverished children as their subject matter and gave voice to their determination and struggle. This project was so important to Nie Er that he violated his contract, recording “Shepherd Girl” and its sister song, “Flying Petals” (Feihuage), for RCA Victor, which led to his dismissal in November 1934 from Pathé-EMI.36 The agency given to children and the style of Nie’s children’s songs would ultimately influence the noted composers Xian Xinghai and Mai Xin, who wrote songs to mobilize children during the AntiJapanese War.

Work Songs It was in the genre of work songs that Nie Er made his most lasting mark. Here he was able to join his nationalist concerns for China’s subjugation as a semi-colonial country and his internationalist sympathies for working-class solidarity. Creating music capable of expressing the masses’ cries became Nie Er’s goal and the essence of his compositional philosophy. To give expression to the laboring masses, Nie Er sought to incorporate their daily life, language, and rhythms into his music. As a result, one of Nie’s most innovative qualities was his use of work chants, known as 108

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haozi, that functioned to synchronize movement, with one person leading the call-and-response form. From his very first film song, “Mining Song” (Kaikuangge), Nie Er experimented with the haozi. Labor chants involving boat transport, construction, loading, unloading, and carrying have forceful and concise tunes, strongly accented rhythms, undulating tones, and lively movement.37 Composed in the spring of 1933 for the film Maternal Light, “Mining Song” reflects the symbiotic rapport between the leftist music and film movements. Directed by Bu Wancang using Tian Han’s screenplay, Maternal Light relates the family tragedy of Hui Ying; her husband, Jia Hu (played by Jin Yan); and their daughter, Xiao Ming. As a participant in the Nationalist Revolution, Jia Hu flees from warlord authorities and resettles in the Dutch East Indies, where he works in the mines. Jia Hu’s parting words to Hui Ying are that Xiao Ming must be educated so that she can contribute to society. Over a decade later, he returns to Shanghai only to find his wife has remarried. Hui Ying’s second husband is the entrepreneurial musician Lin Jimei, who capitalizes on Xiao Ming’s beauty and singing talent by arranging recording sessions and soirees for the business elite. He also encourages the son of a Southeast Asian mine owner to court her. When Jia Hu meets Hui Ying at a party, he is invited to sing; he obliges with the “Mining Song.” Tian Han’s lyrics give voice to the exploited overseas Chinese laborers’ collective defiance against colonial privilege.

Nie Er enjoying a playful moment with actress Tan Ying, who played the role of a sing-song girl in the film Muxing zhi guang (Maternal light). Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

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Open the mine! Open the mine! Dig out the yellow gold Our blood and sweat flow while others amble in the cool breeze. We go hungry while they stuff themselves with fine grain. We never see the sun throughout the year while they complain about the dim street lamps. Open the mine! Open the mine! Dig out the yellow gold Our hearts must be resolute like a strong wall, Our hands must be tempered like steel. Let us all enjoy the happiness we create! Oh Ah, Oh Ah Crash! Crash!38

The camera cuts back and forth between Jia Hu singing and flashbacks at a quarry where he and other bare-chested men chip away at the rock under the merciless sun and wary eyes of the foremen. At one point, the camera zooms in on the miners’ raised arms holding up their hammers in a sign of working-class solidarity. At other times, the camera settles in on the musicians in the pit swaying rhythmically to Jia Hu’s “heave-hos,” the unsettled look of some of the businessmen at the party, Lin Jimei’s bored apathy, and Xiao Ming’s clenched fist, evoking her nascent class consciousness.39 Nie Er’s song reflects his initial tentative efforts to merge European musical idioms with Chinese labor chants to create the impression of the unremitting toil that is mining. Set to a march in 2/4 time, the song’s steady beat also underscores the miners’ determination to resist their oppression. Perhaps inspired by the labor chant in the well-known traditional Russian song “The Volga Boatman,” “Mining Song” is one of the first songs in China to create a proletarian image by adopting the call-and-response style typical of labor chants.40 The “chorus” chants, “O Hey, O Hey,” set to an alternating rhythm, while the leader (sung by Nie Er himself in the Pathé recording) sings the words “Kaikuang” (Open the mine) on an ascending fourth interval, setting a tone of resolve and defiance. The song develops by contrasting the miners’ hard work to the gains made by their oppressors. The song quickens in the second section, with corresponding musical phrases expressing workers’ grievances and aspirations. The somewhat discordant notes at the end of each phrase express the miners’ anger. Written one year later for Tian Han’s musical drama Storm on the Yangzi (Yangzijiang baofengyu), the song “Dockworkers” (Matou gongren, 1934) reveals Nie Er’s growing control over compositional techniques that allow him to communicate his anticolonial, class-inflected message. In “Dockworkers,” Nie recreates the sounds and cries of the masses by using work chants. The inspiration for the song may date back to Nie’s travels on the Yangzi in the spring of 1932. At the

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George Njal (Nie Er) in Shanghai, 1934. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

time Nie wrote in his diary, “When we arrived at Jiujiang at 12:30 in the night, a roaring shout from the masses stirred my soul. It was the groan of coolies, roar! I plan to use this motif for a piece.”41 A reading of Pu Feng’s poem “Dockworkers” in the inaugural 1933 issue of New Poetry (Xin shige), which depicts how workers had thrown Japanese guns into the Huangpu River in response to the Battle of Shanghai, jolted Nie’s memories. “Dockworkers” became the theme song for Tian Han’s drama about laborers working the Yangzi amidst the Japanese imperialist threat. The free-verse lyrics of Pu Feng, a member of the Left League and founder of the radical Chinese Poetry Society, conjure up vivid realist imagery. Carrying from dawn to dusk, From dusk to dawn, Blurred vision, Skin and bones falling apart, Move! Move! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! Clumsy gunnysack, steel rod, iron plate, wooden crate, All press down on our bodies! All for two skimpy meals Move! Move! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he!



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Sweating all day long, dripping blood all day long, They build Western-style houses on our sweat and blood! Move! Move! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! (Spoken part) Are we going to take this for the rest of our lives? No! Brothers! Unite! Go to the road of life! Move! Move! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he! Ai, yi, yo, he!42

Although interpretations differ about whether Nie adopted a rondo form or simply repeated a labor chant motif, it is generally accepted that the song’s opening four measures are the dominant theme—an instrumental preface comprising an eighth-note triplet followed by an eighth note and an eighth-note rest. The theme derives from Nie Er’s experience on the Yangzi as well as his trips to the banks of Shanghai’s Huangpu River, where he would listen to the laborers’ shouts and tones. According to the acclaimed PRC composer Zhu Jian’er, Nie’s labor chant for “Dockworkers” bears striking resemblance to the Haimen porters’ work chant. Both share the same melody,43 but Nie modifies the rhythm of the chant by adopting a triplet pattern (rare for labor chants), which provides a sharper, more expressive image of the laborer. Using these living sounds as his basis, Nie Er creatively inserts the labor chant (haozi)— “Ai, yi, yo, he!”—throughout the song to construct an image of workers plodding under their heavy loads. The motif (a slow group of eighth-note triplets followed by an eighth note separated by a half step) is used after each of the four episodes in which the lyrics describe the laborers’ burden, their grievances, and their realization that they are exploited. Nie effectively matches notes, rhythms, and the inherent musicality of the language. For instance, in mm. 22–25, each word—madai, gangtiao, tieban, mutouxiang (gunnysack, steel rod, iron plate, wooden crate)—is articulated by being paired with two accented eighth notes. The quarter-note rest after each word underscores the weight on the backs of the workers and has the effect of increasing the intensity of each phrase. This ideological message is brought home in measure 28 with the same rhythmic pattern— two accented eighth notes—and the use of bianyin (a deviating tone from the

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pentatonic mode) highlighting the characters “yaba” (to press down), thus marking the climax of this section. Wang Yuhe notes Nie’s skillful use of rests in this passage. “Each phrase only occupies half a measure and no lyrics go unaccompanied. This artistic treatment is unique. It heightens the musical drama and creates the image of expressing these dockworkers’ feelings of subjugation and anger on the verge of erupting.”44 In a recurring technique used throughout his songs, Nie Er broadens the melody in mm. 38–41 to emphasize the sweat and blood shed by the workers, thus augmenting the pathos for the listener. Antiimperialist sentiment is aroused in a similar fashion in mm. 44–46, a passage that describes the construction of villas for foreigners. Finally, to give voice to the workers, Nie adopts a monologue (common in narrative song and Chinese opera) close to the end of the song in which the chant leader calls on his brothers to unite and resist. Class-inflected nationalism is again central to Nie’s most popular labor songs, “Song of the Big Road” and “Trailblazers” (Kailu xianfeng), composed in December 1934 for Sun Yu’s film Big Road. The story begins with a couple and their baby (Jin Ge) fleeing their isolated mountain village because of famine. Before dying, the wife entreats her husband to go onwards. Twenty years later, Jin Ge has inherited his father’s strength and work ethic and become a road construction worker. He bands together with five other laborers, and as they stride forth, they energetically sing “Song of the Big Road.” Following the appeals of the National Salvation Movement, the six men resolve to build a strategic military transport road to defy foreign (Japanese) aggression. The enemy plots to obstruct the road by imprisoning and torturing the six workers. In defiance, the workers resist to the end, braving the bombings of enemy planes while working on the road until they sacrifice their lives, falling victim to enemy strafing. In the final scene, Ding Xiang, a waitress who had befriended the laborers, sees a Chinese military convoy move up the road to supply the front. She visualizes the laborers’ reappearance and begins pulling the iron roller with an enormous rope. As they resolutely march forward, they reach a crescendo as they sing “Song of the Big Road.” Thus the road plays a key role in the resistance against Japan, both as a means of transport and as a metaphor for national liberation. The workers engage in hard work while also serving as trailblazers in the war of resistance. Heng, ya, hai, he, hai! Hai, kou, hai! Heng, ya, hai, he, hai! Hai, kou, hai! Everybody together, sweating from the brow! To survive, who cares about the sun burning on our aching bones and muscles? Join forces to pull the rope; let no one lag behind. United as one, don’t fear the iron roller to be as heavy as a mountain. Work hard, everybody! Advance together! Flatten the rugged and rough road. 114

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Pass through and smash the hardships ahead! We are going to the frontline. There is no retreat, only advance! Work hard, everybody! Battle together! Carrying our heavy load we advance forward; The Big Road of freedom will soon be built. Heng, ya, hai, he, hai! Hai, kou, hai! Heng, ya, hai, he, hai! Hai, kou, hai!45

Nie had been instructed by the director Sun Yu to compose a song similar to “Song of the Volga Boatman.” Although both Nie’s song and the Russian classic create a solemn and stirring mood, Nie does not simply mimic the song, but also puts his aesthetic theories into practice. As he had with other work songs, Nie Er ventured out, this time to a road construction project near the movie set to observe workers and capture the sounds of manual labor. Nie uses labor chants to express the imagery of hard labor and to convey the hope and joy of solidarity. These chants provide the main theme of the song expressed in the first two measures, followed by a permutation of the motif in the next two measures. In addition to using the labor chants in “Song of the Big Road,” Nie utilizes the Yu pentatonic mode found in “flower and drum” (huagu) folk songs, one of which, “Fengyang huagu,” is featured in the film. Given this particular flower and drum song’s association with displaced people searching for food and work, Nie adopts the same pentatonic mode to reinforce the social message of his own song and that of the film. Nie, too, adopts folk song forms to provide a “Chinese” feel to the song. Although Wang Yuhe interprets “Song of the Big Road” as having an ABA structure,46 common to Western song forms, its middle section does not constitute a sharp break from the theme. Rather, the song is structured around a theme and variations and takes the form of A-A1-A2-A. Measures 1–4 involve the labor chant theme, which is repeated in the next four measures. A variation of the theme is presented between mm. 13 and 18, reflecting the folksong technique of tongtou hewei (uniform head, joined tail); in other words, measures 13 and 18 are modeled after the first and last measures of the motif. This variation is then repeated in mm. 19–24. Measures 25–33 constitute a second variation (the A2 part of the song), which is repeated in mm. 34–39. Nie achieves the song’s climax by creating a crescendo through mm. 25–27, heightening the vocal range (especially in measure 27) and giving the rhythm intensity by adding a dotted note to each first beat. This rhythmic pattern (dotted eighth, sixteenth) also meshes with the natural rhythm of the lyrics, for instance “shang huoxian” (to the frontline) and “meiyou tuihou” (no retreat) in mm. 28–30. In short, these compositional techniques effectively underscore the lyrics that express the workers’ sense of determination. The labor chant motif returns in the final section, mm. 40–48. The chants diminish in volume as the workers depart the scene.

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While many of Nie’s songs popularized during the Anti-Japanese War were martial and associated with masculine qualities, with men as the main subjects, Nie’s song cycle “New Women” dealt with the lives of women textile workers. Composed for the 1935 film New Woman (Xin nüxing), Nie’s six-part song cycle conveys the movie’s ideological message: only by participating in productive labor and collectively resisting oppression can women create a new society as self-identified “new women.” It is no coincidence that Nie expresses his music through a collective form (the working-class women’s choir), in stark contrast to the film’s dance hall scene in which love songs are sung by individual starlets. Cai Chusheng’s film New Woman portrays various archetypical women in contemporary Shanghai. Dr. Wang’s wife is vulnerable to the whims of her husband, but selfish and materialistic. An elderly landlady may comfort the main protagonist Wei Ming, played by Ruan Lingyu, an independent-minded intellectual, but she has no qualms about pimping Wei for profit. Progressive women comprise the chorus of silk filature workers and their working-class teacher, Li Aying, a neighbor of Wei Ming.47 Already estranged from her parents because of her decision to pursue a love marriage, Wei finds herself abandoned by her husband upon the birth of their daughter. She leaves her native Beijing and moves to Shanghai, where she becomes self-reliant, teaching music at a girls’ school. Despite or because of Wei Ming’s fierce streak of independence, the lecherous Dr. Wang, director at the school, drives Wei Ming to a tragic end. Spurning his advances and his marriage proposal, which she compares to slavery, Wei is dismissed from her job. On the brink of destitution and unable to purchase medicine for her ailing daughter, she decides to prostitute herself for one night, only to find that Wang will be her client. Her resistance leads Wang to spread malicious rumors to a tabloid journalist. In desperation at her plight and the death of her daughter, Wei Ming takes poison to end her life. As she fights for her life in the hospital, she hears the song cycle “New Women,” which she has composed for Li Aying. The female cotton mill workers are singing it, and Li Aying is leading them. The last part of the cycle, “New Woman,” is performed in the final scene, which depicts a mass of women workers marching to the factory and trampling on the newspaper that headlines Wei Ming’s death. As Wang Wenhe explains, the song announces the difficult “delivery” of the new woman, but also heralds the “new woman’s” emergence with new melody and rhythm.48 In one of his few reflections on his compositional method, Nie Er remarked on the challenge of putting Sun Shiyi’s lyrics to music. As soon as Shiyi gave me the lyrics to “New Women” I realized the difficulty of this composition. The lyrics were too long and I had to evoke a very complex and deep mood. Because women workers were the target [audience], I could spare no effort in popularizing the song, so the first problem

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to be resolved was how to shorten the lyrics. The result of our discussion was to divide the lyrics into six short songs which when sung individually retained their own independent character. At the same time, when the songs were linked together and sung they became a unified entity and so I gave them six titles . . . .49 Although Nie did not use the term for song cycle, zuge, the six parts, entitled “Factory Whistles,” “Daily Burden,” “Twelve Hours a Day,” “The Four ‘Don’ts,’ ” “Slaves Rising-Up” and “New Woman,” fit the parameters of a song cycle—“a set of songs united by a common poetic idea and intended to be performed as an entity.”50 The theme common to all six songs is the idea that proletarian women will become new women through their collective struggles and the dignity of their labor. Sun’s lyrics for “The Four ‘Don’ts’ ” convey this theme: “Don’t think about leisure, we must work hard! Don’t fear a heavy burden, we must square our shoulders! Don’t dream of love, we must conduct ourselves with dignity! Don’t be parasites, we must labor! New women, born amidst calamities! New women, born amidst awakening!” The songs in the cycle are also linked by tonal similarities. All the songs are based on the A flat Gong pentatonic mode, with two of the songs (“Factory Whistles” and “Slaves Rising-Up”) being seven-note extensions of the pentatonic mode. Although Nie often went before dawn to observe women workers entering the mills in western Shanghai, his adaptation of women’s industrial life and rhythms into song proved more difficult than his use of labor chants in “Dockworkers” and “The Big Road.” Nonetheless, in the first three songs, Nie manipulated rhythms and intervals to convey the labor conditions and atmosphere of the cotton mills. In “Factory Whistles,” Nie creates a dark mood by composing a Largo with the indication “chenyu” (gloomy). In this way, he evokes the imagery of workers heading to the factory before dawn. Nie uses descending thirds and fourths in the “Daily Burden” and “Twelve Hours a Day” to create a more somber mood. In the former, each of the four phrases contains fifteen words, making for a four-square structure, paralleling the lyric’s content regarding the monotony of the work day. I rush to work every day never seeing the sunlight, Ignoring the rain, snow and wind; Every day hearing the boom of the machines, The deafening sound, Every day worrying that there is nothing at home, Life makes people fierce, Every day our hands rotate on the turbine, No time to relax.51

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The latter three songs in the song cycle evoke the women workers’ consciousness. In “The Four ‘Don’ts,’ ” Nie accentuates the key words—“Don’t” and “Labor”—by using longer note values. The prevalence of dotted eighth notes and off beats in mm. 18–26 creates a forceful expression: “New women, born amidst calamities! New women, born amidst awakening!” Common to all three songs is the frequent use of ascending fourths to evoke the determination of liberated women and the pride they take in their labor. (Nie used fourths in his songs to create contrasting moods. Upward fourths impart a positive force, whereas falling fourths create a mournful mood.) “The Four ‘Don’ts,’ ” for instance, has ascending fourths in mm. 16–17 and 24–25, respectively, coinciding with the phrases, “We must labor! Born amidst awakening!” Similarly, Nie Er uses an ascending fourth in the last phrase of “Slaves Rising-Up,” corresponding to the lyrics—“Who can sit a lifetime in the cage?”—to indicate women workers’ defiance.52 In the final allegro, “New Woman,” the repeated ascending fourth intervals (mm. 13–14, 22–23, 36, 55–56) underscore the lyrics (vanguard, stormy winds, delirium, women, and charge) and provide the song and its image of the new woman with a “lively, animated, resolute, and determined spirit.”53 These ascending fourths produce a heroic call to arms characteristic of “La Marseillaise” and



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“The Internationale.” Nie again uses the natural rhythm of the language to compose the theme, a dotted eighth, then a sixteenth, followed by two eighth notes accentuating the characters for xin (new) and nüxing (women). As Nie explains, “Although ‘xin de’ is placed on the weak beat, the word ‘xin’ is sung for a longer time than the ‘de’ and the words, ‘nüxing.’ When it is sung, the word, ‘xin’ is clearly articulated.”54 An ascending third accompanies the word nü to capture its inflection. Likewise, Nie uses a driving triplet pattern accompanying the lyrics “women yao” (we must) in mm. 26 and 33 to add momentum to the march-like character of the song and to stress the collective identity of the women singers.

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New women are productive women of the masses, New women are society’s labor, New women are the vanguard constructing a new society, New women, together with men, a hurricane of the era sweeping all away! Stormy winds! We must awaken our nation from its delirium! Stormy winds! We must create the glory of the new women! No longer slaves, for all under heaven, without distinction between men and women, the great unity of the world! New women charge bravely forward!55

The song’s march-like quality set to the notation xiongzhuang (heroic or with power and grandeur) reconfigures gender norms. The root word zhuang connotes martial and masculine qualities, as in the word zhuangshi for heroic man or warrior. This would become a common description of Nie Er’s prototypical march and mass songs during the National Salvation Song Movement of the mid- to late 1930s. Nie used the term as a notation for “Dockworkers” and “Graduation Song,” but “New Women” is the first song about women to apply this term. Imbuing women with more masculine traits complements other themes of the film. Nie Er trained a nonprofessional women’s choir to perform the song cycle and act out the role of Li Aying’s students. They appear on screen with cropped hair. Above all, Li assumes this role reversal in the climactic scene, where she protects Wei Ming from Dr. Wang, breaks his walking cane, and cows him into submission with her martial art skills. Nie Er’s role in overseeing the music for New Women gave him the opportunity to fling a few pointed barbs against Li Jinhui and condemn Shanghai’s shi­ daiqu (songs of the era) as the commodified music of the capitalist class. The scene in question takes place at the international dance hall where Dr. Wang has taken Wei Ming. Wei feels uncomfortable in this foreign setting, and the wine that Dr. Wang encourages her to drink renders her faint. A young starlet is introduced to sing with the band. The movie audience is cued to the song when a poster flashes on the screen bearing the song title “Peach Blossom River” (Taohua jiang) with an accompanying figure of a buxom nude holding a valentine in her outstretched arms. “Peach Blossom River” was one of Li Jinhui’s popular love songs, and as such, was associated with pornography by leftist critics, who claimed that his music both fostered hedonistic pursuits and served as an opiate to deflect attention from the national crisis. To counter Li’s pernicious influence, Sun Shiyi keeps the song’s melody but changes the lyrics to make a new song, “Huangpu River” (Huangpu jiang), that indicts capitalism and imperialism. Just as Dr. Wang and Wei Ming are dancing to Li Jinhui’s music, the camera cuts to a contemporary scene at the union’s night school, where Li Aying is leading her fellow filature

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workers in singing “Huangpu River.” As the audience visualizes social class divisions between the ballroom and the union’s classroom, they hear the song. The camera pans over the Bund, a gunboat, a factory whistle being blown—sonic and visual images that reinforce the class-inflected nationalist lyrics. The song describes the foreign enemy as vampires, “living in luxurious homes as they devour men and drink their blood,” and culminates with the chorus confidently declaring victory: “The Huangpu River is the enemy nest; numerous enemies but no match for all of us!”56 Subsequent scenes at the dance hall confirm that music is a force either for domination or for liberation. The first portrays a young Caucasian woman dancing a sensuous tango with a mustachioed Argentine gaucho. After their embrace he suddenly throws her to the ground and begins to whip her. Wei Ming looks on in horror and Dr. Wang applauds. Another foreign dancer appears. She is dressed as a convict laborer in chains and plods forward to the beat of the “Song of the Volga Boatman.” She stumbles to the ground. Wei Ming looks at her, and her identification with the bonded woman is made clear when we see her assume the same pose and clothing as the prisoner. Wei Ming feels faint, but on leaving the table revives herself by placing her face against a block of ice. She rejects Dr. Wang’s attempts to comfort her just as the dancing girl tears off her shackles and begins to dance the Charleston.

Women’s Songs The wartime National Salvation Song Movement was quick to claim Nie Er’s mass songs as a model, but one effect was to downplay his songs that took women as their subject matter. The song movement was not hostile to women, and in fact leftist musicians and activists sought to mobilize women through song. They simply thought that Nie Er’s lyrical songs would not achieve that goal. Aside from the “Poverty Stricken Song,” Nie composed his songs about women in the period between the fall of 1934 and the summer of 1935, that is, after his experience directing the Sensen Chinese music ensemble. That experience had crystalized Nie’s interest in folk music, and influenced his women’s songs that are contextualized in rural settings. The dozen songs with women as their center can be subdivided into various categories: love songs, of which “Mei Niang’s Song” (Mei Niang qu, 1935) is most representative; songs of rural women’s oppression, such as “Village Girl beyond the Great Wall” (Saiwai cunnü, 1935); and songs of urban women’s misfortunes and resistance, such as “Girl under the Iron Hoof” (Tietixia de genü, 1935). “Village Girl beyond the Great Wall” (Saiwai cunnü) is a lyrical song highlighting women’s struggle for survival. Written as an interlude for director Yue 122

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Feng’s film Refugees (Taowang) about rural refugees in north China, the song was sung in unison by the two main female protagonists.57 The song’s northern folksong quality injects social realism into the film’s narrative. Tang Na’s lyrics point to the hardships of a young girl who has been forced to work for the local landlord. During the New Year, as she turns the millstone in the bitter cold, she reveals her distress. Picking mushrooms and working the hand mill Dizzy and tired. Rich families sit reunited Laughing over their lamb and wine At dusk the crow flies over the grey sky Grandfather returns from the city after going to sell flour Snowflakes as big as goose feathers cover his body Tattered cotton padded jacket is soaked with the tears of the poor. Gusts of cold wind blow on her simple face Ranks of flying geese, lines of falling tears. Hoping for a good harvest this year, enough to pay the land rent and avoid disaster.58



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Reliance on minor 2nds and diminished 5ths, as well as on a 6-tone scale in the A flat Gong mode, illustrate Nie’s adaptation of northwestern folksong styles.59 In mm. 11–12 and 24–25, Nie uses a diminished fifth (from the A flat to the D) as well as half steps to accentuate the tragic mood. A bianyin (the D) in measure 12 adds a touch of pathos, almost as if the girl were crying. Nie first uses this melodic pattern to describe ironically the festivities of the rich landlords viewed from the outside by the girl pushing a hand mill. The social divide is also expressed in the contrast made between measures 1–8 and 9–13. The former involves an unadorned melody that evokes an image of the hardworking farm girl. The latter is an abrupt contraction, using half as many measures and signifying a shift in mood to anger at injustice.60 Divided into three parts, the song uses strophic verse, another folk song element. The return of the melodic pattern coincides with reminders of social injustice. In measures 24–25 the corresponding lyrics are “Tattered cotton padded jacket is soaked with the tears of the poor,” and in the conclusion in mm. 37–38 we hear “enough to pay the land rent and avoid disaster.” Nie Er’s composition “Mei Niang’s Song” was one of four songs used in Tian Han’s drama Song of Returning Spring (Huichun zhi qu), performed at Shanghai’s Drama Society between January 31 and February 2, 1935.61 The drama is a love story between the young revolutionary, Gao Weihan, and Mei Niang, the daughter of a wealthy Southeast Asian merchant. Severely wounded in the Battle of Shanghai, Gao is rendered comatose for three years. Mei Niang sings him a melody they had both treasured in hopes he will regain consciousness. Although this is a love story, Tian Han’s lyrics have a political subtext and social critique, as Mei Niang represents a young patriotic intellectual who defies her conservative family traditions and imperialist aggression. Brother, don’t forget me! I am your loving Mei Niang. You once sat on our windowsill, chewing scarlet betel nuts I once strummed the guitar and sang softly to you that we were in distant Nanyang! Brother, don’t forget me! I am your loving Mei Niang. I once was by the banks of the Red River,62 Where our forefathers shed their blood. Bring back home our brave soldiers, I cannot return with you, I am so sad! Brother, don’t forget me! I am your loving Mei Niang. For you I have defied my parents and left distant Nanyang. I have prepared to use my tears to wipe your wounds. But you no longer recognize me, your pitiable Mei Niang!63

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Nie Er adeptly composes a melody to express Mei Niang’s character and her increasing grief that her beloved will never regain consciousness. The opening melody (mm. 1–7), written in the key of G, evokes the beauty and warmth of Mei Niang’s character and suggests the music of Southeast Asia (or at least how Shanghai-based musicians imagined that music to sound). The key phrase in mm. 5–6, “I am your loving Mei Niang,” uses an ascending sixth, the largest interval in the



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song, to evoke a plaintive cry. Nie adopts a cyclical form for this song, repeating the melody three times to reflect Mei Niang’s own repetition of the song. What changes in the repetitions are the cadences, which Nie modulates to reflect Mei Niang’s growing sense of despair. At the first cadence, the music for the lyrics in mm. 17–19, “when we were in far off Nanyang,” ends on the relative minor with the unresolved E. This uncommon usage of the cadence gives the music an ominous sense of presentiment. Similarly, the second cadence at mm. 35–37 accompanying the lyrics “I am so sad!” employs descending half steps to suggest Mei Niang’s grief. Moreover, the melody ends on the fifth note of the relative minor dominant chord, adding to the unsettled mood. In the final coda (mm. 53–58), as Mei Niang cries out, “But, but . . . ” Nie adds three measures to the melody plus successive rests to impart a sense of drama. In expressing Mei Niang’s despair, the song’s mode first stops on the dominant minor chord before returning to the major key to conclude the song’s final cadence. As Wang Yuhe explains, “The coda returns to the warm, bright main mode, but the music’s emotional tone has achieved a despairing tragic note.”64 Nie’s straddling of the major and minor keys played into discursive concepts of what constituted masculine and feminine music. According to Liang Maochun, yin and yang principles correlated to modes. The major keys were considered to be masculine (yanggang) and powerful (xiong­ zhuang), while minor keys represented a softer (yinrou), more lyrical dimension.65 We can suggest that Nie Er applied this principle in his portrayal of Mei Niang, just as he used the major modes for his martial march songs. Nie Er’s masterful song “Girl under the Iron Hoof” (Tietixia de genü) delves into the tragic underside of the sing-song girls’ lives. One of Nie’s last two compositions (together with “March of the Volunteers”), written for Xu Xingzhi’s 1935 film Children of the Storm, the song expresses the anguish and defiance of the impoverished girl, A Feng (Little Phoenix), who has fled the northern countryside for Shanghai. 66 No doubt Nie’s familiarity with the young women’s travails while working at Bright Moon and the Lianhua movie studio aided him in creating the poignancy of A Feng’s plight.67 In the narrative, A Feng is stranded after her mother dies from overwork and her two fellow Northeastern friends, poet Xin Baihua and law student Liang Zhifu, leave Shanghai. A Feng finds work in the Shanghai Sun Song and Dance Troupe—an obvious reference to Bright Moon. The first time A Feng is forced to get up on stage as a sing-song girl, she sings “Girl under the Iron Hoof.” Her poet friend Baihua is in the audience. He has been captivated by a wealthy Westernized divorcée, Madame C, and has fled with her from Shanghai. His friend Zhifu has been arrested in a bombing incident against a traitorous Chinese, and Baihua fears he, too, will be implicated. After hearing A Fang sing, and seeing a Japanese gunboat in the bay, Baihua questions his dalliance with the femme fatale, given the pressing crisis facing China. Xu Xingzhi’s lyrics reinforce the 126

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image of the sing-song girl as marketing her wares but also mobilizing for the Resistance. We go anywhere to sell our songs, Everywhere to perform our dances. Who doesn’t realize the nation may perish? Why are we treated as merchandise? Suffering from hunger and cold We sing everywhere our sad songs, Experiencing life to the full, Dancing girls are forever drifting Who tolerates becoming enslaved? Who is willing to lose our native land? Pitiful girl singer under the iron hoof Whipped black and blue all over!68

The song, which foreshadows the movie plot, overturns the familiar trope of prostitution as analogy for China’s humiliation by foreign imperialism. Instead, the sing-song girl is defiant and her patriotic fervor is linked to the National Salvation Movement. At the film’s end, A Feng joins the armed resistance against Japan and reunites with Baihua, who also volunteers for the Resistance. Different recordings have accorded different weight to the dual themes of victimization and heroic resistance. Although the third part of the song (mm. 18–26) expresses the sing-song girl’s growing political consciousness, the final two measures suggest she is unable to change her social reality. Thus, the overall mood of the song evokes despair and anguish and takes on a dark hue. In the first recording, Wang Renmei accentuates the girl’s grief, choking back tears as she sings. Wang had her own experience as a student of Li Jinhui at Bright Moon, and may have internalized the feeling of shame endured by sing-song girls who were treated with scorn. Later recordings after 1949 by other artists highlight the singsong girl’s budding political consciousness and affect a more heroic mood.69 Written in the pentatonic mode of F Gong, Nie adopts more of a folk music style than the popular song style associated with songs by Li Jinhui.70 Although the latter would have provided more realism, given the subject matter, Nie’s choice was a conscious distancing from his mentor. The folk song idiom also fits the character of A Feng since she has her roots in the rural Northeast. Based on a ternary structure, the first part (mm. 1–10) is characterized by recitative, the second part (mm. 11–17) by its tragic coloring, while the third part combines elements from parts one and two. Unlike his other songs, “Girl under the Iron Hoof” has a more extensive musical range and undulating melodic quality, particularly in the opening measures. Nie’s use of grace notes has the effect of allowing the singer to accentuate and articulate the long notes accompanying the character

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for daochu [everywhere] (mm. 3, 8). Similarly, he starts phrases on the upbeat so that the downbeat coincides with the key words—everywhere (dao), sing (chang), girls (nü), and whipped (biandu). In the two phrases “Who doesn’t realize the nation may perish?” and “Why are we forced to be marketed women?” (mm. 6–9), Nie uses a recitative style to capture the sing-song girls’ awareness, both of the country’s plight and of their own budding political consciousness. Part two begins with a relatively long descending melodic line, a recurring pattern in the song that coincides with the lyrics’ sorrowful tone. With similar effect, the second part ends in measures 14–17 with a slower rhythm that accen128

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tuates the sing-song girls’ hardships. After a short interlude between verses (mm. 18–19), part C shifts from lyricism to recitative once again, as the girl expresses her patriotic ardor. Here the notes become denser and the pace quickens. This is followed by the tragic climax (mm. 22–24), in which Nie broadens the melodic line, building a crescendo to a high D, sustained with a fermata to accentuate the “iron hoof” (of imperialist Japan) oppressing women. Conscious of social reality, Nie ends the piece on a descending scale echoing mm. 11–12—a dark, pessimistic end suggesting the sing-song girls can do little to change their destiny.

March Songs Several march songs—Nie Er’s most famous song genre—are characterized by a union between pentatonic modes and major keys. Ten of Nie’s songs, many of them his most popular, benefit from this distinctive and vibrant modal quality that Nie pioneered. According to the musicologist Fan Zuyin, this “innovative mode bestowed a new tone, coloring and style to the songs’ melody.” 71 In this mode, referred to by Fan as “Gong dadiao” (Gong is the name of the first step of the pentatonic scale, while dadiao means major key), the pentatonic mode retains primacy, although elements of major keys are adapted. In terms of melody, the march songs comprise a combination of the pentatonic mode’s three-note groupings (san yinlie), such as “do-re-mi,” “re-mi-sol,” and the groupings of four notes characteristic of major keys, such as “do-re-mi-fa” and “sol-la-ti-do.”72 The other quality used in Nie’s march songs is melody based on broken chords for tonic triads paired with the pentatonic mode. The majority of these songs employ forceful and lively march forms. Their aim is to inspire patriotic conviction. Their subject matter is the mobilization of the people to resist imperialist aggression against China. Nie composed his first march song, “Graduation Song,” in the summer of 1934 as the theme song for Ying Yunwei’s dramatic film Plunder of Peach and Plum (Taolijie). The movie traces the tragic decline of a young idealistic couple, Tao Jianping and Li Lizhu, whose lives unravel in the face of unemployment, poverty, and sickness. Unable to borrow money for his ailing wife, Jianping resorts to theft. In the process he unintentionally injures someone and is arrested and sentenced to death. The film is an indictment of capitalism in Shanghai for its social degradation, as well as a commentary on China’s lack of unity in the face of the imperialist threat. Placed in an early scene after Tao and Li have just graduated, the theme song is enthusiastically sung by the students, who look upon their scholastic achievements with pride and seek to confront Japan’s encroachment. Tian Han’s lyrics make it clear that the moral responsibility of the students is to be resolute and put their patriotic fervor into action.

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Fellow students, arise Bear the duty to protect our country! Listen! Our ears ring with the masses’ sighs and wounds. Look! Our territory is lost year after year! Shall we choose “war” or “surrender”? We want to be the masters and will defy death on the battlefield We don’t want to be slaves and be promoted from obscurity to fame! We are today’s disciples of various talents, We are the pillars and beams of tomorrow’s society; Today we are the strings and songs of one assembly hall, Tomorrow we will set forth a mighty wave of national salvation! Mighty wave! Mighty wave! That will grow ever greater! Classmates! Fellow students! Quickly use our force. The fate of our country lies in our hands!73

The call to arms is skillfully put to music in a march style comprising four periods and a core tune expressed in the first three measures to accompany the words “Fellow students, arise (Tongxuemen, dajia qilai).” Given that the lyrics are based on Tian Han’s free verse, the music is composed around the words’ own structure and force. The song starts with a broken tonic triad chord in the key of C that emulates a bugle call. We will see this technique used again in “March of the Volunteers” and in numerous wartime march songs. The rhythmic pattern for this motif—a dotted eighth note, a sixteenth note and an eighth note, similar to that in “Coolie Song”— provides momentum and aligns well with the innate rhythm of the word tongxuemen (classmates). This first section underscores mobilization, which Nie achieves in dramatic fashion by accenting the two eighth notes accompanying “Tingba” [Listen] (m. 8) and “Kanba” [Look] (m. 12) and then providing rest notes after these warnings. Lyrics in the second section (mm. 17–30), which conveys the students’ choice to fight in the face of national crisis, are set to an ascending melody that expresses a spirit of resolve. Section three (mm. 31–45) starts with an ascending scale to reinforce the optimism expressed in the lyrics “We are today’s disciples of various talents.” The higher pitch range and broadening of the melody consolidate the mood of excitement. The fourth section, starting at measure 46, is a rhythmically spirited use of accented eighth notes (mm. 46–47), syncopation (m. 55), and the return of the central motif in measure 50, the call to arms (Students!), repeated in a sequence in the following measure. This recapitulation begins with a broken chord in the “triumphant” key of C before Nie Er quickly moves into the pentatonic mode to conclude the piece. The climax is an energetic rhythmic pattern, an octave interval in measure 53 emphasizing the word “liliang” (force), and a high vocal range at the end. Contrary to expectation, Nie ends the piece on the

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weak beat. In tandem with the extensive use of syncopation for this piece, which creates an explosive feel to the music, these rhythmic techniques reinforce the music’s motive power and engage both performer and audience.

Nie Er’s Final Call to Arms: “The March of the Volunteers” Ultimately it was Nie Er’s last song, “March of the Volunteers,” that became the prototypical march song. Written in 1935 for the film Children of the Storm, it is justifiably Nie’s masterpiece. From its inception, the song proved popular. Straight away, there was a powerful association of the music and Tian Han’s lyrics with its visual presentation on screen. The song’s success is all the more remarkable because it almost did not see the light of day. According to Tian’s recollection, he intended to write a long theme song, but put it aside (three to four days before his arrest) after having written only a few verses on pieces of cigarette rolling paper.74 The paper was left on Sun Shiyi’s desk, where tea was spilled on it. After a laborious transcription of the stained paper by Sun Shiyi and Xia Yan, Nie is said to have worked feverishly writing a draft of the song over the course of two nights in mid-March 1935.75 Several of Nie’s comrades proposed revisions when they gave the song a run-through, but Nie had to put the project on hold when he realized he was at risk of arrest. With the underground party’s assistance, Nie left Shanghai on April 15 for Japan to continue his musical studies.76 Not until early May did Nie complete a final draft in Tokyo and send it back to Sun Shiyi and Situ Huimin. In just a few words, Tian Han conveys the notion of a collective body politic aroused by a sense of shared national heritage and the impending threat of external aggression. Arise! Ye who refuse to be slaves! With our flesh and blood, let us build our new Great Wall! The Chinese nation faces its greatest danger. And everyone is forced to let out one last roar. Arise! Arise! Arise! Millions of us with but one heart Braving the enemy’s fire, March on! Braving the enemy’s fire, March on! March on! March on! On!77

As Dong Jian demonstrates, the lyrics encapsulated Tian’s psychology of crisis. Several of the poem’s phrases or key words can be found in Tian’s previous writings, such as “Coolie Song.” In an essay penned in 1933, Tian exclaimed, “Our Chinese nation has now gone beyond the point of death.” And in an accompany132

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ing poem, Tian calls on the Chinese people to resist their oppressors. “Will we be masters or slaves? Seize the critical juncture. Arise, the Chinese people under dual oppression. With our flesh and blood, let us build our new Great Wall!”78 Of course, the nationalist symbolism of the Great Wall connected China’s present to the imperial unifier, Qin Shihuang, but Tian underscores the idea of a “new” Great Wall constructed by the people’s collective effort. In 1933 Tian had written about the Great Wall as a cultural symbol representing China’s will to defend itself. The final victory will not be determined by the enemy’s weapons but by the will of the entire country’s laboring masses. As long as they are willing to resist enslavement, they will kick out the imperialist bandits no matter how lethal their airplanes or artillery are. Thus, only by organizing the masses’ own strength can we defend the Chinese people’s own Great Wall!79 Tian uses the key verbs—to “arise” and to “roar”—articulating physical movement, resistance, and nationalist consciousness. The term “arise” likely derives from the opening lyrics, “Arise, slaves afflicted by hunger and cold/Arise, suffering people all over the world!” from Eugène Pottier’s socialist anthem, “The Internationale,” which inspired Nie Er’s music for the song.80 Lu Xun had popularized the term “roar” in his collection of short stories, Nahan (A Call to Arms). A decade later, Tian enthused about Ying Yunwei’s 1933 drama Roar, China! (Nuhou ba, Zhongguo!). This piece, written by Tian’s Left League colleague, was performed on the anniversary of the Manchurian Incident. As Tian exclaimed, “Let us shout, ‘Roar, China!’ ”81 “March of the Volunteers” appears in the last scene of the film, where the two protagonists (A Feng and Baihua) take up arms to join other volunteers in the Resistance. The footage combines with sound and lyrics to produce sonic nationalism. Hearing thunder (or sounds of artillery), Baihua calls out the villagers sitting around a fire at night, “Compatriots, arise and kill our enemy!” Hence the term “arise” connotes both physical movement and political action.82 The viewer hears A Feng echo his appeal and then sees hands seizing various weapons—a pickaxe and spade, a knife, a broadsword, rifles, and pistols. Finally, a hand grabs a fistful of dirt, signifying the defense of the motherland. The camera zooms in on individual nonprofessional actors shouting out to arise and kill the enemy. As the villagers rush into combat, a drum beats out the march rhythm, followed by a closeup of the bugle’s bell. Thus begins the “March of the Volunteers.”83 Baihua and A Feng are first pictured singing as they march, but then the camera shifts, showing the masses of volunteers’ legs and feet steadily marching to the beat of the song, epitomizing how nationalist music takes people into battle. Tian Han’s lyrics calling on singers and bystanders to “arise” and “advance”

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provide the framing to hold both music and a call to political mobilization. The rhythmic pattern of triplets, accented downbeats, and syncopation drive the motion of the volunteers forward both literally and figuratively. The entire piece is based on the Chinese pentatonic scale, with the exception of one note (the F) in measure 8, which serves as a leading note to resolve the phrase. Nie uses a Western form—the march—and a bugle call based on a tonic triad as its core, producing a powerful, clarion-like call to action. The opening and concluding motifs, coinciding with the words “qilai” (arise) and “qianjin” (march on), are based on an ascending fourth interval (from D to G) inspired by “The Internationale,” where the ascending fourth also accompanies the word “Arise.” Nie’s particular craftsmanship achieves a close fit between the rhyme and tone of the words (shengyun) and the intonation (yudiao), as in the use of emphatic quarter notes corresponding to the key words renmen (people) (m. 9) and minzu (nation) (m. 16) and the phrase “Zhonghua minzu daole” (The Chinese people have arrived) (mm. 15–17). The major second between the notes A and B allows the singer to easily enunciate the rising tone of “zu.” Similarly, two accented eighth notes accompany the fourth tone words, “daole.” Nie enhances the dramatic warning of the phrase—“daole zui weixian de shihou” ([The Chinese nation] faces its greatest danger)—by violating the natural rhythm of the phrase. Reflecting his growing confidence as a composer, Nie modified Tian Han’s original lyrics to lend greater force to the climax and ending of the piece. Nie shortened the original verse—“Women wanzhong yixin, maozhe diren de dapao feiji qianjin” (Millions of us with but one heart, Braving the enemy’s artillery and airplanes, March on) —to “Women wanzhong yixin, maozhe diren de paohuo, qianjin!” (Millions of us with but one heart, Braving the enemy’s fire, March on!). More consequentially, Nie cut short the last syllable of the lyrics, substituting a quarter note rest for the character “jin.” This slight change intensifies the feeling of propulsion and momentum, providing a more forceful conclusion. This effect is enhanced by Nie’s reversal of strong and weak beats in mm. 34–36. Then, by unexpectedly inserting the “jin” as the first (strong) beat of the song’s last measure, Nie creates a powerful ending by having suddenly normalized an irregular beat.84 Structurally, Nie’s inherent sense of proportion and musicality allowed him 134

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to place his climax at the Golden Ratio. The musicologist Tong Zhongliang’s analysis of the numerical proportion of measures is particularly appropriate for this song, which relies on through-composed technique rather than on a foursquare regular pattern.85 Nie opts for an arch-like structure, with the two highest notes in the vocal range signified by the words “Zhonghua” (China) and “yixin” (one heart). The former appears in the tenth measure from the start of the song’s first lyrics, while the latter is placed ten measures from the end of the song. The song has a total of 37 measures. If multiplied by 0.618, the golden mean would fall at 22.8, which is exactly what happens at the recapitulation starting with “qilai.” This measure is the entry to the climax, which occurs in measures 26–27, coinciding with the forte dynamic and highest-pitched notes used for the characters “yixin.” Here we find the climax of the piece, which is then carried through the ending of the song.

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As described by Liang Maochun, “March of the Volunteers” created a new national style characterized by its robust, resonant, heroic, and powerful sound—a fervent, vigorous quality previously unknown to Chinese songs.”86 Befitting its reception in wartime China, numerous contemporary descriptions of the song underscored its martial and masculine qualities using the term xiongzhuang (with power and grandeur).87 At a more objective level, the success of “March of the Volunteers” lay in Nie Er’s ability to use the Chinese musical foundation while incorporating compositional techniques from foreign revolutionary songs and marches, using free-style verse to craft six irregular musical phrases that have a powerful colloquial quality and stirring spirit.

Conclusion The variety of Nie’s song output in terms of subject matter and range of style— from lyrical to more militant marches—was held together by a unified political and ideological appeal based on class nationalism. Nie’s efforts to create a new Chinese music led him to innovate. He juxtaposed tonal groups (yinlie) from pentatonic and diatonic scales, and selectively used bianyin as an expressive device. Informed by the Soviet Union’s “mass song,” he combined Western rhythmic patterns—most notably the march—and intervals, especially ascendant fourths. These he melded to the Chinese folk song tradition by using labor chants (haozi), recitative passages akin to shuochang, and folk-song-like melodies. Most prominently, Nie developed his individual style by using the inherent rhythm and intonation of the Chinese language in his compositions. Despite his diversity of output and stylistic innovations, in the immediate aftermath of his death most of Nie Er’s songs—the children’s rhymes, lyrical love songs, and songs with women as the subject—faded into the background. Mobilizing the nation through song became the key goal of activists in the National Salvation Song Movement. In light of this, it was Nie’s “mass songs” that formed the canon of socially accepted art, and which went on to influence the next three generations of songwriters. Richard Kraus and Isabel Wong observe that Chinese “songs for the masses” (later referred to as revolutionary songs), of which Nie Er was a pioneer, may not have been the most sophisticated musical compositions, but they made for highly effective political propaganda.88 They were sung either without accompaniment or with accompaniment merely doubling the melody. Like his Chinese contemporaries, Nie Er preferred a limited melodic range and a controlled degree of modulation within the songs. Unlike the majority of Nie’s own songs, which were through-composed, most mass songs were strophic in form: each verse repeated the same tune. Their lyrics employed a terse, didactic vernacular and their rhythms were march-like. To an unprecedented degree, Nie 136

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Er relied on single short notes and rhythmic repetition. Precisely because his songs were not technically difficult, Nie Er’s followers could bring the songs to target audiences—students, workers, women, and children. The masses could quickly learn to sing them, and by singing together they could build a shared consciousness based on nationhood and class. These were mobilization songs, able to inspire political courage at mass demonstrations. Nie’s death in 1935 was an opportunity for fellow leftist musicians to elevate the young musical activist to the position of standard-bearer for their vision of a new Chinese music.



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CHAPTER 5

The Making of a National Icon COMMEMORATING NIE ER, 1935–1949

The choice of “March of the Volunteers” as China’s national anthem catapulted

Nie Er to fame in 1949. But laying the groundwork for his iconic status began more than a decade earlier, soon after his death in 1935. There were several factors in motion here. The Communist Party’s cultural policies and the National Salvation Song Movement’s grassroots mobilization combined to identify Nie’s work with Chinese nationalism. Liu Liangmo, a leader of the people’s song movement in the 1930s, saw to it that “March of the Volunteers” was heard internationally. And Paul Robeson, the African American concert singer and civil rights activist, adopted and championed the song, permanently etching it in the world’s consciousness. Nie’s commemoration began almost immediately after his accidental drowning in Sagami Bay on July 17, 1935. Nie’s comrades, many of them in the Left League, took the lead and began promoting Nie’s beatification. But it was fellow Yunnanese in Shanghai, overseas Chinese students in Japan, and even Nationalist Party members who wrote a stream of remembrances that contributed to Nie’s emergence nationally. They penned obituaries, poems, and roughly one hundred tributes in the years preceding the establishment of the PRC. Although some commemorators may not have known Nie Er personally, the dissemination of his film songs and the publication of his diary excerpts made him a public figure. The first book honoring Nie Er was published in December 1935. Three years later, the Yunnanese Communist and literary scholar Xu Jiarui published Nie’s biography and diary excerpts from Nie’s Shanghai sojourn in the periodical Wartime knowledge (Zhanshi zhishi). As many scholars have noted, commemoration can function to create a national identity; in this case, the collective memory of Nie Er stimulated the development of nationalist consciousness.1 Promoting Nie Er as a vehicle for nationalism relied on the print medium, testimony to Benedict Anderson’s observation that print culture transcends the individual reader’s personal ties to create 138

an “imagined community.”2 But music goes a step further. Beyond the image or text, music adds a “performative dimension—an active means by which to experience the nation, by which to feel and act national.”3 The Christian social activist Liu Liangmo, who championed Nie Er’s music in a social movement known as the National Salvation Song Movement (Jiuwang geyong yundong), described how mass songs could create a national community in the preface to his songbook, The ABCs of Mass Singing (Minzhong geyong ABC). Please let everyone note, we are not singing for the sake of singing, we are singing for our national liberation. We must use the song form to awaken the people, alert them to the crisis facing the Chinese nationality; we must sing to train the people so that they have the habit and discipline of participating in collective life; we must sing to organize the people so that they become a strong and powerful collective.4 During the first phase of the Anti-Japanese War, Liu directed mass song rallies and taught Nie’s patriotic mass songs to thousands of soldiers at the front as testimony to the memory of Nie Er and to forge a collective national identity. With the energy of this movement behind them, Liu and other participants spread Nie’s songs across a broad social and regional base, allowing the genre of mass songs— closely identified with Nie Er—to gain ascendancy. The identification of Nie Er with nationalism was also promoted via an ideological campaign. The leftist music community disparaged their “competition”— liberal humanists such as Qing Zhu, Xiao Youmei, and the popular songwriter Li Jinhui—for music considered harmful to the class and national interests of the people. Leftists attacked the Westernized conservatory approach fostered by the educator Xiao Youmei as elitist and vilified the “wild, sexy jazz” associated with Li Jinhui for its decadence. At the same time, they championed the new Chinese music represented by Nie Er and the new method employed—popularization. Leftist artists reconstructed the life of Nie Er, portraying him as a man from the nation’s periphery and a subaltern to advocate music that would be—using the literary critic Zhou Yang’s injunction— “proletarian in content, national in form.”5 Nie’s humble upbringing, his varied work experience outside academia, and his thirst for learning were highlighted to promote a proletarian art that melded theory and praxis. Moreover, commemoration of Nie Er, especially between 1935 and 1938, provided an opportunity to articulate ideas about the social function of music. Nie’s belief in music as a source for activism coincided with the CCP’s cultural policies regarding socialist realism and popularization. In 1936, Lü Ji revised Zhou Yang’s formulation to say “National in style, national salvation in content (minzu xingshi, jiuwang neirong),” to address the crisis facing China. Lü emphasized that “new Chinese music” was grounded in

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what was deemed a more authentically Chinese folk music. Henceforth, Nie became the posthumous leader of the new Chinese music movement, in part because he had paid close attention to folk music. Additionally, Nie’s iconic status within China was reinforced by international acclaim, a testiment to how nationalist music often appeals for universal status. Overseas Chinese played an instrumental role in propagating Nie’s music and life. This began with Chinese students in Japan during the mid-1930s and concluded with Liu Liangmo, who introduced Nie Er’s music to the United States during the early 1940s. Liang Luo has argued that “March of the Volunteers” was unofficially accepted as the national anthem even before 1949 through an alliance of the interwar internationalist avant-garde. Here one can name Tian Han in China, Paul Robeson in the US and the Soviet Union, and the Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens, all of whom used commercial and avant-garde experimental means to propagate the song on the global stage.6 Differing from Luo, in emphasis more than substance, I suggest that Nie’s champions during the war era found common cause in their commitment to socialism and the Popular Front’s antifascism, rather than in identification with the avant-garde.

Life and Death in Japan Given that Nie Er spent the last three months of his life in Japan, his Chinese friends and associates living in Tokyo—many of them Left League members— quickly emerged at the forefront of efforts towards his commemoration. Aside from their genuine friendship with and respect for Nie, political considerations may also have been a motivating factor in their desire to honor his legacy. To justify their own sojourns in an increasingly militaristic Japan and perhaps to deflect questions surrounding their patriotism, they underscored Nie’s internationalism. In December 1935, Nie’s close friend and Left League member Zhang Tianxu published the first commemorative book dedicated to Nie Er, which also included the diary entries Nie had written while in Japan. A reading of the diary, especially details regarding Nie’s friendships with Japanese and Korean leftist artists, his respect for Japan as a model for China, his fascination with Japanese modernity, and his attempts at assimilation, reveals a spirit of internationalism that was widespread among left-wing artists. In fact, Nie identified himself as an internationalist in one of his diary entries. Having set out at 4:30 am on July 9 to reach the resort town of Fujisawa, Nie was approached near the tram station by a young policeman who wanted to chat and even sought Nie’s opinion on current Sino-Japanese relations. Nie responded, “I said that those of us studying the arts were internationalists (guoji zhuyizhe) and that we didn’t concern ourselves with the political conflict between nation states.”7 Just two days before, Nie had wit140

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nessed police patrolling the left-wing Tsukiji Theater Company and also noted a ban on performances of Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm (Leiyu) on the grounds that it would harm Japan’s kokutai (national essence). It is likely that, when questioned by the policeman, he muted his political views.8 Nie had always held strong political opinions, and several days later this attitude was confirmed when he reminded himself to record the “contemporary international and political situation.” In the same diary entry, he praised Africans for resisting Mussolini’s expeditionary forces in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). “We shouldn’t scorn these black people. They are actually very brave in confronting this fascist power.”9 If Nie confined his political views to his diary, his self-styled “internationalism” was broadly accurate. Nie equated internationalism with cosmopolitanism, and thus held in high regard Japan’s success in adapting Western musical culture. After watching Arthur Rubinstein perform with the New Symphony Orchestra, Nie praised the conductor, Hidemaro Konoye, and observed that almost all the musicians were Japanese. “Aside from the 1st solo violin [concertmaster] who was a Westerner, everyone else was Japanese. Admiration! Admiration!”10 The scene contrasted sharply with the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra, whose musicians were almost exclusively European. Nie was also impressed with the general cultural literacy of the Japanese people and their musical knowledge, as illustrated by his Japanese host at Fujisawa, Mr. Hamada. “He recalled many composers and piano pieces by name, so it seems he understands music. His phonograph plays symphonies, violin solos, solo singers and from this one can see the average level of music [knowledge] among the Japanese.”11 Nie’s praise for the arts in Japan reaffirmed his belief that media technology could be used for the nation-building project. Thus, he duly copied down a newspaper article from the previous year that had reported on a successful film festival held in Tokyo. “Film is the most immediate form of entertainment for the majority of the masses. It can arouse the citizen’s spirits and be a major force to transform a nation’s culture.”12 In a series of articles published in the leftist Chinese journal The Sound of Art (Yisheng), Nie introduced contemporary developments in the performing arts of France, the Soviet Union, and Japan. He focused on how the phonograph and the record industry had transformed musical culture and consumption in Japan. Like his attitude towards urban modernity in Shanghai, Nie held an ambivalent feeling towards mass consumer culture in Japan. On the one hand, he decried the proliferation of “public spaces for pleasure-seeking capitalist society.”13 On the other hand, Nie recognized that capitalism had facilitated a record culture and Japan’s music movement. He viewed the phonograph and records as essential tools for propaganda and education. Nie made the same point in his diary, commenting on the popularity of the radio and phonograph in Japan compared to China, and attributed Japan’s advanced music culture to more widespread media technology.14

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Above all, Nie understood internationalism in the socialist sense of the term, which stresses political cooperation among nations and peoples. Nie wasted no time. He attended a two-hour session at the East Asia Japanese Language Remedial School in Jinbōchō on April 18, his first full day in Tokyo, so that he could learn about artistic trends in Japan and forge contacts with Japanese artists.15 By July 15, Nie had so exceeded his expectations in improving his spoken Japanese that he exclaimed, “Let me toast myself!”16 During his three months in Japan, Nie went to performances of classical music and explored Japanese films, military marching bands, the song and dance world of the Takarazuka, and Japanese drama. Nie highlighted his visit to the Tsukiji Theater—“the left-wing drama’s place of origins”—which captivated him with their “revolutionary ardor,” expressed in a performance of the historical drama Ryōma Sakamoto. (Sakamoto Ryōma was a key figure in the alliance between the Chōshū and Satsuma domains in the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate.) Several days later, Nie listened for four hours as the actor Keiichi Shimada and the director of the play, Sasaki Takamura, former leader of the drama section of the Japan League for Proletarian Arts and Literature during the mid-1920s, expounded on the status of Japan’s new drama.17 Nie did not elaborate on the content of the lectures, but his observations of police intimidation at the Tsukiji Theater confirm Brian Powell’s bleak assessment that “from 1934 onwards there was no possibility of performing anything with an overtly left-wing message.”18 Nie Er also forged ties with Japan’s other main leftist drama group, the New Cooperative Theater Company (Shinkyō Gekidan).19 Nie’s ties to Shinkyō Gekidan developed from a friendship with a Korean national called Lee Sang Nam, who had resided in Japan for eight years and worked as a stage lighting manager for the theater company. The two men bonded immediately, perhaps because of their outsider status, similar political views, and lack of formality. Nie described his friendship with Lee thus: “Although we have only met once, it is as if we are old friends, there was no need for formalities as we joked and had fun. We went on a paddleboat around the new bridge, and we talked about a plan to tour Manchuguo, Korea and Harbin.”20 Nie flirted with the idea of visiting Seoul but ultimately decided further musical training in Tokyo was more pressing. The last week of Nie Er’s life was a manifestation of his internationalism on a personal level as he traveled with Lee Sang Nam to the seaside resort of Fujisawa, where Lee’s friend Hamada Sanehiro hosted them.21 The visit had been arranged after Left League members Zhang Tianxu and Tao Yexian had introduced the radical playwright Akita Ujaku, along with Hamada and Lee, to Nie Er. The group drew up plans for Nie and Lee to stay at Hamada’s home in Fujisawa for several days before Nie and Lee would hike up Mount Fuji and then join forces with the Shinkyō Gekidan to participate in their summer tour of Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto.22 Besides suffering from sunburn and becoming famished from the irregular and 142

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late mealtimes, Nie was in exuberant spirits.23 His last days were spent swimming and playing in the waves, taking evening boat rides on the river that cut through Fujisawa, conversing with Lee about love, and entertaining other house guests with his violin and offering them dance lessons. Nie reflected on the personal ties he had made on the trip and the acceptance he had found among his friends at Fujisawa. “I could never have thought I would ever live in such a beautiful place and it’s even harder to believe I would be on such intimate terms with Japanese, living and eating with them in their homes.”24 Nie Er’s final diary entries before he drowned on July 17 were an assessment of his first three months in Japan and future “three-month plans.” Nie gave himself a mixed scorecard; he was pleased that he had made such rapid progress in Japanese and been able to carve out more time to practice violin, but was disheartened that he had barely touched the piano, had “ignored his [musical] technical training,” and had not composed.25 Future plans included finding a violin teacher, “practicing the violin and talking less!,” translating texts, and composing songs and instrumental pieces. Reflecting the spirit of internationalism, during the fourth of his “three-month plans” Nie would study Russian literature and prepare to travel in Europe. In keeping with his diary’s frequent exhortations, his penultimate words rang out: “Tomorrow I will start a new plan, but never forget to ‘read!’ and ‘play the violin!’ ”26 Hamada Sanehiro’s report to the police remains the most detailed account of what transpired the following day. Zhang Tianxu then translated the report and published it in the commemorative volume dedicated to Nie Er. Hamada recounts how, on July 17 at about 2:00 p.m., Nie Er, Lee, and Hamada’s sister and his nineyear old nephew (Kō) arrived at the beach to swim. They faced “heavy seas and strong winds.” With numerous students swimming, “none of us could keep an eye out for each other.” Nie Er was last seen “jumping in the waves and swimming in a depth up to his chest.” After about an hour, Sister and Kō came ashore, where they encountered Lee and said they would first go home. “They wanted to alert Nie, but they couldn’t find him.” At this point (after 3:30), Lee entered the water while Sister searched the shore. They searched for an hour before notifying the lifeguard station. After Hamada received the news, he arrived at the beach at about 6 p.m. It was already a full tide, but we still found no trace of him. . . . We returned home at 11 p.m. The morning after we still couldn’t find him. Upon returning home we received the police report that a corpse had washed up on shore so I rushed to look. The appearance of Nie’s corpse was no different from typical drowned bodies. It wasn’t ugly or bloated with water, but blood had trickled from the mouth and head. According to the doctor’s report, he had died of suffocation.27

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Commemorating the Martial and the Masculine Nie’s death added to the sense of loss within the Shanghai artistic community, still reeling from the suicide in March of the movie actress Ruan Lingyu and the passing of the veteran film director Zheng Zhengqiu one day before Nie died. Nie’s friends and colleagues could hardly believe such a vibrant young man could have drowned.28 Some believed that the traces of blood found on his face pointed to foul play. By the time hostilities broke out with Japan, these writers were already using Nie’s death to denounce Japanese imperialism. “Because he was a fine swimmer and wouldn’t have met misfortune in deep or rough water, some people suspected that Japanese imperialists plotted to kill him out of jealousy. Who knows? Japanese imperialists stop at nothing in dealing with China and the Chinese.”29 Anti-Japanese sentiment gave rise to conspiracy theories, but they did not dominate the discourse. Nie Er’s life and music would become the embodiment of the Chinese national liberation cause, complete with an inherent anti-Japanese bias. This sentiment was counterbalanced during the 1930s, however, by writers who used Nie Er’s inchoate ties to the leftist artistic community in Japan to suggest that his cosmopolitanism and proletarian internationalism could transcend the national conflict between China and Japan. Cheng Ji and others explained Nie’s decision to travel to Tokyo as a bridge on his journey to study music in Europe (i.e., France and the Soviet Union) before returning to China to contribute to the revolution. Echoing their own rationale for staying in Japan, overseas Chinese argued that Japan was a model for the development of China’s proletarian art, “because Japan had created a new music combining Western quintessential music with Japan’s essence and because Japan’s dramatic acting skills were more developed than those of China.”30 Moreover, the commemorative literature dwelled on the details of Nie’s friendships and exchanges with leftist artists in Japan. Repeating Nie’s diary entries, commemorative articles underscored Nie’s friendship with Lee Sang Nam and his hopes of participating in the leftist-inspired Shinkyō Gekidan’s summer tour to Osaka and Kyoto. When Akita Ujaku, a leader of Japan’s proletarian Esperanto movement since the 1920s, wrote a tribute to the deceased musician, Nie’s ties to the leftist community in Japan were reaffirmed. The artistic communities in both Shanghai and Japan arranged memorial services. On August 16, several thousand mourners packed Shanghai’s Jincheng Grand Theatre or stood outside to listen to eulogies and performances. Presided over by Zhou Jianyun, a founder of the Mingxing Film Company, a leading leftwing studio, there is no doubt of the heartfelt sincerity of the participants, many of whom were close associates of Nie Er. Zhou’s eulogy foreshadowed a recurrent 144

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theme of the commemorative literature—enjoining China’s youth to follow Nie’s example in serving the nation. “Although we did not share a deep friendship, his diligence in study and sincerity left an indelible impression on me from our very first meeting. In these dire times facing the nation, we urgently need youth who will serve our country.”31 The Diantong Film Company dramatized the event’s pathos and the celebratory status of Nie Er. Diantong’s reportage may have been motivated by financial self-interest, since Nie’s songs had been featured in Diantong’s recently released Children of the Storm and this was an opportunity to reinforce the company’s connection to Nie Er. Additionally, a special edition of the Denton Gazette publicized the memorial with photographs and captions— “the theatre is filled to capacity with his masses”—underscoring the public’s adulation for Nie Er. Zhang Tianxu organized a smaller, more subdued service in Chibu prefecture, Japan.32 Within months Zhang had raised enough contributions to publish Commemorative Volume Honoring Nie Er (Nie Er jinianji) in Tokyo. The cover featured the left-wing artist Huang Xinbo’s woodcut print of Nie Er, attired in Western jacket and tie and strumming the guitar, striking a balance between populism and cosmopolitanism. Although Nie preferred the violin, the guitar more readily symbolized the concept of popularization. In the background, images of volunteer soldiers and musical notes evoke the power of Nie’s songs to mobilize the people. Most of the book’s twenty-some articles underscored Nie Er’s refusal to rest on his laurels and his desire to further his musical studies. The Chinese leftist artists in Japan highlighted his diligence, emphasizing how an artist should not

Chinese students residing in Japan held a memorial service for Nie Er in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, on August 4, 1935. Used by permission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

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Huang Xinbo’s woodblock print graced the front cover of Nie Er jinianji (Commemorative volume honoring Nie Er), December 1935.

be cloistered in an ivory tower but be immersed in social experience and have contact with people. As Cheng Ji wrote, Mr. Nie’s diligence is worthy of our admiration. He never studied at a music school, but his knowledge of music theory and his accomplishments in music far surpassed those who attended conservatory. His accomplishments resulted from hard work over the course of his short life. . . . While making “Song of the Great Road” besides frequently experiencing workers’ livelihood so he could absorb their thought he went every day to the road or dock to observe workers, study their sounds and tones. Isn’t he a worthy model? Moreover, he never assimilated to the corrupt environment of the Shanghai cinema world . . . and while he achieved a certain status in the music world, he still wanted to leave the country to pursue advanced training. This spirit is truly admirable. . . . After learning about Mr. Nie’s achievements, everyone should be encouraged by his example.33 Cheng Ji makes three distinctions—between morally corrupt Shanghai and an incorruptible Nie Er, between academy-trained musicians and the self-taught Nie Er, and between theory and praxis. This becomes a leitmotif that runs through the commemorative literature. Inspired by his devotion to a new Chinese music, 146

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Nie’s friends and the participants in the proletarian art movement in essence continued the polemical debate over the social function of art that Nie had begun with Li Jinhui. Nie had shared his vision for a new music with Chinese students residing in Tokyo. At the Fifth Arts Conference of the Chinese Youth Association, held in late May 1935, Nie addressed over a hundred Chinese students. For two hours he railed against Li Jinhui and the “feudal” academicians centered at the National Conservatory of Music, while championing a mass-based “new music movement.” According to one witness, The academic clique supports orthodox music of the West. In the music schools under their leadership one only learns classical pieces whereas Li Jinhui relies on decadent sounds with lewd lyrics and melodies to make his pitch. The people do not easily welcome classical music while obscene music serves as an opiate of the masses letting them forget reality. This music cannot serve China’s pressing needs. Mr. Nie’s pieces call out for the people’s liberation. His musical temperament is vigorous and firm while many of his tones and melodies are studied from the people. He developed a new route for Chinese music circles, creating what the people need.34 Overseas Chinese students readily adopted Nie as their standard-bearer and contrasted him with the alleged elitism of the Shanghai conservatory. Much vitriol was directed at the educator Xiao Youmei, the leader of the Shanghai-based national conservatory, and at Chen Gexin, a composer and music instructor, for “representing Chinese feudal thought and relying on government handouts.”35 Zhang Tianxu criticized the “academic clique” for its belief in “art for art’s sake” and for its dependence on and loyalty to the Nationalists: Under the ugly signboard of art for art’s sake they sell their art as a cure-all ointment. . . . In truth, this cure-all is so weak that it can’t even cure the venereal disease of the young master and his mistress. At best it can only “prohibit spitting” just like going along with the clown shouting slogans of the New Life Movement.36 Zhang went further and derided Chen Gexin as a “yelping dog” who offered his condolences on the occasion of Nie’s death to gain credibility even though he remained an elitist.37 The popular songwriter Li Jinhui was the other target in the memorials to Nie Er. Li’s commodification of sing-song girls, and his general glorification of beauty and the human body, led critics to denigrate his work. The occasional sultry lyrics of his love songs and his melding of “sexy, wild jazz (rougan kuangluan de jazz)”

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with Chinese melodies gave rise to descriptions of his music as decadent and hedonistic.38 Supporters of Nie Er contended that Li’s music was an opiate of the petty urbanites, numbing their nationalist consciousness, which, by contrast, Nie’s music had awakened. As Xi Ju writes, I respect Nie Er because his songs can sweep away the likes of [Li’s] “Drizzle” and “Darling, I Love You,” decadent sounds that render numb people’s nationalist consciousness. Whereas his songs are fervent, vigorous and heroic, exactly what we need. . . . He can encourage nationalist consciousness, he can make both singers and listeners strengthen their resolve.39 Critics of Li Jinhui characterized his music as a prop for both colonial oppression and class domination. Reflecting his antipathy toward Shanghai, Zhang Tianxu attacked Li’s music for increasing “all the vile elements originating in Shanghai, the source of all evil.” With a population of three million, besides the several tens of thousands of Western masters and their few associates (upper-class Chinese), the remaining 2.9 million struggle to survive from hunger and overwork, yet Li Jinhui pledges his loyalty to the masters by spinning off songs like “A Spring Dream” and cleverly calling on the masses to forget their own suffering.40 In championing Nie Er and class-nationalistic music, supporters of Nie Er relied on highly gendered metaphors to distinguish Nie’s masculine, martial music from Li Jinhui’s feminine and sexually alluring tunes. As Andrew Jones explains, leftist proponents of mass music denigrated Li’s music by equating his sing-song girls with prostitutes, who symbolized China’s victimization at the hands of colonialism. In a broader sense, Jones equates the numbing effect of Li’s music with the “betrayal of nationalistic ideals.”41 According to Zhang Tianxu, Li’s music corresponded to a musical orgy that had dissipated the energy needed for China’s Resistance.42 Pi Yu, too, described Li’s songs as “an opiate that reduced the combativeness of the masses. Thus, he [Nie Er] rejected the resentments, weaknesses, decadence, and debauchery pertaining to vulgar consciousness while creating grandiose, solemn, stirring and powerful songs, such as ‘Trailblazers’ and ‘Song of the Big Road’—marches that can arouse even the deaf.”43 Pi Yu, like so many other champions of Nie Er, uses the masculine term “xiongzhuang (with power and grandeur)” to describe Nie’s songs. “In every corner of the land the people now sing his powerful and grand songs, and they have aroused the hot blood of the people, awakened the brains of those people who had been drugged. The decadent sound has been swept away, its fate forever sealed.”44 The special interest in masculine and martial attributes in Nie’s music was 148

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reflected in the commemorative literature’s focus on three of Nie Er’s film songs— “March of the Volunteers,” “Song of the Big Road,” and “Trailblazers.” Among approximately forty articles written between 1935 and 1949 that refer to one or more of Nie’s songs, “March of the Volunteers” was mentioned thirty times, “Song of the Big Road” twenty-seven times, and “Trailblazers” twenty-five times. Their popularity stemmed from being transmitted by media technology, having politicized lyrics emphasizing working-class struggles and nationalist mobilization, and melding the Western march form to a Chinese national style or a symbolic “folkloric” style. Aside from the martial tone of the pieces evoked by the march, the songs effuse masculinity. Most prominently, the all-male construction crew’s labor chants in “The Song of the Big Road” reinforce the film’s bold—almost erotic—depiction of masculinity.45 While the commemorations highlighted Nie’s forceful mobilization music, they almost completely excluded other genres, especially women’s songs, which were deemed too effeminate. The melodious tragic love song “Mei Niang’s Song” was mentioned only once in war-era articles, whereas the proletarian-inspired song “Dockworkers” received eleven references. Though “Mei Niang’s Song” is one of Nie’s most creative songs and true to the realist mission, the theme of despair was not one to be memorialized. The most heralded song about women was “New Women,” but a masculine proletarian identity subsumed any semblance of femininity in the film and its musical subjects—female cotton-mill workers. The emphasis on Nie Er’s martial and masculine music was part of a broader movement to create literature, cinema, and music for national defense. Just as leftist writers had spearheaded Nie Er’s commemoration, the ideological subtext took its cue from the League of Left-Wing Writers. Starting in 1934, the Left League had called for a united front of writers in the cause of national resistance. Two years later, League leader Zhou Yang called on all writers, “regardless of their social stratum or faction,” to unite in creating a national defense literature that reflects “the real struggle of the Chinese people for the liberation of their own nation . . .”46 In his study of China’s woodcut movement, Xiaobing Tang notes that progressive-oriented artists reacted with ambivalence towards the call for a united front for fear of sacrificing their oppositional political stance.47 In the music community, the death of Nie Er exacerbated schisms among mass songwriters, ­conservatory-trained musicians, and entertainers associated with Li Jinhui. Yet the outbreak of war and the imperatives of national salvation overrode these divisions. In part, musicians from the academy, most notably Huang Zi, answered their critics by composing mass songs for the Resistance. Li Jinhui, too, after the Battle of Shanghai in August 1937, “paid attention to the national salvation songs and wrote a song book” before leaving Shanghai for his native Hunan.48 Criticism of Li Jinhui’s “yellow jazz” continued well into the 1940s, but became less frequent

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and strident in tone. By 1940, even the vociferous critic Zhang Tianxu praised Li for having remarked to Guo Moruo, however belatedly, that Nie Er “had wanted to develop a national music which would benefit the people and nation!”49 Above all, the leftist musicians gained ascendancy in the debates over musical aesthetics and the social function of music. Their mass songs became popularized as people’s choruses proliferated and the National Salvation Song Movement gained steam.

Commemoration and the National Salvation Song Movement As war threatened China, leftist musicians in the National Salvation Song Movement responded by mobilizing the masses into people’s choruses. Like their predecessors in the early twentieth century who promoted school songs, left-wing artists believed song was the best vehicle to mobilize the entire nation’s people. As Liu Liangmo exhorted, “We must sing! Sing so that all the nation’s people rise with force and spirit! Sing so that the world’s powers recoil in fear!”50 It was thought that the unity of all the people could be achieved and strengthened through song: both the lyrics and the very act of singing imparted a collective ethos. And it was both patriotism and a desire to memorialize Nie Er that pushed Liu Liangmo to organize the song movement. For Liu, teaching Nie Er’s songs was the best way to do him justice.51 Liu championed Nie Er’s memory by forming amateur choral groups, publishing numerous patriotic song anthologies, utilizing innovative pedagogical techniques, and holding mass song rallies. Charles Tilly reminds us that the success of social movements relies on their organizational structure and the mobilization of resources—grievances, the press, funding, and access to political power.52 By utilizing organizations (the YWCA, the People’s Song Association, and later the Nationalist army), tapping into anti-Japanese patriotic sentiment, publishing through the Shanghai-based media, and having the support (even if only temporary) of Chiang Kai-shek, Liu Liangmo’s grassroots movement “swept through barren hills with the force of a prairie fire.” By 1939, continued the composer He Lüting, “Many people who could not sing are now singing, one hears the War of Resistance songs at every demonstration and mass assembly.”53 Although not a member of the Left League, Liu Liangmo shared its antipathy towards Li Jinhui’s popular songs and the view that they had weakened China. Liu’s antidote was to organize song groups to resist colonial domination and stimulate anti-imperialist consciousness. Thus, the nucleus of the National Salvation Song Movement came into existence. If we Chinese want to break free from imperialism’s iron shackles, if we want China to exert itself, our people must be able to loudly and vigorously 150

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sing powerful songs full of spirit and vitality. . . . Those nauseating songs— “I Love You, Little Sister,” “Peach Blossom River” and “You Are My Love”— will never provide China with the courage to break free from its chains . . . “Song of the Big Road,” “Trailblazers,” and “Graduation Song” are all majestic, powerful songs, but only a few people sing them. Who will lead the people in singing these majestic songs? I am willing to be a trailblazer. . . . I have already established the People’s Song Association in Shanghai and over three hundred youth have enrolled. If the people of China can sing these songs, no doubt the sound will shake the earth. . . . The dawning of a New China will arrive when all the people of China can sing these majestic and powerful songs.54 Born in Zhenhai, Zhejiang, in 1909, Liu converted to Christianity while attending the Shanghai Mingqiang Middle School and Hujiang University (established by the American Baptist Missionary Union), where he majored in sociology. According to one colleague, after graduating Liu sought to put into practice Matthew 20:28, “to serve and not be served,” by working as student secretary of the Shanghai YMCA.55 Although not a musician by training, a chance reading of an American songbook, Music Unites People, and his participation in the Hujiang University’s church choir convinced him that song groups were the most effective way to promote patriotism and moral virtue despite China’s lack of a choral tradition.56 A populist streak in Liu also led him to extend song participation beyond church congregations and mission student groups. “My plan was to make music the possession of all and not the privilege of the few.” With permission from K. Z. Loh, general secretary of the Shanghai YMCA, Liu established in February 1935 a mass singing club for some sixty underprivileged youth.57 By June 1936, the group, known as the People’s Song Association, had surpassed one thousand members (primarily students, clerks, and white-collar workers), with regional branches in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.58 The People’s Song Association was the first of many song groups and choruses established during the National Salvation Movement. In June 1935, Lü Ji took over the music cell of the League of Left-Wing Dramatists that Nie Er had once managed and transformed it into the nucleus for the National Salvation Amateur Choir (Kangri jiuwang yeyu hechangtuan). Staffed by the left-wing musicians Lü Ji, Zhang Shu, Meng Bo, and Mai Xin, the Amateur Choir broadened the social basis of its audience by teaching songs to students and workers. In short order, schools and factories established their own choruses. In Shanghai alone, over one hundred choirs were established. According to Wang Yuhe, “Like bamboo shoots after the spring rains, the Xian Incident prompted all types of choral organizations to arise in practically every university and middle school, even certain organs of the Nationalist Party as well as the army, and among patriotic overseas Chinese.”59

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Innovative teaching approaches and an emphasis on forging a collective ethos through singing helped propel the movement. To teach group singing to his initiates, Liu began with his own composition, “Save China” (Jiu Zhongguo), sung in rounds based on the melody for “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Jiu, jiu, jiu Zhongguo Yiqi xiang qianjin Nuliya, nuliya, nuliya, nuliya! Jiuguo yao fendou

Save, save, save China Onwards we advance Working hard, hard, hard! Fight to save the nation

The experience of singing had the desired effect. As Liu recalls, “Within half an hour they had learned the song . . . and were chanting it loudly. Once they rendered the sing in canon form, they were in high spirits and full of fight. They had a taste of collectively singing patriotic revolutionary songs.”60 Echoing the broadsides accusing academy musicians of being too elitist, Liu emphasized dedication to the goal of national liberation rather than professional expertise: If you have a golden voice, but are unwilling to teach the masses how to sing robust heroic songs and only sing love songs for the girls so that you can be in the limelight, then your golden voice is no better than a broken voice. But if you have a broken voice and try your utmost to teach heroic songs to the masses and everyone’s consciousness is raised and become organized, then your broken voice is far better than a beautiful voice.61 Helped by radio broadcasts to Wuxi, Suzhou, and Ningbo and by grassroots mobilization, Liu succeeded in popularizing national salvation songs, especially Nie Er’s “Song of the Big Road,” “Graduation Song,” and “March of the Volunteers.” One of Liu’s guiding principles was that participants should spread the patriotic songs they had mastered. “At the time our slogan was once one learns a national salvation song one must teach it to others, one should pass on the national salvation song to ten people, ten to hundred, a hundred pass it on to a thousand others, a thousand to ten thousand.”62 Liu used his contacts at other local branches of the YMCA to promote the movement. Journalist Israel Epstein recounted his experience watching Liu teach songs at a gymnasium of the Tianjin YMCA: Inside, about four hundred people stood and sang. They were ordinary people from the street—students, petty clerks, workmen, schoolchildren, newsboys, and even rickshaw pullers, who stood near the door keeping an eye on their vehicles outside. Participants first learned a separate phrase of the song, then sang two phrases at a time followed by a stanza. . . . At the end 152

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of the rehearsal, Liu had recruited some ten volunteers who would lead permanent groups of their own.63 In the meantime, at Shanghai Liu had begun to train the more skilled singers within his organization to become vocal instructors. Liu recruited Mai Xin and Meng Bo, both of whom became important activists and composers of national salvation songs. Mai Xin and Meng Bo co-authored Mass Singing (Dazhong gesheng), the first anthology devoted to national salvation songs. Over the course of just several months in 1936, the Shanghai Mass Singing Press had reprinted the anthology four times, and in the following year, they issued a second volume.64 The first volume included over three hundred national salvation songs and articles on song composition, folk music, and building the song movement. In his preface to the various editions, Mai Xin emphasized the goal of popularization, the need to “bring the national salvation songs to every corner of China—to the street corners, countryside, factories, schools, shops, and army.”65 Mass Singing provided the main song material for the song movement, often reprinting songs that had been published in the press. Buttressed by the formation of music schools and amateur groups, the Nanjing decade (1927–37) witnessed an explosion of music publishing—scholarly journals, music education periodicals, and books popularizing Western music and music theory as well as stories of general interest. The printing of songbooks facilitated the sense of nationalist consciousness. Proponents of mass songs were not the first to publish songbooks—advocates of the late Qing’s school song movement had started the practice—but the scale of publishing in the 1930s was unprecedented. By 1937 over a third of the 88 music-related publications were anthologies of Resistance, National Salvation, and patriotic songs. During the following two years, approximately 60 percent of 151 titles were war related.66 Liu Liangmo’s most popular publication, the pocketbook version of Collection of Youth Songs (Qingnian geji), was printed between 1935 and 1936 in seven editions, totaling over 10,000 copies. Nie Er’s mass songs occupied pride of place. The 1936–1939 outpouring of publications devoted to national salvation songs reinforced their status as the “new Chinese music” and fueled the social movement. Publications and song instruction were oriented towards mass song rallies, which served to create a spirit of national unity. In the words of journalist Zou Taofen, the rallies created a collective ethos. “Besides educating the people and awakening the people, this type of large scale mass song rally can also cause the people to feel the great power of the collective. One person’s voice is weak and lacks force, but the collective sound of 100,000 will reverberate across the heavens, topple the mountains, and overturn the seas.”67 Under the baton of Liu Liangmo, who conducted from atop a high stool, one of the first mass rallies was held on June 7, 1936, to mark the founding of the National Salvation Association. Roughly

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one thousand singers representing the People’s Song Association and eight other choral groups, in addition to some five thousand spectators, assembled at Shanghai’s West Gate athletic field near Nanjing Road. One can visualize the close connection between song rallies, publications, and Nie Er’s mass songs on the book cover to the 1937 publication of the National Salvation Song Collection (Jiuwang gequji). The illustration conveys the excitement of a mass song rally, with workingclass and urban participants led by a female protagonist who outstretches her arms. Her right arm holds a baton pointing to a banner inscribed with key phrases associated with “March of the Volunteers” and the Patriotic Song Movement— “Arise,” “Ye who refuse to be slaves!” and “Roar.” Commemoration of Nie Er and mass singing were mutually reinforcing activities; Lü Ji and the songwriter Mai Xin organized fifteen choral groups for a song rally honoring Nie Er on the first anniversary of his death.68 In the spring of 1937, Chiang Kai-shek himself directed Liu Liangmo to teach mass singing to the soldiers at the front in Suiyuan and Shanxi, a mission he pursued over the next two years.69 Liu immediately traveled to Taiyuan with the Christian National Youth Association’s war zone service unit to provide relief services to the troops. In commemoration of the May Thirtieth Movement, Liu and Lü Ji led over 30,000 soldiers in singing “March of the Volunteers” and other Resistance songs. As the proponents of music for national defense had hoped, Nie Er’s mass songs mobilized the nation and its soldiers. The rallies were a prelude to even greater participation during the early stages of the Anti-Japanese War. Using the resources of the cultural propaganda division of the Third Bureau (Junshi weiyuanhui zhengzhibu di santing), led by Guo Moruo in the wartime capital of Wuhan, which was idealized as China’s “Madrid” for its resistance against fascist aggression,70 the leftist musicians organized a song rally with over 100,000 participants in April 1938. As was his custom, Xian Xinghai conducted “March of the Volunteers” as the finale.71 Not to be outflanked by the Communists, the Nationalist government initially supported the National Salvation Song Movement to galvanize the resistance movement and to gain foreign aid. In the fall of 1939, the propaganda office of the GMD invited Li Baochen to help popularize China’s resistance songs abroad. Li, a graduate of Oberlin College and a choral instructor working in the Ministry of Education, compiled and edited an English text of resistance songs, Zhongguo kangzhan gequji/China’s Patriots Sing, with twelve songs by different composers. He canvassed opinions from music circles as to which songs were most popular, and after including the obligatory Nationalist Party song and the national flag song, Nie Er’s “March of the Volunteers” topped the list.72 From the early stages of the war until the New Fourth Army Incident (January 1941) ended the United Front truce, “March of the Volunteers” was a staple of Central Radio Station’s morning broadcast to boost wartime morale.73 And during the early 154

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1940s, the song became such a powerful symbol of national unity that a rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden featured a chorus of a thousand Chinese singing “March of the Volunteers,” an event that was “dedicated to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.”74 By 1946, as the civil war exploded, however, the song had become a weapon in the struggle for power between the two political parties. Nie’s collaborator, Tian Han, accused the Nationalist regime of changing his lyrics to espouse Nationalist government propaganda, but he approved when the educator Tao Xingzhi changed the song title to “March of Democracy” (Minzhu jinxingqu) and altered its lyrics in accord with Mao Zedong’s theory of New Democracy.75 The proliferation of Nie Er’s songs to a national audience combined top-down cultural and political work with grass roots organizing. Until 1935 the cinemas, dance halls, recording companies, and broadcasting networks disseminated Nie’s mass songs. Subsequently, the songs reached the people directly through people’s choruses and song rallies. Initially, most participants were intellectuals and urbanites, but as the choral movement developed, the songs spread to all sectors of society and reached beyond the confines of the coastal cities. As the essayist Lin Yutang described, “The amazing thing is that this mass singing is not confined to the college students, but has spread to the common people, the refugee groups, the guerrillas and the soldiers at the front.”76 Once the war broke out, both Nationalists and Communists provided organizational support for the song movement by sponsoring war zone service corps and mobile theatrical troupes that served as conduits for musicians to propagate both their art and Nie Er’s songs in the hinterland. By the late 1930s, as the United Front unraveled, a majority of musicians involved in the National Salvation Song Movement had moved to the Communist base areas. Their work for the New Fourth Route and Eighth Route Armies, along with Communist propaganda organizations, enabled their songs to spread throughout the ranks.77

Popularization and the “New Music Movement” Two men were instrumental in projecting Nie Er as the symbolic leader of the National Salvation Song Movement. While Liu Liangmo implemented the movement in practice, Lü Ji articulated its theoretical basis. Since the spring of 1936, Lü Ji had advocated a new party line that followed the Comintern’s call at its Seventh World Congress for an anti-imperialist popular front in colonized countries. While Lü continued to support popularization, the new slogan of “music for national defense” and the turn away from “proletarian art” to (socialist) “realism” meant moderating class struggle in artistic forms. Revisiting Zhou Yang’s previous call to create music that was “proletarian in content, national in

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form,” Lü Ji revised the formulation to meet the demands of the national crisis facing China. The formulation became “national in style, national salvation in content.” The mass song form was still deemed the main vehicle to achieve this goal. Out of the practical concerns to deal with China’s sociolinguistic diversity and to appeal to a majority rural population, Lü insisted that song lyrics should use new characters to express dialects and to incorporate folk songs as much as possible.78 In a series of influential articles in Bright Light (Guangming), Lü Ji claimed the mantle of the “new music” movement and argued that Nie heralded the movement because he “goes among the progressive masses, participates in their lives, and has become their weapon of battle.”79 For Lü, Nie’s art functioned as a weapon by reflecting the people’s lives and feelings while also serving to educate and organize them. Lü thought that Nie had developed a new form by using the inherent musicality of the Chinese language rather than adhering to a sterile textbook form, but had only begun the process of reaching uneducated workers and farmers with diverse sociolinguistic backgrounds. To achieve popularization, he concluded, lyrics should express the diverse linguistic dialects and utilize the form, if not the content, of folk songs. Taking up Lü Ji’s call, articles commemorating the third anniversary of Nie Er’s death stressed that he was a model for popularization and nationalism. Yang Yibo’s article for Yunnan Daily is representative. It claimed that Nie Er was a “composer of the times and of the masses,” because “he grew up among the people. No one loved the people more than Nie Er . . .” It was stressed that Nie Er’s interaction with the people led organically to a compositional style that epitomized popularization and nationalism. “His songs popularize because he went among the crossroads, lived among the laboring people and understood their lives by experiencing their struggles, thus many of his songs, such as ‘Song of the Big Road,’ ‘Trailblazers,’ ‘Dockworkers’ reflect the lives of the masses. . . . His songs reflect a striving and call for freedom and liberation.” And they not only reflected class nationalism, his songs enabled singers to feel nationalistic. “Anyone who sings ‘March of the Volunteers’ is strengthened in spirit.”80 To create nationalist music, it was now argued, it was better to have revolutionary experience than to be a professional composer. The Communist New China Daily trumpeted Nie’s diligence, humble upbringing, and dedication to the struggle for national liberation. “Mr. Nie Er’s works are our perfect model. We hope that all cultural workers can exert their forces in the choral movement . . . because Nie Er, like us, was just an ordinary person not a cultivated musical artist.”81 The popularization of Nie as a working-class model downplayed his expertise as a violinist and his expertise in composing film music. Nie Er’s social origins and politics were implicitly compared with those of the mass choral

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movement participants and contrasted to the refined, cultivated artists trained at the national conservatory or abroad. This distinction between amateur and specialist came up again in discussion in the Nationalist capital of Wuhan over whether to anoint Nie Er as the figurehead for a proposed Music Day. Having just conducted a mass rally in Nie Er’s memory, Xian Xinghai suggested that July 17 should be commemorated each year as Nie Er Day, but detractors argued that Nie’s technical skills and lack of education did not merit such an honor. The detractors won the battle. By the 1940s, however, musicians in Yan’an, the Communist Party’s wartime capital, had begun to observe Nie Er Day. Finally, in line with Lü Ji’s call to use folk music, commemorations of Nie Er by the late 1930s focused on his vanguard role in the research and adaptation of folk music.82 Nie Ziming, for example, moved away from portraying Nie Er as a cosmopolitan youth in Kunming to portraying him as a “nativist” Yunnanese. Whereas his 1938 article dwells on how Nie Er became “inseparable from the violin” as a youth, his 1940 article focuses on Nie Er’s performances in a local Dongjing music society. It argues that this experience influenced his traditional Chinese instrumental arrangement “Spring Dawn at Green Lake” (Cuihu chun­ xiao). Nie Ziming also relates his younger brother’s interest in collecting Yun­nan­ ese folk songs as the basis for composing national salvation songs.83 This shift in representation distanced Nie from the corrupting influence of semi-colonial Shanghai. Yunnanese now argued that Nie Er’s roots in that frontier province, where musical culture was unsullied by feudalism, capitalism, and imperialism, provided the basis for a national music based in the folk: Under the duress of feudal society for several thousand years, trodden over by capitalism and imperialism, Chinese society in the recent past had only vulgar ditties of the decadent and powerless songs of the academy. But in this era, finally a turnaround occurred when a youth from China, a young lion appeared whose roar—the Chinese people’s cry of resistance—­ stimulated a new life and progress for the Chinese people. What is the reason for this? First, in remote China there remained those songs that had not been wiped out by feudal powers and capitalism. Our young composer in this regard used the mountain songs, country ditties as the basis of his songs.84 Several developments led to commemorative articles highlighting Nie Er’s pioneering work in the use of folk music. The relocation of cultural workers to Yan’an focused artistic work on serving the people, increasingly defined as the peasant class. By the early 1940s, the popularity of the National Salvation Song Movement had ebbed in urban China and had found limited traction in rural areas. Cadres and intellectuals looked to the example of Nie Er as a means of



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boosting morale in their ranks and revitalizing the new music movement. The January 1940 inaugural issue of New Music (Xin yinyue), a CCP-sponsored journal that sought to bring ideological coherence to the new music movement in Nationalist China, took stock of its achievements and acknowledged its challenges. There were growing restrictions on the publication and performance of mass songs, a shortage of cadres, and dissension in the ranks, especially among musicians with urban Westernizing biases. As well, there were too many works that were “formulaic or lacking in substance.” Editor Li Luyong (aka Li Ling) criticized those musicians who had forsaken national salvation music and lambasted others who “have become passive, abandoned putting theory into practice, and returned to the individualistic life of researching ‘pure art.’ ” Thus, Li concluded, their music, which ignored China’s folksong tradition and “had a strong European flavor,” fared poorly among the people.85 In the same issue, Xian Xinghai and Wu Peng laid out several criteria that composers should meet in order for music to regain its vitality. First, they said, song composers needed a proper political understanding of the War of Resistance and the importance of art’s social function. Second, the authors argued for the need to link praxis and composition. Rather than sit in their rooms waiting for lyrics to be brought to them and then writing a melody by copying foreign singing methods or reading a foreign score, songwriters needed to experience the hardships of soldiers at the front and create material based on “a life of struggle.” Third, songwriters should “get closer to the masses” and collect and study folk songs, thereby “extracting their healthy and superior qualities” to make their own compositions popular among the people.86 Left unstated but tacitly understood was that the model of Nie Er that had been constructed from 1935 to 1939 embodied all three criteria. By the early 1940s, seminal Communist Party policies were disseminated regarding the arts and its relationship to folklore and the revolution. In his 1941 speech “Guidelines for Chinese Folk Music Research,” Lü Ji defined folk music in class-based terms (a music of the urban or rural proletariat) and explained the political goals of folksong research. The following year, Mao rendered art subordinate to politics in his “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art.”87 Mao elaborated on how proletarian literature and the arts would serve, to quote Lenin, as a “cog and a screw” in the entire revolutionary cause. According to Mao, Communist cultural workers should henceforth immerse themselves in the lives of the “people” so that they could achieve a class transformation in their attitudes and create art that would serve the “broad masses” of the workers, peasants, soldiers, and petty bourgeoisie. Raising artistic standards would be stressed, but this would meet the even more urgent need for popularization, for, as Isabel Wong explains, Mao’s “Talks” were linked to the mobilization and organization methods of the “mass line.” Mobilizing meant drawing out specific concerns “from the masses” 158

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before reformulating and presenting a more theorized program “to the masses” to address their particular issues. In the field of music, a “cultural army” of cadres was required to collect, categorize, and research folk music so that these cultural products could be used to win over the masses to the party’s ideological line.88 Fellow musicians on the Left again looked to Nie Er as the model composer— patriotic, tempered by revolutionary struggle, and skilled in applying the methods of popularization and socialist realism that Mao’s “Talks” had just sanctioned. One of the more influential articles of the early 1940s was written by Mai Xin, the leftist musician based at the Lu Xun Arts Academy. Seconding Lü Ji, Mai Xin argued that Nie Er was a pioneer in creating a “compositional method based in realism” and a “composition directed towards nationalizing and popularizing.” Mai, too, placed Nie’s compositions alongside mass song composers, such as Davidenko, Carl Sands, and L. E. Swift, who had sought to revitalize their folk traditions.89 Mai’s ideas were not new, but he was the first to analyze Nie’s compositional methods, showing how rhythmic patterns, short phrasing, and limited vocal range made for easily sung and remembered melodies. Mai was impressed by Nie’s experimentation in using Chinese modes to lend his melodies a national coloring.90 As the rift with the Nationalists was now open, Mai also publicized Nie’s Communist orientation for the first time, breaking a silence motivated by the desire to use him as a symbol of national unity, not party sectarianism. Aside from projecting Nie as a model composer, Communist cultural workers formalized the commemoration of Nie Er and established his work as part of a musical canon. New Music published articles listing all of Nie Er’s songs, included the scores of his more obscure works, and expressed the hope that Nie Er’s complete works would be published—a goal finally achieved in 1949.91 Special commemorative issues on Nie Er were published, for instance, in 1940 and 1947. Moreover, Nie’s posthumous role as a model for the new music movement was kept in the forefront by creating a “People’s Music Festival,” also known as Nie Er Day, to be observed each July 17 in the Communist base areas. These measures were examples of how the party-state sponsored public rituals and publication of anthologies to bestow national iconographic status on Nie Er and create a nationalist music.92

“March of the Volunteers” and Its International Reception The circulation of Nie’s songs abroad supported the ascendancy of his music within China. Nie Er was introduced to overseas Chinese and ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia through the efforts of his manager at Pathé Records, Ren Guang. After publishing resistance songs in Wuhan and Chongqing, Ren left for Singapore in January 1938. Arriving with An E, Ren Guang established the Tongluo

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[Bronze gong] Choir, which functioned, in Ren’s view, “to awaken the people” in the resistance against Japan.93 Over the course of the year, Ren taught song lyrics, made a recording of the Tongluo Choir with Pathé Records, and helped popularize songs such as Nie Er’s “Graduation Song” among ethnic Chinese in Malaya. Ren’s success in promoting the resistance against colonial rule led the British imperial government to order his extradition from Singapore in the fall of 1939.94 Xia Zhiqiu also played a key role in popularizing Nie Er’s music in Southeast Asia. Xia directed and led the Wuhan Choir on a fundraising tour of Malaya and Singapore between December 1938 and March 1940. Performing some 284 concerts in close to one hundred locations along the western coast of the Malay Peninsula, the Wuhan Choir succeeded in raising 2.3 million yuan.95 Despite British prohibitions against anti-Japanese content, the Wuhan Choir succeeded in spreading Chinese patriotic songs, including Nie Er’s “March of the Volunteers” and “Graduation Song.”96 Although both Ren and Xia focused their patriotic song activities among urban audiences, guerrilla forces in the Malaya People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) also sang Nie Er’s “March of the Volunteers.” Controlled by the Malayan Communist Party, whose members were almost exclusively ethnic Chinese, political propaganda through the use of songs was brought to the MCP by former members of the Eighth Route and New Fourth Route Armies.97 Adjusting to the need to forge a Malayan national consciousness, the MPAJA troops changed Tian Han’s lyrics to “the Malaysian people have met the day of danger.”98 Chinese commemorators picked up on Nie’s popularity in Southeast Asia. As Xu Jiarui noted in 1943, “With his genius he took the people’s sounds and spread them throughout the world, from the Yellow River, from the Yangzi River to every corner of Southeast Asia, to Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore.”99 “March of the Volunteers” was also warmly received in the United States, through the efforts of Liu Liangmo and Paul Robeson.100 In China, however, the mass song movement was increasingly hampered by Nationalist government controls, and Liu was placed under house arrest. Through the intervention of the American YMCA staff, Liu was released and left China in 1940 to attend Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. It wasn’t long before he became a spokesman for United China Relief, an umbrella organization of relief agencies in China under the helm of publishing magnate Henry Luce. Knowing of Robeson’s sympathy for the Chinese people’s struggle for national liberation, Liu met the famed bass-baritone and civil rights activist on December 27, 1940, at the home of a mutual friend. Liu recalls that Robeson was excited to hear about the Patriotic Song Movement; Liu sang various songs of the resistance at the gathering, introducing Robeson to Nie Er’s songs. In a follow-up letter to Robeson, Liu included the scores and lyrics for a dozen songs and appealed to Robeson to record them for the Music Room.101 A few weeks later, Robeson 160

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sang “March of the Volunteers” in Chinese as an encore at the Lewisohn Stadium in New York before a packed audience. Liu recalled Robeson’s words: “ ‘Tonight, I want to sing a song for the heroic Chinese people in battle,’ he announced. ‘The title of the song is ‘Chee Lai!’ And in perfect Mandarin Chinese, he sang our ‘March of the Volunteers.’ I listened with excitement and pride. . . . [F]rom then on, ‘Chee Lai’ began to circulate among the progressive people in the United States.”102 Liu frequently collaborated with Paul Robeson to promote Nie Er’s songs and support for China’s resistance. On April 25, 1941, Robeson sang a benefit concert for Chinese relief for more than 6,000 people gathered in the Uline Arena in Washington, DC. Indicative of the common causes that Liu and Robeson ­championed—antifascism, racial equality, liberty, and democracy—the Washington Committee for Aid to China and the National Negro Congress co-sponsored the concert, with proceeds divided evenly.103 Robeson’s recitals during 1941 and 1942 in New Orleans, Springfield, Illinois, the Robin Hood Dell in Philadelphia, and Madison Square Garden featured “March of the Volunteers.”104 For his part, Liu’s speaking engagements on behalf of United China Relief included performing Nie Er’s patriotic songs. At these events Liu would also condemn white supremacy, whether in British India or the United States. Between September 1942 and April 1945, Liu wrote editorials for the influential black weekly, the Pittsburgh Courier, in which he argued that Chinese and black Americans were linked in their struggles for racial equality and democracy.105 In 1941, Liu collaborated with Robeson in recording several Chinese folk songs and songs of resistance, most prominently “March of the Volunteers,” on the album titled Chee Lai: Songs of New China. Sponsored by the China Aid Council, several of its luminaries such as Song Qingling appealed to the American audience by linking China’s national resistance to universal values of freedom. The New York Times press release for the left-leaning Keynote album also suggests how Liu Liangmo and Robeson had transformed Nie Er’s song to broaden its appeal beyond national borders. “The title song, ‘Chee Lai,’ is new and has become, in its call, ‘Arise, you who refuse to be bond slaves, let’s stand up and fight for liberty and true democracy,’ an unofficial national anthem.”106 The new lyrics, sung by Robeson, articulated the antifascist goals of democracy and liberty by replacing the nationalist symbolism of the original lyrics: “With our very flesh and blood let us build our new Great Wall.” As Richard So explains, the translation was the “rescripting of a domestic Chinese antifascist movement as global.”107 By the late 1940s, Robeson had performed the song throughout the world, from Cairo to Moscow. Robeson was not the sole champion of “March of the Volunteers.” The Metropolitan Opera tenor James Melton pronounced “Chee Lai” the “greatest of all war songs to spring from the Second World War.”108 Even Hollywood joined the

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act. Academy Award–winning director Frank Capra was enlisted by George Marshall to produce a series of propaganda films, Why We Fight, to justify American involvement in World War II. The 1944 film The Battle of China documented Chinese suffering (the Nanjing massacre and the Japanese bombing of Chong­ qing) and resistance through the construction of the Burma Road. The film titles are introduced while one hears an orchestrated version of “Chee Lai” performed by the Army Air Force Orchestra. The film concludes with a montage of Chinese troops marching to the accompaniment of a thunderous choir version of “March of the Volunteers.”109 That same year, the MGM film Dragon Seed, which shows the heroism of the peasant woman Jade (played by Katherine Hepburn) as she resists the Japanese occupation, was released, based on the best-selling novel by Pearl Buck. Through her advocacy of American aid to China and civil rights, Buck had befriended Paul and Eslanda (“Essie”) Robeson as well as Liu Liangmo, and these connections most likely influenced film composer Herbert Stothart’s choice of Chinese music. The bugle call theme of “March of the Volunteers” sounds at critical junctures throughout the film, symbolizing resistance to Japan. Similarly, by late August 1943, the State Department had begun planning a musical program to be broadcast on the day of the Allied victory. John M. Begg, acting chief of the State Department Division of Cultural Relations, wrote to Donald Voorhees, conductor of the Bell Telephone Hour orchestra, to request that “Chee Lai” (“Arise”) be chosen to represent China.110 The promotion of “March of the Volunteers” emboldened Nie Er’s Chinese supporters to argue that his music was part of a world historical trend in the development of song music. As Mai Xin suggested, “ ‘March of the Volunteers’ has become a magnificent War of Resistance prelude popular throughout the world. This compositional method happens to coincide with that used by world leftist artists such as Carl Sands, L. E. Swift, J. S. Schaeffer, Ferenc Szabó, and Davidenko. This development is both historical and an inevitable product of the era.”111 In keeping with Nie Er’s own mixed identity as both nationalist and internationalist, Mai Xin’s description of “March of the Volunteers” reflects how nationalists have historically sought to transcend the nation. Chinese musicians adopted the techniques and aesthetic forms of the global proletarian arts movement but, through popularization, lent a particularity to their music. Nationalist music converged with international trends. By claiming universal status for their art, champions of Nie Er bolstered the prestige of their music and fortified their own nationalist credentials. Although several hundred songs would be submitted for review to the committee selecting a new national anthem for the People’s Republic, the choice of “March of the Volunteers” would be almost unanimous. One reason was the song’s popularity abroad and its familiarity among overseas Chinese. As Liang Luo has shown in her study of how interwar, internationalist, avant-garde artists promoted 162

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“March of the Volunteers,” the song became identified with China while also serving as an “international anthem of antifascism.” It did not hurt the song’s cause when members of the selection committee, such as Guo Moruo, Xu Beihong, and Tian Han, heard Paul Robeson sing “March of the Volunteers” at the World Congress of Partisans for Peace in Prague in April 1949.112 In the end, the committee declared that the song had “inspired the Chinese people to obtain national liberation and was a majestic piece that represented the voice of the Chinese people.”113 Incontrovertibly, by 1949 Nie’s music both represented and served as a medium of expression for nationalism and liberation.

Conclusion The commemoration of Nie Er and the process by which he became a national icon were highly politicized. The new music movement embodied “class nationalism” and was born of popularizing and nationalizing Chinese music in the service of the people. By acclaim, leftist artists selected Nie as the posthumous leader of this movement. In many respects, Nie’s own view of music as a realist art that could serve the needs of the Chinese revolution anticipated the call by Lü Ji and, most notably, Mao Zedong’s Yan’an Talks. The commemoration of Nie Er solidified the identification of Nie with the view that artists should not live in intellectual isolation but rather go among the people and merge theory with practice. Moreover, the widespread popularity of people’s choruses during the National Salvation Movement disseminated Nie’s mass songs and validated their form and content, which focused on the rhythms, language, and everyday lives of working people. To be sure, just as Nie’s martial, masculine mass songs became popularized, his children’s and women’s songs were deemed less appropriate subjects for the nation-building project. Moreover, by the 1940s, as Nie’s music was adapted to the requirements of revolution in rural China, cosmopolitanism, exemplified by Nie’s passion for the violin, was expunged from the official memory. Nie acquired a national standing when his music mobilized people in the nation-building project. His perceived international standing also contributed to his stature. The popular reception of his music overseas, especially of “March of the Volunteers,” contributed to his iconic status inside China. His vision of a new proletarian music and his rejection of “art for art’s sake” converged with the development of the mass song movement in the Soviet Union and the resurgence of folk music in the United States. With the emergence of the Cold War, however, the spirit of Nie Er was once again invoked to mobilize the people, this time against the threat of American imperialism. On June 5, 1948, over four thousand students from ten universities and schools marched in the streets of Shanghai singing “March of the Volunteers” in protest of US support for Japan.114 And as a

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commemorative essay written on July 17, 1949, warned, “We need to use Nie Er’s spirit of opposition against imperialism and feudalism to expose the ferocious features of American imperialists.”115 The political uses of Nie Er and his music after 1949 were built on an already extensive collective memory of Nie Er and on sonic nationalism. We turn now to examine the uses of remembrance and commemoration during the PRC.

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CHAPTER 6

Creating the “People’s Musician” SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION AND THE FILM NIE ER

With the establishment of the People’s Republic and the choice of “March of

the Volunteers” as the provisional national anthem, Nie Er and his music became integral symbols of the revolutionary state. The process of selecting key legitimating symbols began on June 15, 1949, when the preparatory meeting of the Political Consultative Conference convened and selected a research committee tasked with choosing the flag, anthem, and emblem for New China. On July 4, the group’s first working meeting, under the direction of deputy committee chairman General Ye Jianying, called for submissions for the anthem lyrics and its music. The prominent intellectuals Guo Moruo, Tian Han, Mao Dun, Qian Sanqiang, and Ouyang Yuqian comprised the selection committee. Guo established the following criteria to judge the lyrics: Chinese characteristics, use of colloquial Chinese, brevity, accordance with Mao’s theory of “new democracy,” and bearing a political authority and long-range perspective for the New China.1 The committee suggested that music scores for the anthem be submitted in Western staff notation to accompany proposed lyrics, and a deadline was set for August 20. Selections would then be sent to Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai for their approval. In the meantime, on August 5, the committee requested that four distinguished music authorities meet to review the submissions—composer and violinist Ma Sicong, songwriter Lü Ji, composer He Lüting, and music theorist Yao Jinxin. Sequestered in the Beijing Hotel between August 16 and 20, the four reviewed 632 drafts of song lyrics and 694 pieces of music. Although they selected thirteen finalists for the lyrics, none were deemed ideal.2 In the end, there was not enough time to choose lyrics, match them with music, and have a trial run. By mid-­ September the full committee, in consultation with Zhou Enlai, decided to select a “current revolutionary song” as the anthem. Zhou personally recommended that “March of the Volunteers” be adopted because “it was a song that had inspired the Chinese people to strive for national liberation, a song full of power and 165

g­ randeur that represented the Chinese people’s voice, a song with a lengthy history, that had encouraged the entire country’s people to fight, and that the majority of people knew how to sing.”3 Despite the song’s popularity, members of the Political Consultative Committee debated whether Tian Han’s lyrics were appropriate to the construction of a new China. At a meeting convened at Mao Zedong’s residence in Zhongnanhai on September 25, the linguist Ma Xulun proposed using “March of the Volunteers” provisionally, given the difficulty in choosing a song under such time constraints. Ke Zhongping opined that “the music was good,” but he suggested revising the phrase—“the Chinese people are now facing the most dangerous crisis.” By contrast, the political theorist Zhang Xiruo and architect Liang Sicheng sought to retain the historical integrity of the song and opposed any revisions. The painter Xu Beihong advocated keeping Nie’s song and Tian’s lyrics but only as a provisional anthem. Guo Moruo noted the popularity of the song both within China and abroad, but felt revising the lyrics would improve the song. As for Tian Han, he modestly proposed finding new lyrics. “I feel this song is a good one, but while the lyrics had their historical significance, we should make way for new lyrics now.” Despite the seemingly open-ended deliberations, the top leadership’s opinions led to a resolution. In Zhou Enlai’s view, “We should use the old lyrics because they inspire us. Singing revised lyrics won’t have the same emotional impact.” Mao Zedong concurred with his own recommendation. In the end it will be changed, but [now] we should keep the old version. Our nation’s people have undergone arduous struggles. Although the entire country will soon be liberated we are still surrounded by imperialist forces and we can never forget the oppression our country has suffered from imperialism. We must still strive for the complete independence and liberation of our country, which will require continued and arduous struggle. Everyone feels that “March of the Volunteers” is the best song for our national anthem. The opinions are almost unanimous, so let it thus be decided!4 Given the leadership’s decision to elevate “March of the Volunteers” as the national anthem, even if only provisionally, post-1949 commemoration of Nie Er now became a much more party-state-driven process. In the 1935–49 period, commemoration took its impetus from a social movement, the ideological messaging of Communist cultural workers, and the championing by Liu Liangmo and Paul Robeson. In this earlier period, the class-inflected nationalism inspired by Nie Er’s songs during the Anti-Japanese War was key. During the early years of the PRC, the CCP continued to ride the wave of nationalist support garnered from its role in leading resistance against Japanese militarism. Moreover, as Chang-Tai Hung has shown, CCP propaganda legitimizing the revolutionary 166

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regime “created a new political culture infused with a nationalistic ethos.”5 Visual and material sources of culture tapped into different dimensions of nationalism. The monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square, for instance, drew on the master narrative of Chinese victimization and resistance against imperialism. The performance of the national anthem at state functions and National Day parades was yet another form of propaganda reminding all Chinese of their revolutionary struggle for national independence. Over the course of the 1950s, the twin goals of state socialism and national independence became intertwined and often reinforced each other. The historian Chen Jian has argued that Mao Zedong precipitated international crises to mobilize the population and heighten their national resolve in support of ever more radical political campaigns.6 There were convergences between the Korean War and land reform, between the Taiwan Strait crises and collectivization. In similar fashion, the commemoration of Nie Er strengthened the twin projects of nationalism and socialism. Performances of the national anthem linked Nie to nationalism, while his commemoration as a revolutionary musician put even greater weight on socialist construction in accordance with Maoist ideology. Both commemorative texts and Zheng Junli’s 1959 film Nie Er represented Nie Er as a model for socialist construction. Old ideological debates of the 1930s that pitted revolutionary musicians against the academicians and Li Jinhui would resurface during the Hundred Flowers campaign (1956) and were now playing out on the screen. Commemoration of Nie Er also played into the ongoing debate over Red versus Expert in the criteria used for cadres regarding whether they should have revolutionary experience or professional skills. Nie was held up as Mao’s ideal—a synthesis of both Red and Expert. Finally, cinematic commemoration of Nie Er served to promote the slogan of combining “revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism.” In his study of Chinese cinematic history, Paul Clark postulates that the aesthetic shift from socialist realism to the production of entertainment, not just propaganda films, during the early 1960s marked a concession on the part of cultural bureaucrats (represented by a Yan’an orthodoxy) towards filmmakers and artists steeped in the pre-1949 left-wing cinematic tradition of Shanghai.7 In his analysis of the film Nie Er, Paul Pickowicz also posits that the film’s production strengthened the cultural capital of former Left League artists vis-à-vis the Maoist state.8 Both interpretations fail to convey the complexity of the state–­ intellectual relationship. There was considerable overlap and congruence between Yan’an cultural bureaucrats and Shanghai intellectuals when it came to the commemoration of Nie Er. Most prominently, Lü Ji, the architect of Nie’s commemoration, had participated in the Left League’s music group when he lived in Shanghai. He had also worked in Yan’an, formulating a “new” Chinese music through his work on folk music and putting into practice Mao Zedong’s

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Yan’an Talks. No surprise, then, that the Nie Er film highlighted how Nie transformed his class attitudes from the petty bourgeois toward the proletariat by creating music in service to the revolution and Mao Zedong Thought. The film suggested that Nie had already lived what Mao was advocating, justifying Nie Er’s status as the “people’s musician.” The subtle shift in representation of Nie Er to both a nationalist and socialist icon is most evident in the transformation of his epitaph. Nie was officially buried in his current site at the foot of the Western Mountain, west of Kunming, on October 10, 1937—National Day in Republican China. This date harkened back to Double Ten Day commemorating the start of the Wuchang Uprising that led to the 1911 Revolution. The first epitaph, written by Yunnan educator Xu Jiarui, described the tomb as that of the “Epoch making composer Nie Er.” Both the date of the burial and the epitaph highlighted Chinese nationalism by linking Nie Er’s life and death to the 1912 founding of the Republic and by suggesting that his music was “epoch making.” Nie Er’s contributions are thus praised in the context of mobilizing resistance to the Japanese. In 1954, the Yunnan Department of Culture restored Nie’s gravesite and changed the epitaph to one bearing Guo Moruo’s inscription: “The people’s musician Nie Er” (“Renmin yinyuejia Nie Er”), thus linking him to the national project of creating a citizenry and to the socialist revolution. As one commemorator explained, “Nie became the people’s musician first of all because of his Marxist worldview, and even more important, under the Party’s indirect and direct leadership and instruction, his proletarian thought developed and manifested itself in his compositions.”9 In 1964 Marshall Zhu De visited Nie Er’s memorial hall located near the gravesite, where he wrote the same words in an inscription, “people’s musician.” Zhu De’s inscription serves as a book end to this phase of Nie Er commemoration.

Promoting Socialist Construction through the “People’s Musician” The identification of Nie Er as the “people’s musician” was tied to socialist construction and artistic policies of the fledgling People’s Republic. Policies begun the previous decade, namely popularization and upholding the criteria for art and literature articulated by Mao’s Yan’an Talks, were deepened during the Seventeen Years (1949–1966). As a pioneer of popularization Nie Er was held up as an example for music workers. Nie Er’s self-anointed successor Lü Ji, who became director of the Association of Musicians and a music spokesman for the Communist Party, enjoined music workers that they should “experience for themselves the life of the workers, continue their efforts to popularize music, take active steps to acquire a variety of musical knowledge and techniques, and strive to raise ideo168

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logical standards of thinking.”10 Just as Nie had witnessed and experienced labor, music education policies integrated physical labor with artistic creation in order to break down the hierarchical barriers between mental and manual labor. Nie was turned to as a positive role model for artists who deviated from holding the proper class attitude.11 The continued prominence of vocal music throughout the 1950s was a primary reason Nie became the model of choice for music workers engaged in socialist construction. Songs remained the most popular music form for the same reasons they had during the war years. In an era of material constraints, when limited funds for instruments, training and personnel prevented the rapid establishment of musical ensembles, “a person’s vocal chords were the cheapest instrument around” and in ample supply.12 Moreover, singing in amateur choruses, in schools and professional ensembles contributed to the collective and socialist ethos. In contrast, by the eve of the revolution instrumental music came under attack as a symbol of bourgeois individualism. As Lü Ji stated in 1948, “One must recognize that the primary era of music for the piano and the violin is already passé, and that it represented the old perspective of bourgeois individualism. We are now witnessing the era of the masses and of mass music. Vocal music is the primary mass music, not instrumental music and especially not the Western piano, violin or other solo instruments.” Lü Ji conveniently forgot Nie’s passion for the violin, but since Nie Er had studied the mass song tradition of the Soviet Union, Lü encouraged music workers to follow suit.13 As Richard Kraus has shown in his study of the politics of music, criticism of the piano for its association with capitalism and for encouraging an elitist attitude among cosmopolitan middle-class Chinese mounted during the Maoist era and reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution years.14 Although instrumental especially programmatic music, was composed during the 1950s, the less abstract form of vocal music enabled the party-state to more readily advance its ideological agenda and the goal of popularization. Continued emphasis on using regional and local “folk music”—a wartime trend stimulated by Nie Er’s pioneering efforts—helped achieve popularization by encouraging music workers to merge with their subject matter—the people. Moreover, the folk elements of the PRC mass songs contributed to the process of Sinicizing music, making it more accessible and legitimate.15 The characteristic of the PRC mass songs also took their lead from Nie Er’s songs and to an even greater extent the guidelines set out by Mao’s Yan’an Talks. Mass songs were meant to “serve the workers, peasants and soldiers, and to serve politics.” Whereas Nie’s songs were more in line with a critical realist style that explored the tragic underside of everyday life, the mass songs of the early Maoist era aligned with socialist realist tenets. The latter emphasized heroism and took as their subject matter—the motherland, the people, leaders, and the Liberation

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Army. The corresponding musical style “emphasized lively, cheerful, strong and masculine qualities, conveying deep feeling and brimming with optimism.”16 Testimony to the new social imaginary conveyed by mass songs that expressed pride in becoming “masters” of the land and overturning one’s body ( fanshen)— reference to the radical social transformations introduced by land reform, the early and late 1950s saw an outpouring of song compositions. According to the Ministry of Culture and the China Federation of Literary and Arts Circles, a competition for best mass songs held between October 1949 and October 1952 elicited over 10,000 submissions.17 The Great Leap Forward of 1958, marked another upsurge in revolutionary song production. Beijing and Shanghai, competed “launching satellites,” seeing which city and ensemble could produce and perform more music. Songs and choral works merged both nationalistic and revolutionary themes with frequent reference to the construction of the motherland, attacks on American imperialism, praise for revolutionary heroes, the conquering of nature, and so forth.18 The close relationship between national independence and socialism is evident in Guo Moruo’s 1954 inscription for Nie Er’s tomb, for which he coined the term, the “people’s musician.”19 As Krista Van Fleit Hang’s study of literature and film demonstrates, the term—“people”—was ubiquitous during the 1950s, signifying the creation of a revolutionary culture and a national subject.20 Moreover, Nie was now referred to as a musician rather than composer, indicating a more populist status. Guo highlights how Nie was a revolutionary nationalist by referencing his Communist Party membership, his militant martial music, and above all, indicating how “March of the Volunteers” unified the collective will of the people. Comrade Nie Er, the bugle call of the Chinese revolution, the battle drum of the people’s liberation. His music for “March of the Volunteers” has already been selected as provisional national anthem. Upon hearing its sounds our patriotism is stimulated, its power inspires the spirit of nobleminded patriots, its resolve forges the common will of the people. Nie Er, towering and eternal, like our [Chinese] nationality! Comrade Nie Er was a Chinese Communist Party member, born February 14, 1912 in scenic and enchanting Kunming and drowned off the coast of Fujisawa, Japan on July 17, 1935. He was only 24 years old. Tragically he died in enemy country causing untold grief, and to this day his drowning remains a mystery.21 But Nie’s death by drowning remained an uncomfortable truth for a nationalist icon. Not having died on the battlefield in the fight for national independence or in revolutionary struggle, Nie could not be bequeathed the status of a “red martyr.”22 His drowning may explain why the 1959 biographical movie does not 170

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broach Nie’s death. Perhaps for this reason, Guo Moruo alludes to conspiracy theories that suggest Nie Er had been done in by foul play in enemy territory. In this manner, Nie’s death was contextualized in the broader Sino-Japanese conflict, implying that he was in fact a martyr. Guo’s inscription also reflects how commemoration through the early 1950s continued to define nationalism in antiforeign (specifically the U.S. and Japan) terms. By the mid- to late 1950s, however, nationalist commemoration of Nie Er pivoted to address the challenges of socialist construction. Three years after Guo’s inscription was written, on the eve of the Great Leap Forward, the “Red versus Expert” debate came to the forefront of political discourse. The society was undergoing rapid industrialization, and the demand for skilled administrators of the command economy was high. Meanwhile, the perception existed that revolutionary morale was waning. The debate revolved around the criteria for cadre selection, whether it should be determined by professional expertise, revolutionary experience or a combination of both. Articles printed in the music world stressed the unity of both red and expert with “red” being the basic condition for working-class intellectuals.23 The noted musician Ma Ke, principal composer of the Yan’an era opera The White-Haired Girl (Baimao nü) concurred, and used Nie Er as an example of both a “Red and Expert” musician. As Ma enjoined his readers, “We don’t need to duplicate everything Nie Er did, but whatever our line of work we must study his revolutionary spirit, and follow the road that is both Red and Expert. Let us have more Nie Ers appear in every line of work!”24 Ma found appealing Nie’s integrity, his refusal to join institutions of higher learning for fear of betraying his political ideals by studying music in a conservative milieu. In truth, Nie might have joined the National Conservatory of Music had he been able to afford the steep tuition. To the extent that Nie strove to improve his craft, he followed the “Expert” line, but Ma Ke seems partial to the “Red” position in emphasizing Nie Er’s participation in revolutionary organizations and his rejection of formal music studies. Writing in the official music journal People’s Music, Zhou Shu’s “Study Nie Er, thoroughly red and deeply expert” echoed Ma Ke. As proof of his redness and ability to reconcile art and revolutionary struggle, Zhou cited Nie’s revolutionary actions like joining the Communist Youth League, and participating in the Kunming student movement. He also wrote of Nie discarding personal fame to serve the people with his music. More effectively than Ma Ke had done, Zhou argued that Nie also was a model expert but broadened the meaning of expertise to include adapting Chinese traditional instrumental and folk music in his mass song compositions so that he could evoke the voice of the people.25 The artistic creation most reflective of Maoist ideology was the 1959 musical drama film called Nie Er, directed by Zheng Junli in collaboration with Meng Bo and Nie Er’s friend, former Left League dramatist Yu Ling.26 Paul Pickowicz

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s­ peculates that the production of this movie constituted an effort by cadres within the arts to push back against the Maoist state by claiming a portion of the revolutionary heritage for one of their urban-based intellectuals. Pickowicz writes, “Nie Er was made because Xia Yan and other anti-Maoists at the top of the cultural bureaucracy saw Mao as a narrow nativist, while viewing themselves as cosmopolitans whose cultural activities in Shanghai in the 1930s were linked to sophisticated global currents. . . . By glorifying the 1930s, these cultural officials reinforced their own non-Mao lineage, legitimacy, and power in the roughand-tumble cultural politics of China.”27 Although the film heralds Nie Er and his music, and by extension the Left League, the state’s endorsement of the film and testimony from key participants in its production confirm a symbiotic relationship between the state and “establishment intellectuals” and a validation of Mao Zedong Thought.28 Intended to mark the tenth anniversary of the People’s Republic, Nie Er was selected as one of thirty exemplary films in a cinematic exhibition held in 1959 and overseen by Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping.29 The 1963 publication, Nie Er: From Screenplay to Film is a five-hundred-page tome that contains the film script, movie stills, and essays on the production of the film by participants and critics. The book points to the film’s importance in setting out Party guidelines for the role of art in politics, and the relationship between intellectuals, the CCP and the revolution. The film’s rehashing of ideological debates of the mid-1930s strengthened the hand of Lü Ji and other leftist musicians who had gained influence during the Anti-Rightist Movement and now held important political positions in the cultural bureaucracy and academia. In 1953, Lü Ji became director of the Chinese Music Association at its inception and thus supervised its journal, People’s Music, which disseminated the party line against “rightist” musicians. Both Zheng Junli and Zhao Dan, who played the role of Nie Er, had been close friends of the musician. They and film star Yuan Muzhi had feted Nie before his departure for Japan. Their firsthand knowledge of Nie Er helped the filmmakers convey the prescribed combination of revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism embodied by Nie Er’s character—his joie de vivre, humor, optimism, courage and idealism. When Yu Ling began writing the script in 1958, it was very much a collaborative process between Zheng Junli and Meng Bo, the Ministry and Shanghai Departments of Propaganda and Culture as well as the Shanghai Haiyan Movie Studio’s acting corps. The dominant aesthetic principle they were trying to convey was the theory of a union between revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism.30 As Maria Galikowski explains, “Revolutionary Romanticism, as an aesthetic concept brought to prominence during the Great Leap Forward, was a direct manifestation of Mao’s ideas concerning subjective idealism and his belief that initiative and enthusiasm could overcome and transcend all objective conditions, and thus realize Communist ideals. Those with an 172

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idealistic and romantic revolutionary spirit, with imagination and determination, could transform romantic ideas into reality.”31 Critics universally praised the film for unifying revolutionary realism with revolutionary romanticism. Chen Huangmei, a former Left League member interpreted the film as a validation of Mao Zedong’s theories on art. Chen explained that Mao in his celebrated Yan’an Talks did not want a literature that strictly mirrored reality, since art would lack inspiration and lose its universal quality if it focused on the mundane and quotidian aspects of life. Chen went on to argue that the Nie Er film succeeded because it eschewed a biographical approach and instead reflected Nie’s idealism to convey the spirit of the era. “Historical background, the mood of the times, life scenes, the description of detail, a person’s emotions must be based in reality, but if realism is not joined with a character’s idealism— revolutionary spirit—it will not reflect the largest truth of the era—the main current of the revolution—and won’t be able to create a living heroic character. This film’s success in creating a heroic character lies in its bold creativity and in melding revolutionary realism with revolutionary romanticism.”32 Although the film focuses on Nie’s life in Shanghai in the context of leftist intellectuals battling the Nationalist Government’s White Terror, these revolutionary struggles correspond to Mao Zedong’s narrative of modern Chinese history. Numerous commentators on the film, for instance, cited Mao’s essay “On New Democracy,” in which he stressed that the Nanjing decade (1927–1937) witnessed “two kinds of counter-revolutionary campaigns of ‘encirclement and suppression,’ the military and the cultural,” which deepened “both the agrarian and the cultural revolutions.”33 Answering Mao’s query as to why the Nationalist campaign of “encirclement and suppression” suffered a crushing defeat even though the “Communist party was in a totally defenseless position in all the cultural and educational institutions under GMD rule,” Zheng Junli attributes Communist victory to the revolutionary will of the people, which was embodied by Nie Er. “Nie Er’s revolutionary determination was representative of the revolutionary masses and his songs called out on behalf of the revolutionary people as the appeal of class struggle. Nie Er propelled forward the progressive class as a spokesman for the proletariat.”34 Directing the film at the height of the Great Leap Forward, a movement that encapsulated Maoist voluntarism, Zheng’s emphasis on the role of the subjective will in the revolution was not lost on anybody. Both Zheng and Yu Ling used the film to validate Mao’s Yan’an Talks. Writing in the party organ, Renmin ribao, Yu explained how the movie’s thematic subject—the class transformation of Nie Er—as well as his own experience in producing the film, proved the correctness of Mao Zedong Thought. The reference was to Mao’s autobiographical vignette in which he relates how he once assumed the airs of an intellectual who refused to dirty his hands in manual labor. Only after he became a revolutionary and lived among the people was Mao

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able to transform his “bourgeois and petty-bourgeois feelings.”35 Yu betrays a sense of culpability, perhaps widespread among Nie’s contemporary intellectuals, and suggests that during production he had undergone self-reflection and self-criticism. Yu confessed that artists who had lived under the wartime Nationalist regime had subordinated class-consciousness to nationalist sentiment. By contrast, Nie never forgot the class struggle because “in his creative practice in order to compose working-class images Nie went among laborers and became their comrade-in-arms by experiencing their life, thought and feelings.”36 Yu implies that his experience in helping produce the film and learning about Nie Er’s class transformation had a cathartic effect that stimulated his own classconsciousness. The actor Zhao Dan echoed these sentiments. Zhao recalled the high spirited and energetic atmosphere during the first year of the Great Leap Forward when the movie was produced, and said a spirit of collectivism mobilized everyone on the movie set. “Everyone changed from passive to active in their work and developed a mutually supportive spirit.”37 Zheng Junli made the connection between Nie and Mao Zedong more explicit by suggesting that the former was a prototype of the ideal revolutionary artist envisioned by Mao in his Yan’an Talks. Nie’s creative praxis anticipated Mao’s injunction to artists and writers to go among the masses “in order to observe, experience, study and analyze all the different kinds of people, all the classes, all the masses, all the vivid patterns of life and struggle, all the raw materials of literature and art.”38 The film was structured to highlight the class transformation of Nie Er. It depicts Nie, forged in a revolutionary struggle that merges class-consciousness and anti-Japanese patriotism, finally able to compose “China’s Marseillaise”— “The March of the Volunteers”—at the film’s climax. Concentrating on Nie’s sojourn in Shanghai, except for a brief interlude in Beijing, Zheng Junli divides the film’s narrative and Nie’s life into three stages of political and artistic development. The first phase starts with Nie’s arrival in Shanghai in July 1930, several months after the Left League was formed. Nie is depicted as a patriotic youth with incipient class-consciousness. He protects his fellow worker, Xiao Hong, a young girl servant, from the physical and verbal abuse of their landlady after she is caught reading a book. Moreover, in one of the first scenes, he witnesses a street demonstration commemorating the third anniversary of the Autumn Harvest Uprising and founding of the Red Army.39 Although only a bystander at this point, reflecting his inchoate politicization, he protects one of the demonstration leaders and Communist activists, Su Ping (a composite character based on Tian Han and Xia Yan) by allowing him to disguise himself as a laborer and thus avoid arrest. The work environment at the Five Flowers Song and Dance Troupe (a fictitious name for Bright Moon) mitigates Nie’s progressive instincts. But soon an encounter backstage with his progressive Yunnanese friend, Zheng Leidian (Thunder and 174

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Lightning Zheng; she has changed her name from Zheng Lanying to forge a new revolutionary identity) leads Nie to question his artistic goals and the commercialized environment of the song and dance troupe. In the film’s second phase, the Manchurian Incident and the Shanghai War, radicalize Nie. He joins the anti-imperialist organization, the Datongmeng (Great Unity Alliance), pastes anti-imperialist flyers on the Bund, and via the introduction of Zheng Leidian performs a yueqin adaptation of the folk song “Golden Snake’s Merry Dance” for a working-class audience. The scene suggests that Nie Er understood the socialist value of the mass base and knew how to mobilize the power and wisdom of the masses. He embarks on the road of popularization, and while on tour with the song and dance troupe, Nie witnesses the plight of beggars on the streets of Jiujiang and Wuhan. Under the pen name “Red Child,” Nie criticizes his boss in the press and ultimately resigns from the troupe after disclosing his “Red Child” identity. An alternative “ivory tower” existence as a student at the National Oriental Conservatory is denied him when he clashes with the elitist Professor Qian Yele (Money is also happiness) over the social function of music. Qian, a composite character representing the music educator Xiao Youmei and the aesthete Qing Zhu, disparages Nie as an itinerant entertainer and then dismisses Nie’s view that music is a reflection of society and of the people’s aspirations. Nie’s rejection of the commercial and academic music is crystallized when he reaches Beiping in the fall of 1932. Aspiring to join the volunteers and resist the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, Nie follows Su Ping’s advice to use music as a weapon. In a turning point of the film, Nationalist authorities shut down a theatrical play performed on the anniversary of the Manchurian Incident when an actor violates censorship laws by proclaiming, “The Northeast is our land!” The closing of the theater40 prompts mass outrage among audience members. Nie leads the protestors in singing “The Internationale” while he plays his violin. The next day Nie Er meets Su Ping at the Great Wall and pledges his allegiance to communism—the international proletariat, the party and the nation. The film’s final phase describes Nie Er’s life between 1933 and 1935 before his departure from China that spring. It is during this period that Nie achieves political and artistic maturity. He is transformed from a patriot into a revolutionary party member and class-conscious activist. In his development as a musician he uses music as a weapon to participate in the nationalist and class struggle. In one dramatic scene, Nie joins a mass rally held outside the Nationalist government offices to protest Chiang Kai-shek’s appeasement policy vis-à-vis Japan. In the ensuing bloody crackdown, Nie’s friend Zhu Ying is shot and the radical musician Zhang Shu is arrested. Security forces grab hold of Nie before workers wrest him free. Later that day, Nie takes refuge in a garret. Su Ping notifies Nie that the Party has authorized him to leave for the Soviet Union for further musical studies.

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Before he leaves, Su gives him a piece of cigarette paper inscribed with the lyrics for “March of the Volunteers.” Nie commits to writing the song that night before his exodus. (His actual destination, Japan, goes unmentioned.) Aided by a flickering candlelight that intensifies in color as he composes, Nie completes the song. He then opens the window to watch the sun rise—symbolizing the dawn of the revolution’s triumph. As “March of the Volunteers” plays, the movie ends with a montage of the Long March, volunteers joining the War of Resistance, the liberation of Shanghai, and a military parade and enormous float of Mao Zedong traversing Chang’an Boulevard on National Day. Reflecting the importance of the film in establishing a Maoist narrative of the Chinese revolution, the fictional character Zheng Leidian plays a key role in the development of Nie Er’s political consciousness. The depiction of a strong woman mirrored the Great Leap Forward’s mobilization of women in the fields and factories, giving credence to the slogan “Women hold up half the sky.” Her questioning and criticism prompt Nie to reconsider the role of art and its relationship to the revolution. Zheng orients him to the method of popularization by bringing him to perform for a working-class audience. She joins forces with Nie Er in spreading political manifestos, and she serves as a liaison between the Party and Nie by introducing him to Su Ping, who oversees his admission into the Party. The young couple fall in love, but Zheng decides to join the Jiangxi Soviet, thus imparting to Nie the need for revolutionary commitment to override their ­personal—read bourgeois—feelings. The relationship between Zheng and Nie validates a Communist feminism by reversing familiar tropes on multiple levels. On a personal level, although in real life Nie Er had sacrificed his love for Yuan Chunhui to achieve the larger goal of serving society, in this fictional relationship the heroine takes the lead in placing her political priorities over personal interests. Zheng’s leading role in guiding Nie reverses the familiar male and female roles of “love plus revolution” stories common in the early Republic. In these stories, female intellectuals were given two choices of partners— one “a humanist, May Fourth–type student/lover and the other a progressive, handsome young man who is unavailable romantically but who introduces her to the world of political activism.” The role of the progressive male activist is to provide a moral and political compass so that the young woman may forsake her “improper love object.”41 Not that Nie is given two choices in the film version, but it is striking that it is Zheng who reverses the dominant male role by taking the lead in sublimating their love into revolutionary action. Finally, at a historical level, the relationship reverses the trope of a weak woman representing a victimized nation. It is Zheng’s will and revolutionary actions that spark Nie’s revolutionary nationalism. Moreover, the depiction of Zheng Leidian’s character underscores the aesthetic criteria of Revolutionary Romanticism. She is dressed in a red sweater, scarf, and 176

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beret; she displays courage by putting up political posters and secretly meeting with Nie Er at the Longhua Pagoda near Guomindang Garrison Headquarters; and she personifies heroic idealism by joining the Communist forces under Mao’s command. Her ability to sacrifice a budding romance for the Party may also have assuaged critics of Revolutionary Romanticism who warned of the risk that idealism and romantic expression might spawn individual subjectivity. Zheng inspires Nie’s creativity for the collective good; she is his muse to compose music for the people’s revolution. As he composes “March of the Volunteers,” he looks at her photograph and visualizes her sacrifices on the Long March. Ban Wang gives a psychological explanation for the function of Zheng’s character in the film,42 but Cai Xiang’s explanation is more persuasive: that love-story narratives in contemporary (1949–1966) literature functioned to reinforce the affective ties of youth to the socialist revolution. “What is truly significant is that the writing of the love story makes revolutionary politics the supporter and liberator of private feelings. In the process of supporting and liberating private feelings, revolutionary politics also manages to win legitimacy on an emotional level.”43 The primary reason Zheng Junli created the female character was political— to link Nie Er’s biography with the Communist revolution under the helm of Mao Zedong. In explaining Zheng Leidian’s role in the film, the director quotes Mao’s assessment of the revolutionary art and literature movement during the 1927–37 years and its relationship to the Communist movement in Jiangxi. “That [art and literature] movement and the revolutionary war both headed in the same general direction, but these two fraternal armies were not linked together in their practical work because the reactionaries had cut them off from each other.”44 Zheng Junli sought to organically link the two movements and locales (Shanghai and the Jiangxi Soviet) by using the character Zheng Leidian to touch on key revolutionary episodes. Zheng, for instance, leaves Nie and Shanghai so that she may participate in the first Soviet congress. After the Jiangxi Soviet’s successful resistance against the Nationalist’s fourth military campaign, Zheng returns to Shanghai as a member of the Red Army’s medical staff to find medical supplies. She meets with Nie, Su Ping, and Zhang Shu and relates to them Mao’s Gutian Resolution that the Red Army should have its own revolutionary songs, at which moment she enthusiastically sings “Xingguo shan’ge,” a Red Army song based on a mountain tune. It is not certain that Nie Er was aware of the Gutian Resolution, but as Zheng Junli points out, the left-wing dramatists and the Soviet Friendship Society music group were familiar with revolutionary army songs, and Nie Er was no exception.45 The episode suggests that Mao’s advocacy of using the arts as a political weapon helped shape Nie’s own cultural formation. It also bridges the gap between the leftist cultural movement in Shanghai and the Maoist revolution.

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Music and Ideological Campaigns in the Nie Er Film The use of music throughout the film reinforces its primary theme—the transformation of Nie Er into a revolutionary musician through praxis and struggle. In this process, the music validates Maoist cultural theories and provides support for the genre of mass song associated with Nie Er. Ge Yan, who arranged the music for the film, did not know Nie personally, but he had been active in the National Salvation Song Movement after Nie’s death and held Nie’s work in high esteem. He chose four musical genres for the film—lyrical folk music, especially Flower Lantern music from Nie’s native Yunnan province, Western revolutionary music, and so-called “yellow songs” that serve as the foil for the fourth genre, Nie’s revolutionary compositions, which comprise the bulk of the film music.46 Generally speaking, both folk music and Li Jinhui’s “yellow music” are heard throughout the first half of the film, while Nie’s revolutionary music becomes ascendant during the latter part. Nie’s passion for the violin is more faithfully rendered than his interest in Western music per se. In one of the first scenes, for instance, after spending much of his pay to buy a violin, Nie plays two Chinese folk tunes (most likely from Yunnan, since they accompany footage of the Stone Forest) rather than a Western piece. When the film addresses the topic of Western music, only its nationalist and revolutionary symbolism are highlighted. After performing in and directing Tian Han’s dramatic opera Storm on the Yangzi River, Nie is congratulated backstage by a Russian journalist, who presents Nie with musical scores of the nineteenth-century Russian composers Glinka and Mussorgsky, eliciting Nie’s anachronistic but politically correct comment: “Soviet art is always a model for our study.” The two most significant Western pieces performed in the film are “La Marseillaise” and “The Internationale,” representing the twin anthems of the bourgeois nationalist and proletarian revolutions. Nie sings “La Marseillaise” during the Japanese bombing of Shanghai as a battle cry for nationalist resistance. Given the song’s foreign origins, it also serves as a catalyst for Nie to compose China’s own “Marseillaise,” which will culminate with “March of the Volunteers.” By contrast, Nie performs “The Internationale” in protest against Nationalist reactionaries, marking his identification with Marxist class struggle. Nie’s compositions tend to be faithfully presented in their stage of development, with the important exception of “Girl under the Iron Hoof.” Originally, Ge Yan had placed this lyrical song alongside “March of the Volunteers,” since both songs were Nie’s final compositions for the film Children of the Storm, but critics deemed it incongruous for a lyrical song to be placed alongside the mass song and feared diminishing the impact of “March of the Volunteers.” Ge thus strategically moved “Girl under the Iron Hoof” to an earlier scene; Nie performs the melody 178

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on violin while his colleague sings during a boat ride up the Yangzi River. The rest of the actors and musicians in the scene are captivated by the song’s patriotic lament and soulful lyrics that describe the uprooted life of the sing-song girl. They urge that Nie’s song be performed during their upcoming tour in Hankow, only to have their boss reject the proposal on the grounds that the song’s reference to “a conquered nation” (wangguo) would never get by the censors. Moreover, the boss proudly pronounces, “We are in the business of art not politics.” The song marks the first instance in the film in which Nie’s music serves a political function by stirring the consciousness of his fellow troupe members. Still, as a lyrical song it does not have the same force as Nie’s mass songs, which accompany scenes of demonstrations against the Nationalist forces or the Japanese. Building to the climax of the film—the composition of “March of the Volunteers”—Ge Yan skillfully inserts the ascending sequence and climactic theme of the March, which accompanies the lyrics “Qilai! Qilai! Qilai!” One hears this motif several times in the film: in the prologue, during the resistance to the Battle of Shanghai, during the protests against the Nationalist government, and in the scene in which Nie composes the March. The placement of musical scenes in the film effectively employs contrasts to stress the ideological superiority of revolutionary music over its regressive ­counterparts—the so-called yellow music and academy music. The disjuncture between Li Jinhui’s love songs and the national crisis is portrayed in a scene in which the Five Flowers Song and Dance Troupe members visit wounded soldiers of the Nineteenth Route Army, after their valiant defense of Shanghai against Japanese attacks. Nie extends New Year greetings to the soldiers and begins to thank them for their heroism, but is quickly cut off by the troupe manager, who orders the retinue to sing “Peach Blossom River.” Nie stands to the side (foreshadowing his opposition to Boss Wu, the fictional character representing Li Jinhui) while other members of the troupe begin Li Jinhui’s mellifluous tune. The soldiers react with scorn to the sexually suggestive lyrics: “Peach Blossom River is a nest for beauties / thousands of peach blossoms / cannot compare to the number of beautiful women.” One wounded veteran swears in Cantonese, “Diuna” [Get lost] and throws his crutch to the floor, silencing the sing-song girls. After apologizing, Nie reclaims moral authority by beginning “La Marseillaise.” The stirring music captures the soldiers’ attention, but Nie’s solo begins to make him look isolated in his defiance against “yellow music.” Only when Su Ping and Zhang Shu join forces does the fighting spirit of the song produce the desired effect. Apart from recreating the cultural ambience of the 1930s and Nie’s opposition to commercialized music, the film’s portrayal of ideological debates over music reinforced attacks against “yellow songs” that took place during the AntiRightist Movement in 1957. Leftists claimed that the more permissive climate

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of the Hundred Flowers campaign had allowed champions of yellow music to claim the genre as just another fragrant flower that should “bloom and contend.” This led to a resurgence of love songs such as “Bright Spring Day” (Jiujiu yanyangtian) from the 1957 film The Story of Liubao. The song was subsequently banned until the late 1970s. Even more alarming was the questioning of stateimposed orthodoxy regarding the categorization of music. What were the boundaries between light music, love songs, and “yellow songs”? Should “yellow songs” be considered “poisonous weeds,” or should they be reassessed as “fragrant flowers”? The loosening of controls during the Hundred Flowers campaign in 1956 revived broadcasts and performances of Zhao Yuanren, Huang Zi, and Li Jinhui’s songs. Calls were made for a reevaluation of their music. For instance, Li Xi, who supervised music programming at the Tianjin Broadcasting station, proposed rehabilitating “yellow songs.” For Li, proof that such songs should be considered “harmless and excellent” rested in mass urban taste and their widespread popularity.47 But when the composer Liu Xue’an (a former conservatory student of Xiao Youmei and Huang Zi) and the journalist Liu Binyan suggested reevaluating songs such as “Drizzle” (Maomaoyu) because the branding of “yellow songs” was allegedly a product of “insufferably arrogant” and “powerful dogmatists” among party leaders lacking in “any cultural interest or artistic training,” the left counterattacked, warning that such views manifested a resurgence of bourgeois and revisionist thought. Writing in People’s Music, Ai Kesi accused the “Rightist elements” Liu Binyan and Liu Xue’an of having “sinister and venomous motives.” Ai rhetorically asked, “In wanting to reverse the verdict on yellow songs . . . do they want these poisonous weeds, which have harmed countless youth, to continue to spread their poison and corrupt our youth?”48 Li Jinhui once more came under fire when he suggested in 1957 that one should distinguish between lyrical songs and yellow songs. He did note, however, that during the Anti-Japanese War, “we didn’t sing such [lyrical] songs, so why should we sing them in today’s socialism[?]”49 In response to his detractors, Li Jinhui wrote a self-criticism in which he explained how he had first created “yellow songs” to make ends meet while in Southeast Asia. He adds that after his return to Shanghai in 1931, profits from mass recordings and his troupe’s association with the Lianhua film studio led Li down a path of dissolution that he described in addictive terms. My will had already become corroded by my corrupted lifestyle and what was left of my patriotism and sense of righteousness flew away. The drugs during this later stage left me even more intoxicated and pleased with myself. In sum, as the poison penetrated my body even deeper, I couldn’t extricate myself. It was like absorbing opium, and the more addicted I 180

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became the more I claimed the poison was an ‘ointment for happiness and longevity.’ I enticed everyone to take it, plotting to addict them as well.50 In his defense, Li noted that by 1936 he had stopped composing “yellow songs,” which had been eclipsed by the ascendance of “red” (revolutionary) songs in broadcasting and public venues. Henceforth, “yellow songs” found a niche in the Shanghai nightclubs, but Li comments that a new style had emerged, characterized by more coquettish voices accompanied by American jazz. Heated ideological debates also swirled around Western-trained composer Huang Zi and the role of “academy music” composed by conservatory faculty. In 1959, Professor Qian Renkang of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music became the object of controversy when a small group of musicology faculty and students based at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing denounced Qian’s scholarly and positive evaluation of Huang Zi.51 According to these critics, Qian’s bourgeois mentality and subjective idealism had blinded him to Huang Zi’s flight from realism. Huang Zi’s art songs had the effect of luring people away from the patriotic movement, weakening intellectuals’ revolutionary will, and had “become an opposing force against the revolutionary mass songs of Nie Er and Xian Xinghai.”52 Although unstated, the denunciations of Huang Zi echoed criticisms of the “expert” class that had arisen in the conservatories. The clash between “academy musicians” and Nie is treated in several scenes of the film. When Nie auditions for placement in the fictitious “National Oriental Conservatory of Music,” the director, Qian Yele, asks Nie, “How does musical art express the pure and beautiful values of mankind?” Nie’s answer, “Music is not mysterious but a reflection of the era and society, the aspiration of the masses, the cry of the masses,” reproduces the 1930s debate between idealists and materialists. Qian scoffs, “The masses? Do the masses understand music? Do the masses understand Beethoven? Ha, ha. I suspect your ‘theory’ comes from one of those proletarian art journals.” After the director condescendingly asks Nie if he can afford the tuition, Nie retorts, “You’re not testing music here, all you want is silver dollars!” and strides out of the hall. To underscore the elitist nature of the conservatory in contrast to the populism of Nie’s songs, the film highlights a generational divide between Qian Yele and his daughter. When the young girl returns from school singing Nie Er’s “Song of the Newspaper Seller,” Qian forbids her from singing it and becomes infuriated upon hearing that she has learned it at school. “Your teacher is a Communist!” he exclaims. When she explains that all of her friends sing it, Qian disses her, “Your little friends . . . are all good for nothings!”53 Qian then questions his guest, Professor Sun Yinggan, who has been admiring Qian’s English tea set: “What made Nie Er so attractive?” Sun (a thinly veiled character representing Huang Zi) is at a loss to explain Nie’s appeal. He responds with the academy’s oft-cited criticism

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of the mass-song writer, thus betraying his own elitism. “To consider as musical compositions the rubbish produced by Nie Er has no counterpart in the history of Western music. Harmony, counterpoint, and melody are all lacking. How bad can it get when it comes to compositional technique!”54 In a different scene, viewers have been reminded of the proper compositional technique when they see Nie Er observing the toil of dockworkers along the Shanghai wharfs. The experience inspires his dramatic song “The Dockworkers,” which the audience hears in its entirety. Qian and Sun’s antidote to Nie’s songs is the composition “Happy Farm Family” (Nongjiale). In fact, this song was a collaborative effort between Huang Zi and his students, He Lüting and Liu Xue’an, who wrote it for the Ministry of Education’s 1933 publication Rejuvenation Elementary Music Primer (Fuxing chuji yinyue jiaocai). But the film takes the liberty of having Professor Sun put to music the lyrics of Commissioner Zhang, a character representing Chiang Kai-shek. “Happy Farm Family” is then presented to Nie Er, who is instructed by the studio boss to substitute it for his own film song, “Girl beyond the Great Wall.” With Commissioner Zhang about to arrive at the movie studio to watch the filming of his song, the studio manager implores Nie and his leftist colleagues to fall in line. Nie rejects “Happy Farm Family” because it has a positive outlook on rural life and runs counter to the film Taowang’s realist depiction of northern Chinese refugees. Whereas “Girl beyond the Great Wall” highlighted social inequality, the lyrics of “Happy Farm Family” celebrated bucolic life. “Joyful farm family life . . . selling silk, harvesting rice, paying the rents and strolling home. Pushing the millstone to make the New Year cakes, the happy farm family. Oh what joy!”55 After Commissioner Zhang, Qian Yele, and Sun Yinggan are ushered into the film studio, the shooting of the scene begins, but rather than sing “Happy Farm Family,” a young woman sings “Girl beyond the Great Wall” while pushing a millstone under the falling snow. Incensed that his plans have been thwarted, the commissioner yells out, “More propaganda for class struggle!” and storms out of the studio. The subsequent scene continues the theme of music as a weapon of struggle between left-wing artists and the repressive Nationalist regime. The camera pans over a bookstore displaying the works of Qu Qiubai, Lu Xun, and Nie Er before the window is smashed by a hammer and a warning pasted on the wall: “Wipe out proletarian culture!” Leftist film studios meet similar destruction. Symbolic resistance to the crackdown, however, ensues at a record store on Nanjing Road. Although gang members destroy the records, a loudspeaker continues to blare out the opening lines of Nie Er’s song “Trailblazers” in defiance of Qian Yele’s prohibition. (“Boom! Boom! Boom! Ha, ha, ha, ha. Boom! We are the trailblazers!”) These musical contrasts occur in the latter half of the film, when Nie Er is

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working for a leftist movie studio, using the sound cinema and phonograph to circulate mass songs.

Coda to Nie Er The ideological values promoted by Nie Er were repackaged in the popular 1964 illustrated storybook Nie Er, based on the film script. Intended as a form of mass propaganda, albeit targeted for children’s education and entertainment, the imprint highlights Nie Er’s proletarian art and participation in the class struggle. The artist Mei Chongyuan skillfully employs a variety of visual techniques to promote these revolutionary values. In the first scene, depicting Nie’s graduation from Kunming First Normal School in 1929, Nie and Zheng Lanying stand tall, looking straight ahead with arms held at their waists to suggest determination and purpose. In the foreground’s lower right corner is a hardy pine tree, a symbol of their indomitable spirit.56 Yunnan is absent from the following narrative; instead, it is Shanghai’s Westernized bourgeois culture that serves as the antithesis to Chinese socialist values in this portrayal. Upon arriving at the metropolis, Nie’s employer becomes furious at him for having nicked his suitcase while transporting it from Yunnan. To compensate for the perceived slight, he kicks Nie Er’s sole possession—a yueqin—into Suzhou Creek, a metaphor for the betrayal of Chinese musical tradition by a Westernized philistine. 57 Shanghai, too, forms the backdrop to Nie’s revolutionary experience; here Nie fights against the petty urbanite shop owner and landlady who oppress the servants and clerks. Class politics—divisions between rich and poor—are revealed in the images of, for instance, rickshaw pullers sleeping on the street in rags, contrasted to scenes of capitalists living in beautiful villas.58 Nie’s boss and the “capitalist musician” Qian Yele are caricatured as old, ugly, and mean, whereas revolutionaries are always chin up and chest out, handsome and confident. Images of the masses demonstrating reveal their fiery determination. With these distinctive images, the illustrated storybook (lian huan hua) draws a clear class division between the capitalists, who are evil, and the revolutionaries, who are the symbol of a bright future. In the scene where Qian Yele dismisses Nie at the National Conservatory of Music after Nie says that music should give voice to the masses, Mei Chongyuan uses contrast to expose the ugly faces of capitalist musicians. In the picture, Nie Er stands at one side of the table with his hands thrust inside his jacket pockets, wearing a look of disappointment and anger. While the three professors sneer at him, the plaster bust of Mozart situated at the head of the table seems to look at them with disdain.59



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A Grand Pause for “March of the Volunteers” The memory of Nie Er served politics during the formative years of the People’s Republic, when considerations about socialist construction outweighed nationalism. As the ground shifted during the Cultural Revolution, the decision to replace the national anthem was not surprising. During the Cultural Revolution, Nie Er became conspicuous by his absence. The paucity of articles published in the Party organ, People’s Daily, indicate Nie Er’s diminished status during that time.60 Most likely, his association with Tian Han tainted Nie Er.61 In the initial phase of the Cultural Revolution, Tian, the lyricist for “March of the Volunteers” and deputy director of the China National Federation of Arts and Letters (Zhonghua quanguo wenxue yishujie lianhehui, or Wenlian), was accused as a counterrevolutionary and branded one of the “Four Fellows” (si tiao hanzi). He died in prison in 1968.62 Nie Er’s melody for the national anthem continued to be played at state ceremonial functions, but Tian’s lyrics were discarded in 1966 and not officially reinstated until 1982. The unofficial Cultural Revolution anthem became the revolutionary song adapted from a folk tune, “The East Is Red” (Dongfang hong), with its lyrics glorifying Mao’s personality cult: “Red is the east, rises the sun, China has brought forth a Mao Tse-tung. For the people’s happiness he works, hu-er heiyo He’s the people’s great savior.”63 The silencing of Nie Er made his music and memory even more malleable after Chairman Mao’s death in 1976. Since Nie Er was no longer necessarily identified with the Chinese revolution to younger generations born in the post-Mao reform era, he could be used to trumpet Chinese nationalism and market reforms. In more recent times, as China embarked on its “reform and opening up” process, a whole new way of commemorating Nie Er sprang into being. He was once again used as a suitable representative of the times.

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Marketing Nie Er in Yunnan FROM THE “PEOPLE’S MUSICIAN” TO “NUMBER ONE BRAND”

Since the advent of market reforms in the 1980s, Yunnan Province has witnessed

a flurry of commemorative activities dedicated to Nie Er. The ideological motives for these activities and “realms of memory” have shifted over time.1 Despite some overlap, commemoration during the reform era can be divided into two phases and two sites—Kunming and Yuxi. In the first decade of China’s “reform and opening up” policies, commemoration focused on Nie Er’s gravesite and in restoring “March of the Volunteers” as the national anthem. Nie Er regained his status as the people’s musician and his musical contributions were once again portrayed as central to the PRC’s heroic revolutionary narrative. The political subtext spoke to the rehabilitation of intellectuals writ large after the Cultural Revolution. Official discourse since the 1990s has highlighted the emotive force of nationalism that anthems convey. National anthems, as Robert Chi notes, “serve as ritual texts, complete with cognitive, emotional, mnemonic, oral-aural, and even somatic components ranging from poetic imagery to historical allusions, and from lyrics to be sung to gestures or postures to be performed.”2 Children throughout China conduct state rituals at school by raising the flag and singing the national anthem. “March of the Volunteers” is placed at the beginning of all music textbooks promoting patriotism.3 The Nie Er gravesite has become a prime patriotic education site and is consecrated by delegations from the top echelons of the Party. The renewed attention paid to Nie Er and the national anthem stem from the patriotic education campaign launched by the Party to regain its legitimacy after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.4 The party-state has also turned to nationalism as a form of social cohesion to counteract the sharp rise in geographic and income inequality caused by its neoliberal policies encouraging the free flow of labor and capital. As a consequence of what the public intellectual Wang Hui describes as “depoliticization,” whereby the party has negated its radical past and 185

“diminished the possibility for any real political criticism of current historical trends,” Nie Er, too, has been removed from an anticapitalist framework.5 Launched by President Jiang Zemin in 1991, the patriotic education campaign and the frequent singing of the national anthem continue to promote musical nationalism to this day. Whereas nationalism and state socialism were once mutually reinforcing, market reforms and commercial interests since the early 1990s increasingly shape the representation of Nie Er. Nie Er statues have cropped up throughout the country in expected places, such as the entrance to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, as well as in prime tourist destinations—Cuihu Park in Kunming and the Xujiahui Park in Shanghai, close to where he once lived. In Yunnan, recent commemorative activities have been most pronounced in the county city of Yuxi located in central Yunnan, where cultural workers and local cadres have worked assiduously to reclaim Nie as their native son. Moreover, there has been a corporate drive by the Yuxi-based Hongta Group, the world’s fifth largest cigarette company, to sponsor Nie Er as a cultural trademark (wenhua pinpai) for the city. The corporation established the Yunnan Nie Er Music Foundation in 2004 overlapping with central and provincial government efforts to publicize “the spirit” of Nie Er as part of the patriotic education campaign. The Communist Party Secretary of Yuxi City, Kong Xianggeng, has been a prominent booster. After claiming that Nie had inherited the patriotic spirit of the legendary poet Qu Yuan, Kong advertises the Nie Er brand: Nie Er is the pride of the Yuxi people, the genuine charm of Yuxi City, its treasured spiritual wealth. He is the number one brand of Yuxi, a famous brand whose value cannot be estimated. Today as we celebrate Nie Er Day we let the entire nation, the entire world know that Nie Er is a man from Yuxi, we let Nie Er’s spirit of the ages live forever.6 A combination of civic pride, corporate interests, and government propaganda has led to the restoration of Nie Er’s former residence, or “old home” (guju), the refashioning of Yuxi City streets and edifices, and the construction of the Nie Er Culture Square, including a museum, library, plaza, and concert hall. The monumental complex cost almost 350 million yuan and represents the capstone project in the promotion of Yuxi’s cultural image.7 Its intent is to displace the provincial capital of Kunming as the national center for Nie Er commemorations. These physical sites have been accompanied by numerous publications in the local press by Yunnanese musicologists, Party officials, and cultural workers honoring the spirit of Nie Er and his contributions to China’s nation-building. The publications stress both the influence of Yunnanese folk music on Nie’s compositions and also his Yunnanese identity. This regional narrative has begun to challenge the dominant national narrative first constructed during the mid-1930s after Nie’s death. 186

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Top: A bust of Nie Er placed at the entrance of Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music. Photograph by Joshua Howard.

Left: Nie Er statue in the Xujiahui district of Shanghai, where Nie lived and which is now a site of patriotic educa­tion. Photograph by Joshua Howard.

Peter Gries, in his study of China’s “new nationalism,” argues that the Communist Party is losing its hegemony over nationalist discourse. He points to the wave of protests, such as those that erupted over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in 1996 and the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. “Popular nationalists increasingly shifted from supporting the CCP to making demands of it.”8 Gries’s work and recent scholarship highlighting the capacity of ordinary people to subvert state socialism through private memories and alternative histories9 might well suggest that since both the central government and Yuxi have sought to manipulate the Nie Er image for their own ends, this contestation would further challenge Party hegemony. Instead, one finds that Yuxi’s cultural regionalism, as Tim Oakes explains in his study of contemporary China’s provincial identities, is an attempt by local interior elites to tap into broader networks of power and gain access to capital, authority, and legitimacy. To attract global investment, increase tourist consumption, and create a new subjectivity among local people accustomed to the socialist-era stigma of backwardness associated with the interior provinces, local elites in the interior have reinvented their culture. Although Yuxi elites, unlike the local elites in Guizhou, Anhui, and Shanxi studied by Oakes, have not traded up their place-based traditions for a provincially defined region, they share the tendency to redefine their local culture as distinctly Chinese.10 This invocation of Chineseness helps to smooth over tensions between central government and the provinces. For this reason, the rise of Yuxi-based regionalism in commemorating Nie Er may, paradoxically, reinforce the Party’s control over nationalism. It is clear that Yuxi’s marketing of Nie Er as its “number one brand” has marginalized the revolutionary socialist paradigm of Nie Er commemorations from the Maoist era. In his study of “red tourism” and China’s revolutionary museums, Kirk Denton finds numerous exhibits that downplay class and class struggle in favor of a nostalgic view of the fruits of hard work, self-reliance, and entrepreneurship that reinforce the ethos of the market economy and social harmony.11 Similarly, while refashioning Nie Er to remake the image of Yuxi, the new Nie Er represents policies promoting nationalism and social stability (love of family, native place, and country), cosmopolitanism (endorsing the “reform and opening up” policies), and consumerism. Although official memory of Nie Er at the local level is given some flexibility in reinterpreting the Nie Er story and his music, the main ideological values reinforce the central state’s version of official memory.

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Er had served an informal diplomatic function during the Cold War and now thrust Kunming back onto the international stage. With the normalization of Sino–Japanese relations, Kunming forged a sister-city relationship with Fujisawa, the site of Nie Er’s death. In November 1981, Nie Xulun and the Kunming mayor Zhu Kui led a delegation to Fujisawa to sign the “city of friendship” agreement. Nie Xulun recalled the warm welcome he received and the Japanese people’s affection for his brother, which he thought augured better relations between the two countries.12 It is perhaps no coincidence that the rise of neo-nationalist sentiment in both countries since the mid-1990s, and the fraying of relations, have worked in favor of Yuxi’s claim to territorial rights over Nie Er’s legacy. Family ties also account for the prominence of Kunming as the central site for Nie Er commemorations during the 1980s. Nie Xulun resided in Kunming, was an active member in the Provincial Political Consultative Conference, and participated in several national projects honoring his younger brother. Foremost among these projects was the multi-volume publication the Complete Works of Nie Er (1985), for which Nie Xulun served on the editorial committee. Such projects restored Nie Er’s prominence and served to rehabilitate the intellectuals victimized during the Cultural Revolution. Above all, the government wanted to bring back the national anthem, which had reemerged in 1978 with “leftist” lyrics glorifying the Great Helmsman.13 Thus, on December 4, 1982, the Fifth National People’s Congress designated “March of the Volunteers” with Nie Er’s music and Tian Han’s original lyrics as the official national anthem of China.14 Tim Liao argues that the decision reflected the restoration of more open communication between state and society, the restoration of more legal-rational social relations, and the need to redirect people to focus on modernization. Original lyrics, such as “With our flesh and blood, let us build our new Great Wall,” would take on new meaning.15 As part of the state’s recognition of Nie Er and Tian Han’s lyrics, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued two commemorative stamps honoring the musician and the national anthem. A commemorative stamp was issued in 1982 honoring the seventieth birthday of the “people’s musician.” It bore Nie Er’s portrait with the manuscript of his music score for “March of the Volunteers” in the background. The following year, the entire score of the national anthem took center stage on a stamp that is framed on the left-hand side by the state imprimatur of “The Sixth National People’s Congress.” The political rehabilitation of the national anthem translated into the relocation and redesign of Nie Er’s gravesite on the Western Mountain on the periphery of Kunming. The site accentuates dual images of Nie Er as a revolutionary nationalist musician and as a cosmopolitan intellectual. With the initial tomb complex begun in 1980 and completed in 1985, these dual images illuminate how China grappled with its revolutionary legacy even as it embarked on its reform policies.16 The grave in Kunming lies at the foot of a pine grove and a dozen layers of

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­ edgerow. In the middle of the grove stands a white marble statue of Nie Er h wearing a Western suit and open trench coat. In his left hand he holds a sheet of paper (perhaps a music score), while he carries his right hand at his waist. He has opened his index and third fingers as if he was beating time, and he maintains a look of pensive concentration, suggesting the process of composing. On each side of the grove, one can ascend seven terraced levels (representing the heptatonic scale associated with Western art music) along the two walkways that converge at the tomb. The overall layout of the tomb complex resembles the moon zither, thus grounding Nie Er’s music in traditional Chinese music. The tombstone is composed of twenty-four black marble blocks, each signifying one year of Nie Er’s life. The epitaph bears Guo Moruo’s 1954 inscription, “The grave of the people’s musician, Nie Er.” Behind the tombstone stands a two-meter-tall by twentyfive-meter-wide bas-relief panel that forms a semicircular wall. (This portion of the gravesite complex was completed in 1992.) Metaphorically, all the personages carved on the slightly curved relief act as a chorus behind the Nie Er tomb and statue. The relief figures represent in realist detail the masses of Chinese people who joined the War of Resistance against Japan, inspired by Nie Er’s “March of the Volunteers.” The panel highlights three themes: the Anti-Japanese War, the Great Wall, and “March of the Volunteers.” Its first four notes appear on music staves

Nie Er statue located at his gravesite in the Western Hills, Kunming. Photograph by Joshua Howard. 190

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on the upper portion of the relief, and lighting bolt imagery covers the top of the panel, suggesting the sonic impact of Nie’s music. Use of bas-relief and high relief provide certain statues with quasi-three-dimensional features that indicate a hierarchy of images. From the vantage point of the viewer, on the left-hand side of the panel four figures take precedence. First is a soldier, then a young farmer carrying a halberd-like weapon or hoe. Immediately behind him at a diagonal is positioned a student with a taut, open mouth, upraised arm, and clenched fist, demonstrating his determination. While the majority of the “masses” adopt frontal poses, these first three figures assume more diagonal postures, conveying their movement as well as participation in the revolution. The fourth figure is at the center of this scene: a bearded farmer, with bare torso and holding a clenched fist at his side. To the right, the central panel depicts the faces of guerrilla warriors, a status indicated by the rifle that protrudes upward behind the back of one of the men. The central panel also privileges the soldier; the dominant figure is that of a ­middle-aged man, with bared muscular arms wielding an enormous rifle with bayonet. The military tenor of the scene indicates how Nie’s music inspired heroism and self-sacrifice for the cause of national liberation and unity. The completion of renovations to the tomb site in the early 1990s coincided with increased attention from the party-state leadership. After the 1989 student movement and its crackdown, Jiang Zemin was keen to use nationalism—and the spirit of Nie Er—as a rallying device. Moreover, Jiang had an affinity for Nie Er’s

Left-hand side of Nie Er tombstone relief at the Western Hills, Kunming, depicting volunteers participating in China’s Resistance during the Anti-Japanese War. Photograph by Joshua Howard.

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Center panel of Nie Er tombstone relief. Photograph by Joshua Howard.

music, speaking several times in public venues about how he had sung Nie’s songs, such as “Graduation Song,” during student protests in the 1940s.17 Jiang’s support for the national anthem included visits to the Kunming gravesite, where he led provincial Party leaders in song and wrote the inscription “The great people’s musician comrade Nie Er forever immortal.”18 On December 4, 1995, Jiang presided over a special performance in Beijing dedicated to the national anthem. The televised concert, in which Jiang penned national slogans on loving and protecting the motherland, was part and parcel of the patriotic education campaign that he had launched four years earlier.19 Commemorative activities began to accelerate in Yuxi during the mid-1990s, too. In honor of Nie Er’s memory, the Nie Er Park was opened to the public in July 1987. Within the park, the Nie Er Memorial Hall exhibited photos of Nie Er, his musical scores, excerpts from his diary and letters, and a gallery devoted to calligraphy honoring Nie Er. The public art within Nie Er Park pays homage to Nie Er’s revolutionary populism and cosmopolitanism. The centerpiece of the park is a 2.4-meter-tall bronze statue of Nie Er wearing a Western coat and tie while conducting; it is described as “awakening the masses of the people.” On the pedestal of the statue is a plaque bearing a 1985 poem by Lü Ji in calligraphy: “Mountains and streams of Yuxi nurtured its essence; one song, ‘March of the Volunteers,’ aroused an entire people.” In the area behind the statue, large-scale reliefs show the development of China’s revolutionary art. The inscription at the park’s gate bears the calligraphy of the noted progressive Yunnan intellectual Chu Tu’nan, who at the time served as deputy director of the National People’s Congress. While 192

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these features recall the role of Yunnan’s intellectuals and artists in the Chinese Revolution, the landscape of the park honors Nie’s cosmopolitan side with an artificial lake, “Understanding Friend Lake,” shaped in the form of a violin. A final, more abstract touch is rendered by four tall steel arches positioned near the park entrance. These are Nie Er’s “four ears,” a reference to his name. This entire compound has now been eclipsed by the Nie Er Memorial Hall at the Nie Er Culture Square, constructed in 2006. The engine of growth in Yuxi has been the Hongta Group, which, over the course of the 1990s, accumulated total capital assets worth close to 45 billion yuan, based on its annual production of some 200 million cartons of cigarettes.20 By the year 2000, the Yuxi Hongta Group had emerged as Asia’s largest cigarette producer and China’s most recognized commercial brand. At the same time, the city’s GDP had reached 29.65 billion yuan, with a per capita GDP of 15,000 yuan. Yuxi was ranked first in the province in terms of per capita GDP, cigarette production, and average income of farmers.21 By 2005, according to Kong Xianggeng, the three-year GDP for the city was 40 billion yuan and local revenue estimated at 4 billion yuan.22 By the eve of the millennium, Yuxi’s population had surpassed 2 million residents, which prompted the county seat in 1998 to be designated as a local municipality.23 The changing status of Nie Er’s former residence (guju) reflects the increased importance government bodies have attached to promoting Yuxi’s cultural identity. In September 1984 the Yuxi government designated the residence as a cultural relic worthy of preservation. Initial restoration work on the house was completed by February 22, 1992, when a ceremony was held to unveil a white marble statue of the young Nie Er (holding a violin case) with an inscription written by Nie Xulun. Five years later, the Yunnan Propaganda Department designated the site as a provincial base for patriotic education, and in 1998 the Yunnan provincial government elevated the status of the residence to a “provincial-level” important cultural relics preservation unit.24 Further proof that the site’s national stature was growing came when Vice Premier Li Lanqing visited in 2005 and declared, “Yuxi’s culture should hold one of the most prominent positions in China.”25 History and memory diverge most widely when it comes to Nie’s ties to Yuxi, which were far from close despite official claims. An English-language guidebook for the Nie Er Former Residence in Yuxi misrepresents Nie’s life by stating that Nie Er “was born in Yuxi, Yunnan Province” and that he “studied, sang, lived and [was] brought up in this old and simple residence when he was young.”26 Even Qi Song, a Yuxi cadre who has devoted a lifetime to researching Nie Er and publicizing the musician’s ties to this once sleepy town on the red earth plateau of central Yunnan, admits that Nie Er visited Yuxi four times and resided there at most for a total of two months. In 1920, when Nie Er was nine years old, Peng Jikuan brought him to visit her parents in Eshan county. En route, they stopped at Yuxi for one day and

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stayed with Nie’s paternal aunt. Nie’s most extended sojourn (three weeks) in Yuxi came seven years later when he visited his father’s relatives upon graduating from junior middle school in Kunming. Nie subsequently took the eighty-kilometer trip to Yuxi during the spring festivals of 1928 and 1930. During this final visit, Nie Er organized with fellow members of the “Yuxi Youth Academic Research Association” (Yuxi qingnian xueshu yanjiuhui), an entertainment program in which he performed skits, dramatic works, and song and dance numbers.27 That Nie Er performed Huadeng (Flower Lantern) has solidified Nie Er’s musical, if not physical, ties to Yuxi. Nie’s diary excerpts written during his 1928 sojourn in Yuxi indicate that he enjoyed frequenting the local teahouses and watching temple performances of Huadeng, Dongjing music, and local opera. Yunnanese musicologists who have researched the linkages between Nie Er’s songs and Huadeng have established Nie’s indirect ties to Yuxi. For Yuxi-based champions of Nie Er, without the influence of Huadeng it is doubtful that Nie Er would ever have developed a passion for music and become “the people’s musician.” Nie’s Chineseness derives from his Yuxi roots. He [Nie Er] was interested in music because of Yuxi’s Flower Lantern tunes. . . . Nine out of ten Yuxi people can sing Flower Lantern. His mother Peng Jikuan recounted folk stories and sang beautiful Flower Lantern tunes when he was young, which made him love music. He also went to Wangjia teahouse of Yuxi to listen to Flower Lantern. . . . Yuxi is Nie Er’s foundation and Yuxi folk music is Nie Er’s starting place to create revolutionary music.28 Scholars, too, have highlighted Nie’s nostalgia for Yuxi as proof that he considered it his hometown. When Nie was living in Shanghai during the early 1930s, for instance, he adopted the pen name “Huan Yu,” suggestive of a “clean and honest Yuxi person.” The meaning of the pen name coincides with other narratives of Nie Er’s life written between the 1940s and 1980s that juxtaposed decadent Shanghai, afflicted by the forces of bourgeois capitalism and colonialism, with the more pristine frontier province of Yunnan. Although recent commemoration of Nie Er treats Shanghai more favorably, journalist Cai Zhuanbin reiterates the claim that Shanghai was a denizen of moral ills fended off by an incorruptible Nie Er, and suggests that Nie’s moral fiber—kindness, gentle disposition, tolerance, and persistence—stemmed from his upbringing in Yuxi. Thus, Nie “never became contaminated by the feasting and revelry of metropolitan Shanghai and he never even once went on a date.”29 Cai does not dismiss Nie Er’s revolutionary ardor as an element of his character, but highlights his upbringing in Yuxi. The implications for tourists are clear: one can recover traditional Chinese values in the remote interior of Yuxi.

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The chief claim Yuxi has to being Nie Er’s hometown lies in the fact it is his father’s native place. Nie Hongyi was born in Yuxi and grew up in the same residence that his own father, Nie Liandeng, had built in the nineteenth century. Although Nie Hongyi left Yuxi in 1902 for Kunming and never returned, recent commentary argues that Nie Er’s own native place was inherited. As Cai Zhuanbin puts it, “In the eyes of Yuxi people, the postal address for a rental house far away from home cannot be considered a true home; one cannot change one’s ancestral home just because one’s birth place is not in one’s hometown.”30 The establishment of the Yunnan Nie Er Music Foundation on May 25, 2004, marked another turning point in Yuxi’s ascendancy regarding the commemoration of Nie Er. Establishing the Foundation was one of the pillars of a three-year strategy articulated by Kong Xianggeng in 2003 that would “establish a base, create a brand, build an image, and make Nie Er culture into Yuxi’s number one brand.”31 The Foundation sought to publicize the “Nie Er revolutionary spirit, pass on the Nie Er cultural legacy,” and, above all, utilize the name of Nie Er to refashion the “cultural image of Yuxi.”32 It was funded jointly by the city government, the Yuxi CCP branch, and the Hongta Group, which donated 10 million yuan to the cause. Government leaders are forthright about the need to promote the Nie Er “cultural brand” to develop tourism. As provincial governor Xu Rongkai wrote in 2005, One should place the reconstruction of Nie Er culture within the perimeters of constructing the Yunnan people’s culture, increase research, and make Nie Er into the most important cultural brand for Yuxi and then all of Yunnan. At the same time, as a fundamental pillar of this culture, one should develop tourism into a vibrant and large-scale industry, create a beacon, increase the number of tourists, improve the quality of tourist products, elevate the essence of tourist culture, increase tourist revenue, expand and develop foreign tourism.33 To meet these goals, a Nie Er Commemorative Day was established on July 17, 2005—the seventieth anniversary of Nie Er’s death. Journalists who questioned whether Yuxi residents valued Nie Er Day concluded affirmatively that “all believed it was of vital importance to establish Nie Er Day” to establish a “Nie Er brand and an urban image.” When asked about the commemorative day, Xu Zhengwei, a Shangban ethnic minority, voiced approval. As Xu put it, “It’s very important to establish a Nie Er Day, as it will publicize Yuxi and let people know that the composer of the national anthem was a Yuxi person, and in thinking about the national anthem to spread the spirit of patriotism.” Xu Renhui, a cigarette factory worker, linked Nie Er Day with Yuxi’s self-image, buying into the



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new marketing language associated with Nie Er. “To publicize Nie Er will help us promote Yuxi’s image!34 According to resident Chen Chude, Nie Er Day will promote Yuxi’s tourist industry, since “Nie Er is a bright and beautiful signboard.”35 Yuxi has been refashioned. Streets now take Nie Er’s name; most tellingly, in 2003 the name of Hongta Street, leading to the Nie Er Former Residence, was changed to Nie Er Street. The following year the Hongta Group agreed to rename its Hongta Recreational and Sports Center as the Nie Er Music Hall.36 Of particular note is the former residence of Nie Er, which has been restored several times, most recently in 2005. Total costs for the Hongta Group and the city government have run close to 11 million yuan for this project. Renovations of the site have highlighted the formative influence of traditional Yuxi culture and Confucian family values on Nie Er. The restored rooms, for instance, include the ancestral shrine room. The courtyard features “Nurturing”—the bronze statues of Nie Er and his mother. It shows Peng Jikuan grinding medicine with a foot roller and singing a folk song from a picture book to her child, who holds a bamboo flute. The thrust of these recent renovations has been to root Nie Er’s accomplishments in the traditional culture of Yuxi, Confucianism, and “socialism with Chinese characteristics”—the amalgam of Communist paternalism and maternal love. As

“Nurturing” statue of Peng Jikuan with Nie Er located outside the Former residence of Nie Er in Yuxi, Yunnan. Photograph by Joshua Howard.

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the description of the statue indicates, “it was his mother’s milk, the beautiful melodies of his native place, and the great Chinese Communist Party’s nurturing of this outstanding people’s musician.” Yuxi’s most significant public space constructed in the musician’s honor has been the Nie Er Culture Square, completed in 2006. The public art displayed and the design of the square balance forces of globalism and regionalism. The Nie Er Culture Square is laid out in the shape of the traditional Chinese instrument, the moon zither (yueqin). Juxtaposing symbolism of traditional Chinese and Western instruments, the Culture Square also features an imposing bronze statue of Nie Er playing the violin. The statue rests on top of a terraced platform at the head of the lute-shaped public square. Facing the balcony on which rests the statue, one reads the inscription “Nie Er Music Square calligraphy by Li Lanqing,” who was Vice Premier between 1993–2003. The romanticized virtuoso representation of Nie Er is Yuxi’s attempt to globalize the Nie Er brand. Similar efforts could be seen on July 17, 2005, when the Yunnan Nie Er Music Foundation cosponsored a thematic concert, “Immortal Melody,” at the Sydney Opera House in Australia with the aim of “publicizing the people’s musician, Nie Er, establishing China’s cultural image, and bringing the Nie Er cultural brand to the world.”37 Following construction of the Nie Er Culture Square, a monumental architectural complex dedicated to Nie Er was built adjacent to the square. Funded with up to 50 million dollars from the Yuxi Municipal Government, the complex comprises the Nie Er Theatre, the Nie Er Memorial Hall, and the Nie Er Library. Architects conceived the design of the buildings as one unit that was inspired by the form

Nie Er Plaza in Yuxi, Yunnan, shaped in the form of a yueqin (moon zither). Photograph by Joshua Howard.

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Nie Er as violin virtuoso. Vice-Premier Li Lanqing’s inscription for the Nie Er Plaza. Photograph by Joshua Howard.

of the treble clef sign and the violin. The two halls take on an asymmetrical design by contrasting elliptical and circular buildings with the yueqin shape of the square.38 Since its opening in 2009, the Memorial Hall has received over 160,000 visitors, thus meeting one of its central goals—the promotion of Yuxi tourism. In December 2009, the Memorial Hall was designated as a provincial base for patriotic education, thus signaling why the complex was built. In this respect, competing narratives of regionalism and cosmopolitanism sparked by civic pride and commercialism challenge the dominant narrative of nationalism assigned to Nie Er and his music since the 1980s. The first section of the exhibit on Nie’s life, for instance, is entitled “Yunnan—the cradle of his youth.” The short caption reads, “Having been forged by his era, nurtured by folk music, and lived in Yunnan for eighteen years, these all laid the firm foundation for a life road that Nie Er took using music that cries out on behalf of the people.” Yuxi’s influence on Nie Er’s musical upbringing is brought home by the large diorama at the entrance to the exhibit showing an old man playing an erhu beside a lotus pond. The caption for the diorama describes Yuxi as the “hometown of Flower Lantern [music]” and notes that Nie enjoyed studying Flower Lantern music with other artists. Like the recent Yunnanese commemorative articles about Nie Er’s youth, Kunming takes a back seat to Yuxi. Nie’s romantic sensibility is alluded to, but his radicalization as a youth in Kunming and his iconoclastic beliefs are ignored. 198

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The second part of the exhibit focuses on Nie’s first sojourn in Shanghai between July 1930 and August 1932, where, we are told, Nie Er was nurtured by Western classical music, modern international revolutionary songs and the new music since the May Fourth movement while he also enthusiastically studied western music performances and compositional technique to thoroughly elevate himself to possess the artistic accomplishments necessary for a professional music career. A photograph of Nie’s violin teacher, Wang Renyi, giving Nie the score of Charles de Bériot’s “Air Varié” illustrates Nie’s receptivity to Western classical music. There is a disconnect, however, between the text and the display. Despite the text’s reference to “international revolutionary songs,” no evidence of Nie’s participation in the proletarian arts movement or interest in revolutionary songs is provided in the display. Instead, several photographs are displayed of Li Jinhui and of Nie Er with sing-song girls working for Bright Moon and the Lianhua Film Studio. In commemorations preceding the 1990s, the relationship between Nie and Li was always presented in negative terms, culminating in Nie’s rejection of Li for his crass commercialism and apolitical stance towards Japan’s military aggression. The current display’s silence, or at least its lack of textual commentary, about the relationship and the inclusion of the photographs suggest a reconsideration of a previously taboo subject, and a more neutral or even positive representation of prewar Shanghai culture. Two other displays relate Nie’s brief sojourn in Beiping and his return to Shanghai, emphasizing Nie’s radicalization in a way that corresponds to traditional narratives of the “people’s musician.” The exhibit’s portrayal of Nie’s last three months in Japan, however, challenge the nationalist-driven narrative surrounding Nie Er. Prominently displayed, and the last objects one sees, are Nie Er’s cotton yukata and Geta sandals, evidence of his acculturation into Japanese society. In sum, the exhibit downplays the traditional revolutionary narrative in favor of one emphasizing both the local Yuxi cultural influences and the global— Nie’s cosmopolitanism and his receptivity to the West and Japan. The surge of Yuxi commemorative activities regarding Nie Er has also had an effect on interpretations of his music. To be sure, the standard line emphasizing Nie Er’s pioneering role in creating mass songs by immersing himself in the lives of common people is still articulated. The musician Nie Lihua, who has served as chief consultant to various TV documentaries about her uncle, has played a prominent role in safeguarding Nie’s legacy. Her article “Nie Er in my heart” emphasizes now-familiar themes about Nie Er—his ability to create a new music by melding the political crisis of his time with his empathy for working people, and his synthesis of Chinese folk music and Western classical music.39 Likewise, the c­ ollection

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of Yuxi Daily articles commemorating Nie Er reaffirms the pioneering and revolutionary qualities of his mass songs. The preface quoting Li Lanqing from his September 8, 2005, Guangming ribao article sets the tone. During the early twentieth century when the Chinese people faced a critical life and death juncture, Nie Er and the music of a whole generation of revolutionary musicians that followed him was like lightning that pierced through the dusk, that broke the listless music in vogue at the time and created a music of a new era that would represent the masses in crying out and sound the Chinese revolution’s clarion call.40 Many of the Yuxi Daily articles that detail Nie Er’s vocal and instrumental compositions are similar to commemorations dating back to the late 1930s and the Maoist era in relating Nie Er’s methods to his close observation of the “people.” For instance, they describe the rhythms of the Shanghai dockworkers or the cotton mill workers at the break of dawn, and relate how Nie took women, children, and laborers as his subject matter. They point out that Nie’s songs gave oppressed people agency and a voice. The description of “Song of the Newspaper Seller,” for example, notes how the poet An E revised the lyrics after consulting with the newsgirl whom Nie Er had befriended.41 “Mining Song” is described as “China’s first proletarian song—especially created for miners—praising and expressing their grievances.”42 Descriptions of Nie’s process in composing “Song of the Big Road” and “Dockworkers” talk about him visiting workers on the job to absorb their experiences. This reiterates themes from the composer Ma Ke’s 1958 essay in which he said that artists should draw on lived experience rather than isolate themselves in the academic ivory tower.43 One significant departure from Maoist-era interpretations of Nie’s music is the recognition that the songwriter Li Jinhui had a substantial influence on Nie Er, especially in the genre of children’s songs. In retrospect, Li’s influence is hardly surprising given his pioneering role during the 1920s in creating children’s operas and songs. But because of his subsequent vilification as a proponent of “yellow” music, the influence had been ignored. In 2005, a Yuxi journalist candidly revealed how the “famous composer, Li Jinhui” influenced Nie’s children’s songs, such as “Wild Kitten,” which used onomatopoeia to spark children’s interest.44 Another innovative feature of these commemorative articles is the broadening of Nie Er’s musical idiom to encompass his popular march songs and his corpus of love songs. “Nie Er was a pioneer in creating militant marches and also a master in composing love songs.”45 “Mei Niang’s Song,” for instance, is described as Nie Er’s “masterful love song, China’s most wrenching love song written since [the] May Fourth [Movement].”46 The patriotic context of the song makes it politically palatable, but what is striking in the commemorative article is the attention 200

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paid to the emotional content of the song. The article points out that the traditional feminine ideals of devotion, loyalty, and sacrifice are evident in the character of Mei Niang and in the song’s Southeast Asian mellifluous lilt. A third significant change in interpretations of Nie’s music is the emphasis placed on the formative influence of Yunnan folk music. As Qi Song puts it, “Yuxi is not only famous for being the ‘hometown of Yunnan’s tobacco,’ but also famous as the ‘hometown of Huadeng.’ The beautiful Yuxi Huadeng music is like a seed that germinated in Nie Er’s heart and inspired his future musical creativity.”47 The Nie Er Music Research Group, supported by the Yuxi City Party Committee, municipal government, and the Hongta Group, has prompted this recent emphasis on the influence of Huadeng music. The stated goal of the research group is to investigate Nie Er’s youth and development and to examine the relationship between Nie Er and Yuxi culture, especially Yuxi Huadeng, Dongjing music, and Yunnan opera.48 Using primary sources such as Nie Er’s diary and family letters, researchers have demonstrated Nie’s avid interest in collecting Yunnanese folk music for his compositions.49 Yunnanese scholars now emphasize that Nie’s interest in Yunnan folk music led to direct adaptations of folk songs, such as his composition “Movie Starlet” (Yi ge nü mingxing), which they see as almost a replica of the Flower Lantern melody “Yu e liang.”50 They acknowledge that Nie used the same Hua­ deng melody in his 1934 instrumental composition “Mountain Kingdom Lovers,” with slight rhythmic modifications to impart a lively, celebratory mood.51 Recent research also challenges the mainstream view in the Kunming/Yuxi divide. Where it had been widely held that Nie’s instrumental piece “Springtime Green Lake” was exclusively based on a Kunming Dongjing music melody, a Yuxi Tong­ hai native now claims that his uncle befriended Nie Er in Shanghai and corresponded with him about Dongjing music. He asserts that the opening 16 measures of “Spring Dawn at Green Lake” derive from a Tonghai Dongjing melody.52 Yuxi musicologists even suggest that Yuxi Huadeng songs influenced Nie’s mass songs, despite their noticeable differences. Yuxi Huadeng rely on undulating melodies, while Nie’s mass songs are known for their vigorous march rhythms, limited vocal range, and martial-like qualities. Still, Li Hongyuan and Li Hongyun find parallel melodic phrases (usually the first two bars of a song) between “Song of the Big Road,” “Channeling the Yangzi,” “Self-Defense Song” and Yuxi Huadeng melodies.53 More controversial is the suggestion that Yuxi Huadeng inspired “March of the Volunteers.” As Kong Xianggeng writes, This piece [“March of the Volunteers”] after the Manchurian Incident, was the convergence of the voice of the Chinese people, the call of the motherland, the roar of soldiers and patriotic fervor, but it also had an element nurtured by Yuxi’s landscape and rich historical culture. It is no coincidence

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that the first two measures of the national anthem and the Yuxi Huadeng melody are identical, and stem from the initial impulse behind Nie Er’s creative spirit. The origins of this impulse lie in the fact that ‘nine out of every ten Yuxi people sing Huadeng.’ Nie Er’s parents were masters among those ninety percent who could sing Huadeng. Nie Er was a musical talent nurtured and educated by those skilled in Yuxi Huadeng.54 What Kong fails to note are the identical lyrics, “Arise,” accompanying an ascending fourth in both “March of the Volunteers” and “The Internationale”— its true inspiration! The claims by Yuxi writers have not gone unnoticed in Beijing; musicologists at the Central Conservatory of Music routinely belittle them. Upon visiting Yuxi, Li Lanqing did not address the issue directly, but tactfully indicated the proper interpretation of Nie Er’s music and symbolism: Nie Er’s native place was Yuxi, but he is “China’s Nie Er.”55 Just as musical interpretations are now placed at a distance from Nie Er’s proletarian art and his internationalist aspirations, so has the spirit of Nie Er become malleable enough to suit all Party policies. On the one hand, Nie’s empathy for and unity with the “masses” (a variation of Mao’s mass line) are still cited as model behavior for party cadres. Kong Xianggeng, for instance, urges CCP members to study Nie’s example. Just like Nie Er we should go among the masses to experience the conditions of the people, understand their sicknesses and suffering so we can better empathize with the masses; only by forever sharing the suffering alongside the masses can one maintain the purity of our [Party’s] thought; only when we go among the masses and synthesize the masses’ constructive accomplishments can we improve the quality of our leadership.56 On the other hand, Kong uses the Nie Er spirit to urge implementation of Jiang Zemin’s theory of the “Three Represents” and to build Hu Jintao’s “harmonious society” and “well-off society.” “Three Represents” legitimized capitalist membership in the CCP. In 2005 China’s leadership first presented its vision of a socialist “harmonious society” in reaction to growing inequality, social unrest, and social dislocation caused by party corruption and market reforms. Once glorified as an activist, Nie Er is now held up as a beacon of stability. For Kong Xianggeng, Nie Er manifests a love of country, love of the people, love of one’s native home, and love of family—essential ingredients to develop a harmonious Yuxi.57 Conveniently forgotten are Nie’s aspirations, his refusal to marry as his mother asked, and his departure from Yunnan to fulfill his wanderlust and serve society. The final irony is the ultimate reversal of Nie Er’s beliefs concerning the social function of art. Up through the Maoist era, commemorative articles praised Nie 202

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for having rejected Li Jinhui and his crass commercialism and for having composed songs that opposed imperialist aggression and class domination. Now cultural workers are at the forefront of the commodification of art. Neither the humanist goal of creating art for art’s sake nor the revolutionary view of music as a political weapon are deemed relevant. Instead, cultural leaders stress the need to transform the spirit of Nie Er into a marketable brand.58 The program director of CCTV, Zhang Zheng, puts it bluntly: “One should use culture for moneymaking so one can achieve a flourishing culture. To reorient Yuxi toward the entire nation and the world, one must improve the cultural production linkages and incrementally add surplus value for each place and in the end make a profit. . . .”59 To turn a profit, discussion has now turned to developing a consumer consciousness among potential audience members, since art can no longer exclusively rely on government subsidies or corporate sponsorship, despite the Hongta Group’s willing partnership. Artistic leaders betray their own class biases towards fellow Yuxi residents. The vice-director of the Yuxi Nie Er traditional Chinese instrument ensemble blames limited audience participation on Yuxi’s “backward culture” and dependence on state patronage. Although many artistic works from Yuxi have won prizes throughout China, the cultural quality of the Yuxi people as a whole is low, the concept of cultural consumerism is backward and not even comparable to the level of the 1950s and 1960s when people would spend money to watch [local] opera.60 Cadres and administrators envision unleashing market forces as the solution to reviving the arts. Since 2005 the Yuxi Department of Culture has subsumed all performing arts ensembles under the auspices of the Yuxi Nie Er Center for Cultural and Artistic Development. According to the chief of the Department of Culture, the Center’s mission is to have the backing of the Nie Er Music Foundation, utilize market dynamics and support and promote the market so that the artistic products enjoyed by the people will come to the fore, release the economic attributes of cultural products, integrate creative production and marketing, and manage competitive cultural forces.61 Zhu Liyun, the head of the Yuxi Huadeng ensemble, advocates merging business and art by having artists compose songs “based on enterprise culture” and then holding performances on the Nie Er Culture Square. “In this manner, business culture will be publicized and mass culture will flourish.”62 In sum, the transformation of Nie Er from the “people’s musician” into Yuxi’s

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“number one brand” has associated Yuxi squarely with the memory of Nie Er, displacing Kunming in the process, even though it is in Kunming that Nie Er spent most of his youth. Whether Yuxi’s concerted efforts to claim Nie Er as its native son and exaggerate its own influence on Nie’s character and music will displace the nationalist image of Nie Er is unresolved. More likely, future forces of regionalism and nationalism will converge and be mutually supportive as they redound to the glory of both Yuxi and China. Witness the photographs of Yang Xuesong, the first Yuxi mountaineer to summit Mount Everest, where he proudly displays images of Nie Er and the score of “March of the Volunteers.” Nie Er would probably not even recognize himself today amidst the barrage of contemporary commemoration. From a musical perspective, highlighting Yunnanese folk music and Huadeng in Nie Er’s creativity and paying renewed attention to his diverse output have produced a richer portrait of the songwriter, and that would perhaps please Nie. But politically, the jury is still out. Highlighting Nie’s cosmopolitanism may resonate with Nie’s self-identification as an internationalist. But the effort to market Nie Er and promote cultural consumerism would no doubt make the “people’s musician” turn in his grave.

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Epilogue

Since 2014, the fear of China’s tightening grip over Hong Kong affairs has

prompted protests at international soccer games held in the semi-autonomous city. As the first notes of the “March of the Volunteers” sound over loudspeakers, they are met by loud boos and jeering, with some fans turning their backs on the Chinese flag.1 In anticipation of more protests, the PRC legislature has banned the use of the song in commercials and parodies, and laid out guidelines to ensure respect for the national anthem and its ceremony. Failure to “stand with respect and maintain a dignified bearing” when the anthem is played will be punished. According to the National Anthem Law, which went into effect on October 1, 2017, “If someone intentionally falsifies the lyrics or distorts the music, debases the performance of the national anthem, or uses other means to degrade the national anthem, public security will issue a warning to violators and they may be taken into custody for up to fifteen days.”2 China’s new law has now been inserted into the Hong Kong constitution, forcing the legislature to implement its own version. This criminalization of the protests over the national anthem suggests yet another way in which the party-state’s hegemony over nationalism and its symbols has eroded. Although the National Anthem Law applies to all of China, there have been no reports of similar incidents on the mainland. Anecdotal evidence from a course I taught on the history and memory of Nie Er at Sichuan University in July 2016 suggests students feel justifiably proud of Nie Er and his music, especially the national anthem. One of our class sessions devoted to performing and analyzing Nie’s compositions ended with a vigorous rendition of the “March of the Volunteers.” It seems the patriotic education campaign, in effect since the early 1990s, has been effective in implementing two of the stated goals of the new National Anthem Law—“strengthening citizens’ understanding of the nation and developing the spirit of patriotism.” 205

More threatening to political consensus and social stability is the breakdown of socialism, nationalism, and developmentalism—the Chinese model’s tripartite foundation—as both ideologies and processes. As China becomes integrated into global capitalism, elements of socialism representing the ideals of equality and social justice have become marginalized and have faded from view. The impressive achievements in poverty reduction3 have been held back by the consequences of reform—environmental degradation; persistent poverty in the rural hinterland; increasing polarization between rich and poor, rural and urban, coastal and interior provinces; systemic discrimination against millions of migrant workers; the rise of a precariat; and mounting social tensions and conflict.4 The implications for government legitimacy are profound. As Lin Chun points out, “if socialist development is premised on an anticapitalist conviction, the marginalization of socialism inevitably delegitimizes the Chinese revolution and the whole project of China’s alternative modernity.”5 Recent representations of Nie Er, which strip him of his socialist agenda and honor only his nationalist dimension, are just the latest reinterpretation of Nie and his music as a realm of memory. The various phases of Nie Er commemoration since his death in 1935 have revealed an ambiguous relationship between history and memory—at times in conflict, at times mutually reinforcing. At first, Nie’s death aggrandized both him and his music’s ideological thrust as weapons in China’s revolutionary struggle for national liberation and social justice. Nie’s internationalism served the goals of the Popular Front movement, which linked China’s national struggle with the global antifascist cause. During the first seventeen years of the PRC, the mutual reinforcement of nationalism and socialist values continued, and the film Nie Er highlighted the role of art in class transformation. But in the contemporary “reform and opening up” era, local interests in Yunnan, engaged in globalization, have commodified Nie Er. Nie’s anticapitalist stance and his struggle to create an alternative socialist modernity have become submerged by the forces of global capitalism. At this historical juncture, one can only hope that Nie Er’s songs, which sought a more equitable and just world, will continue to ring out and inspire.

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Epilogue

APPENDIX N I E ER ’ S S O N G CO M P O SI T I O NS

207

Pathé Records

雪花飛

Swirling Snowflakes

Spring 1934

“一個女明星” interlude

1934

Pathé Records

“飢餓限” (On the verge of starvation) drama interlude

1933

走出攝影場

飢寒交迫歌

Poverty Stricken Song

“母性之光” (Maternal light) film interlude

Spring 1933

Out of the Studio

開礦歌

Mining Song

Ibid.

nd

Theme song for film “一個女明星” (Movie starlet)

春日謠

Spring Ballad

Ibid.

nd

1934

茶山情歌

Tea Mountain Love Song

Liu Qian

An E

An E

An E

Key/Mode

Leader/choral

Female solo

Male/Female Antiphonal

Female unison

Male solo

Male solo

Eleventh

Octave

Ninth

Tenth

Octave

Tenth

Tenth

Octave

Tenth

Octave

Vocal Range

Ninth

G Gong (6 tone) Eleventh

A Wei

Children’s song C Gong

Female solo

Female solo

Children’s song F Gong

C sharp minor

E major

E flat major

E Yu

E flat Gong

B flat Gong (6 tone)

C Gong major

Children’s song E flat Gong

Type

Dong Meikan Lullaby

Tian Han

Lu Ge

Anonymous

Anonymous

Ibid.

nd

一個女明星

採茶歌

Tea-Picking Song

Miao Zi

Xin yinyue vol. 3, no. 2 (1941)

nd

Movie Starlet

白雪歌

White Snow Song

Anonymous

An E

Lyricist

Unpublished

1933?

Unpublished

Venue

Winter 1933

雪

Snow

1933?

Date of Composition

Song of the Newspaper Seller 賣報歌

小工人

Chinese Title

Little Worker

Title

賣報之聲

小野貓

打磚歌

打樁歌

碼頭工人

苦力歌

畢業歌

大路歌

開路先鋒

飛華歌

牧羊女

新女性

Voice of the Newsboys

Wild Kitten

Bricklaying Song

Piledriving Song

Dockworkers

Coolie Song

Graduation Song

Song of the Big Road

Trailblazers

Flying Flowers

Shepherd Girl

New Woman

Theme song for film “飛華村” Fallen flower village) “飛華村” interlude

October 1934

October 1934

January 1935 “新女性” film

Introductory song for “大路”

September 1934

Theme song for film “大路” (Big Road)

September 1934

Sun Shiyi

Sun Shiyi

Sun Shiyi

Sun Shiyi

Sun Yu

Theme song for film Tian Han “桃李劫” (Peaches and Plunder)

Tian Han

Pu Feng

Pu Feng

D flat Gong

Song cycle

A flat Gong

Seventh

Octave

Ninth

Diminished ninth

Ninth

Tenth

Seventh

Ninth

Octave

Octave

Ninth

(continued)

G Gong major

D Yu

D Gong major

C Gong major

G Gong major

E Yu-A ShangE Yu

Children’s song F major

Female solo

Leader/choral

Unison

Unison

Unison

Unison

Unison

Unison

Pu Feng

G Gong

Children’s song D Gong

Children’s song F Gong

Chen Bochui

Wu Di

July 1934

“揚子江暴風雨” finale

Ditto

June 1934

June 1934

Ditto

“揚子江暴風雨” (Storm on the Yangzi) musical interlude

Pathé Records

Pathé Records

June 1934

June 1934

1934

1934

春回來了

慰勞歌

妹娘曲

逃亡曲

塞外村女

打長江

采菱歌

鐵蹄下的女

義勇軍進曲

Spring Has Returned

Veterans’ Relief Song

Mei Niang’s Song

Refugee Song

Village Girl beyond the Great Wall

Channeling the Yangzi

Picking Water Chestnuts

Girl under the Iron Hoof

March of the Volunteers

Venue

Tian Han

Theme song for film “逃亡” (Refugees) “逃亡” interlude Theme song for film “凱歌” (Paean) “凱歌” interlude “風雲兒女” (Children of the Storm) film interlude Theme song for “風雲兒女”

February 1935

February 1935

February 1935

February 1935

March 1935

March 1935

Tian Han

Xu Xingzhi

Tian Han

Tian Han

Tang Na

Tian Han

Tian Han

C Gong major

C Gong major

Key/Mode

Unison

Female solo

Female solo

Unison

Female solo

Unison

Female solo

G Gong major

F Gong

D Gong

D Gong-A Zhi

E flat Zhi (6 tone)

F Gong major

G major/E minor

Narrative song D Gong major

Female solo

Male solo

Tian Han

Tian Han

Type

Lyricist

January 1935 Ditto

January 1935 Ditto

January 1935 Ditto

January 1935 “回春之曲” (Song of returning spring) drama interlude

Date of Composition

Ninth

Ninth

Ninth

Tenth

Tenth

Ninth

Ninth

Tenth

Octave

Octave

Vocal Range

Note: nd means no date available Sources: Fan Zuyin, “Nie Er gequ diaoshi yanjiu” [Research on Nie Er’s song modes], in NEYYW, 39. NEQJ 1. Wang Yuhe, Nie Er yinyue zuopin [Musical works of Nie Er] (Changsha: Hunan wenyi chubanshe, 2003).

告別南洋

Chinese Title

Farewell to Southeast Asia

Title

A B B R E V I AT I O N S

LLXJW

Liu Liangmo xiansheng jinian wenji [Collected works in memory of Mr. Liu Liangmo]. Shanghai: Zhonghua jidujiaoyu qingnianhui quanguo xiehui, 2010. NEQJ “Nie Er quanji,” bianji weiyuanhui, ed. Nie Er quanji [Complete works of Nie Er]. 2 vols. Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 1985. NEJNJ Zhang Tianxu, ed. Nie Er Jinianji [Commemorative volume honoring Nie Er]. Tokyo: 1935. NEYYW Yuxi Nie Er yinyue yanjiu keti zu and Yunnan Nie Er yinyue jijinhui, eds. Nie Er yinyue yanjiu wenji [Collected research articles on Nie Er’s music]. Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chubanshe, 2006. NEZJ Zhongguo yinyue xueyuan Zhongguo yinyue yanjiusuo, eds., Nie Er zhuanji [Nie Er special collection], vol. 3. N.p., 1964. QXNE Wang Zhixiong and Guo Ling, eds., Qinren xinzhong de Nie Er [Nie Er dear to our hearts]. Beijing: Zhongguo minzu shiying yishu chubanshe, 2008. THQJ “Tian Han quanji,” bianji weiyuanhui, ed. Tian Han quanji [Complete works of Tian Han]. 20 vols. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000. YJYRSNE Wang Zhixiong and Guo Ling, eds. Yongheng jiyi—Yuxi Ribao shang de Nie Er: 1989.9–2007.6 [Eternal memory—Nie Er in the Yuxi Daily: September 1989– June 2007]. Kunming: Yunnan chuban jituan gongsi and Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2008. ZJYZ Xiang Yansheng, ed. Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyuejia zhuan [Biography of modern and contemporary Chinese musicians]. 4 vols. Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, 1994. ZJYWX Zhang Jingwei, ed. Sousuo lishi: Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyue wenlun xuanbian [In search of history: Selection of China’s modern and contemporary music essays]. Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, 2004.

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NOTES

Preface 1. Joshua H. Howard, Workers at War: Labor in China’s Arsenals, 1937–1953 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004). 2. He Lüting, “Xin Zhongguo yinyue qimeng shiqi yongge yundong” [The song movement during the era of the New Chinese music enlightenment] (February 28, 1939) in He Lüting quanji bianji weiyuanhui, ed., He Lüting quanji [Complete works of He Lüting], vol. 4 (Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, 1999), 54. 3. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). 4. Neil Edmunds, “Aleksandr Davidenko and Prokoll,” in Tempo, no. 182, Russian Issue (September 1992): 2–5. 5. Albrecht Betz, Hanns Eisler Political Musician, trans. Bill Hopkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Introduction 1. Nie Er diary (February 7, 1932), reprinted in “Nie Er quanji” bianji weiyuanhui, comp. Nie Er quanji [Complete works of Nie Er] (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 1985), vol. 2, 365. (Hereafter cited as NEQJ 2: pg. no.). Italicized words and phrases in my translations appear in Western languages in the original. Unless noted otherwise, all translations are mine. I cite excerpts from the 1985 published diary, which I was able to compare with the original manuscript held at the Nie Er archives of the Yunnan Provincial Museum and at the library of the China Arts Research Institute Music Section (Zhongguo yishu yanjiu­ yuan yinyue yanjiusuo) in Beijing. The former holds Nie’s diary and notes from June 1926 through June 3, 1930, shortly before he left Kunming for Shanghai. The Institute carries the diary recording Nie’s life in Shanghai and Beiping between July 1930 and April 1935. His diary documenting his three-month sojourn in Japan was published December 1935 in Zhang Tianxu’s Commemorative volume on Nie Er (Nie Er Jinianji). 2. The term “class nationalism,” used to describe the Left-Wing Cinema Movement’s discourse of nationalism between 1931 and 1936, can also be applied to Nie Er’s music, which played a central role in the film movement. See Jubin Hu, Projecting a Nation: Chinese National

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Cinema before 1949 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003), 26. Nie and other leftwing artists of the 1930s understood nationalism to be conjoined with socialism because of their mutual opposition to imperialism and capitalism. As the political theorist Lin Chun writes, “Historically, Chinese nationalism was both revolutionary resistance against imperialism and a modern alternative to the Eurocentric assumption about capitalist universality. As such, it was also simultaneously socialist—hence the paired formulation of ‘Chinese socialism.’ ” Lin Chun, The Transformation of Chinese Socialism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 64. 3. See, for instance, Andrew Field, Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919–1954 (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010); Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 4. Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), 15. 5. Arif Dirlik, “The Historiography of Colonial Modernity: Chinese History between Eurocentric Hegemony and Nationalism,” Journal of Modern Chinese History 1, no. 1 (August 2007): 97–115. 6. Wen-hsin Yeh, ed., Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 7. Comprising well-researched articles on state-led and capitalist projects of modernity, Becoming Chinese tellingly lacks almost any reference to the Chinese Communist Party or to revolution, as if the former were not interested in engaging with modernity. Much of this scholarship seems to ascribe the CCP’s rejection of mass consumer culture and capitalism during the high tide of Maoism (late 1950s through the late 1960s) back to the 1930s. At the same time, artists of the Nanjing decade such as the popular songwriter Li Jinhui and modernist writers Shao Xunmei and Shi Zhicun—the former condemned as a rightist and the latter denounced by Yao Wenyuan during the Cultural ­Revolution—have been rehabilitated in contemporary China and figure centrally in Lee, Shanghai Modern. 7. Lin, The Transformation of Chinese Socialism, 58. 8. The term “subaltern” derives from Antonio Gramsci’s distinction between the dominant ruling elites or hegemonic class and the subaltern, who are ruled by coercive or ideological domination. Marcus Green, “Gramsci Cannot Speak: Presentations and Interpretations of Gramsci’s Concept of the Subaltern,” Rethinking Marxism, 14, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 1–24. 9. Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese (New York: Algora Publishing, 2004), 90, 106–117, 121. Restrictions on Chinese audience participation at SMO concerts were lifted after 1925. Not until 1938 were Chinese musicians hired on a full-time basis. Hon-Lun Yang, “From Colonial Modernity to Global Identity: The Shanghai Municipal Orchestra,” Hon-Lun Yang and Michael Saffle, eds., China and the West: Music, Representation, and Reception (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), 51, 58. 10. Robinson suggests cultural hybridity is a byproduct of colonial modernity. “[T]he association of the modern sector of colonial society with the dominant culture of the colonizers creates an added element of complexity. To be part of modernity will therefore mean adopting the culture of the ethnically distinct and advantaged colonizer community. This engenders cultural hybridity because it forces the colonized to adopt the colonizers’ language and values if they want to participate in the new modernity.” Michael E. Robinson, Korea’s TwentiethCentury Odyssey: A Short History (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007), 78. 11. Nie Er diary (February 4, 1932), NEQJ 2: 364.

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Notes to Pages 2–3

12. Andrew F. Jones, Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 136. Jones is persuasive in his analysis of how leftist films appropriated gender tropes from commercial films, but less so in drawing connections between Tin Pan Alley music and leftist music. 13. Nie Er diary (August 16, 1931), NEQJ 2: 289. 14. Nie Er diary (October 25, 1931), NEQJ 2: 323. 15. E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 123. 16. Nie Er diary (October 28, 1932), NEQJ 2: 480. 17. See, for instance, his use of the Kunming terms for “giving” (October 9, 1931), “to displease” (October 10, 1931), “to know how things stand to be tactful” (December 23, 1931), “petty minded and stingy” (September 5, 1932), “anger” (March 9, 1932), and “grandmother” (October 26, 1932). NEQJ 2: 300, 317. 341, 377, 480. 18. Kenny Kwok-kwan Ng, The Lost Geopoetic Horizon of Li Jieren: The Crisis of Writing Chengdu in Revolutionary China (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 37. 19. Nie Er diary (July 9, 1935), NEQJ 2: 534. 20. Mao Zedong, “The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War” (October 1938), in Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Vol. II (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), 196. 21. Benjamin W. Curtis, Music Makes the Nation: Nationalist Composers and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2008), 222. 22. Liang Luo, The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China: Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance and Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014), 39. 23. Most leaders of China’s left-wing literature and drama movement were returned students from Japan. They shared their Japanese counterparts’ anticolonial stance, translated Soviet left-wing literary theory from Japanese to Chinese, introduced Japanese left-wing dramas, and sought to emulate the Japanese revolutionary practices in the arts. Ping Liu, “The Left-Wing Drama Movement in China and its Relationship to Japan,” trans. Krista Van Fleit Hang in Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 14, no. 2 (2006): 454–455. The community of leftists in the early to mid-1930s shared many of the same practices and ideals as the writers of the 1950s who engaged in “socialist cosmopolitanism”—valorization of the collective, championing of subalterns, and fidelity to the national within the transnational. One could argue that Nie Er was a socialist cosmopolitan, but I use the term “internationalist” for historical fidelity and because “cosmopolitan” had elitist connotations during the 1930s. Nicolai Volland, Socialist Cosmopolitanism: The Chinese Literary Universe, 1945–1965 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 13. 24. Liang Luo’s aforementioned work and Xiaobing Tang’s book on the woodcut movement highlight this theme. Tang underscores how the “avant-garde” style of China’s woodcut movement was rooted in German and Belgian expressionism. Xiaobing Tang, Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde: The Modern Woodcut Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). 25. Richard Taruskin and Christopher H. Gibbs, The Oxford History of Western Music, College Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 947–948. 26. Betz, Hanns Eisler Political Musician, 104–106; Sabine Hake, The Proletarian Dream: Socialism, Culture, and Emotion in Germany, 1863–1933 (Berlin: De Gruyter/Berlin, 2017), 98. 27. The First Conference on Musical Enlightenment Work, convened in March 1926 by Glavpolitprosvet, the state organ of Soviet Communist propaganda, described the “proletariansoviet mass song” as one that was “saturated with the mood and ideas of its class.” Mass songs were to take facets of everyday life, such as work, social rituals, or the revolutionary struggle, as their focus. They were also to be characterized by accessible language, singable melodies,



Notes to Pages 4–8

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and lively rhythms. Amy Nelson, Music for the Revolution: Musicians and Power in Early Soviet Russia (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004), 121–122. 28. On popularization in the visual arts, see Tang, Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde, 135–136, 165–166. Nie and other Left League members’ views of the transformative and revolutionary force of the arts and artists anticipates Mao Zedong’s celebrated “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Art and Literature” (1942). Paul Pickowicz’s study of the 1920s Communist leader Qu Qiubai also demonstrates clear historical antecedents to Mao’s “Talks.” See Paul G. Pickowicz, Marxist Literary Thought in China: The Influence of Ch’ü Ch’iu-pai (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981). 29. Lü Ji (alias Que Shiqi), “Lun guofang yinyue” [On national defense music], Shenghuo zhishi [Life knowledge] 1, no. 12 (1936): 614. 30. Zhou Weizhi, “Guofang yinyue bixu dazhonghua” [National defense music must popularize] in Shenghuo zhishi [Life knowledge] 1, no. 12 (1936): 618. 31. Taruskin and Gibbs, The Oxford History of Western Music, 989. 32. Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (London: Verso, 1997), chap. 9. 33. Chang-tai Hung, Going to the People: Chinese Intellectuals and Folk Literature, 1918–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985). 34. Studies of this process include Liu Ching-chih, A Critical History of New Music in China, trans. Caroline Mason (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2010); Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese (New York: Algora, 2004). 35. Joshua H. Howard, “ ‘Music for a National Defense’: Making Martial Music during the Anti-Japanese War,” in Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review e-journal, no. 13 (December 2014): 1–50. 36. Anderson uses the term “print capitalism,” which Christopher Reed analyzes as an outgrowth of technological and industrial change in Shanghai’s printing industry. Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004). For studies of how Chinese newspapers enabled readers to construct an “imagined community,” see, for instance, Henrietta Harrison, China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 116–118; Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872–1912 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), chap. 6. The role of school curricula in promoting republican citizenship is analyzed by Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912–1940 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007). For a textual-based study of wartime popular culture, see Chang-tai Hung, War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). Hung addresses the role of music in “The Politics of Songs: Myths and Symbols in the Chinese Communist War Music, 1937–1945,” in Modern Asian Studies 30, no. 4 (October 1996): 901–929. 37. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), 145. 38. Benjamin W. Curtis, Music Makes the Nation: Nationalist Composers and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2008), 236. 39. Ibid., 146. 40. Philip V. Bohlman, Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2011), 5. 41. Ibid., 86. 42. Matthew Riley and Anthony D. Smith, Nation and Classical Music: From Handel to Copland (Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2016), 10.

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Notes to Pages 8–10

43. Nie Er, “Yi nian lai de Zhongguo yinyue” [Chinese music over the past year], Shenbao (January 6, 1935), in NEQJ 2: 87. 4 4. Sue Tuohy, “The Sonic Dimensions of Nationalism in Modern China: Musical Representation and Transformation,” Ethnomusicology 45, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 117, 124. 45. Wang Yuhe’s Nie Er yinyue zuopin [Musical works of Nie Er] (Changsha: Hunan wenyi chubanshe, 2003); Wang Yizhi, Nie Er zhuan [Biography of Nie Er] (Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, 1992). 46. Richard Kraus, Pianos and Politics in China: Middle-Class Ambitions and the Struggle over Western Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), chap. 2; Jones, Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age, chap. 4. 47. Pierre Nora, ed., Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 1: 3. 48. Isabel K. F. Wong, “Geming gequ: Songs for the Education of the Masses,” in Bonnie S. McDougall, ed., Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1979 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 121–143. 49. Lawrence D. Kritzman, Foreword to Pierre Nora, ed., Realms of Memory, vol. 1, xiii. Chapter 1  Growing Up in Yunnan 1. Nie Xulun, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er [The young Nie Er] (Tianjin: Xinlei chuanshe, 1981), 4. Nie Er indicates the importance of the 1911 Revolution in his life chronicle (nianpu), in which his first recorded memory at the age of six is that of his mother recounting the violence and deafening explosions that rocked Kunming on September 9, 1911 (lunar calendar). Terrified by her vivid account, Nie found comfort in his mother’s embrace. Nie often requested that Peng recount the story, which he associated with violence and maternal love. “The word ‘fanzheng’ [opposition to the regime] are forever embedded in my mind. As soon as I hear ‘fanzheng,’ I think about gunshots, burning houses, the change of flags, wounded soldiers. . . . and mama’s expression. What a pity that I never could witness the burning houses, hear the gun shots, and I could only hide in my mother’s stomach, going with her wherever she went. I left that compressed state and entered the world only after the revolutionary opposition to the regime, the change of the flag, and the end of the gunshots. Thinking back on my mother with her big stomach, how much suffering she must have endured!” Nie Er diary (October 19, 1930), NEQJ 2: 245. 2. Arif Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), x–xi. 3. Nie Er diary (September 19, 1930), NEQJ 2: 246. 4. Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 29. 5. Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 7. 6. Ibid., 15. 7. Nie Er diary (September 19, 1930), NEQJ 2: 245. 8. Yang Mei, “Fangwen Nie Er de muqin” [Interview with Nie Er’s mother], in Nie Er quanji xiajuan [Complete works of Nie Er, volume 2] (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2011), 112. 9. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 6–7. 10. Ibid., 9. 11. Ibid., 20. 12. Zhang Weihan, ed., Kunming chengshi zhi [Gazetteer of Kunming City] (n.p., 1924; Taibei: Chengwen, 1967), 48.



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13. Liu Qi, “Guxiang qinren yi Nie Er” [Hometown relatives remember Nie Er], in Nie Er quanji xiajuan, 121. 14. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 13, 61–62, 83. 15. Yang, “Fangwen Nie Er de muqin,” 112. 16. Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 24. 17. The school name, Qiushi, is derived from a phrase in the Book of Odes (Shijing) that suggests casting out a hundred seeds of grain [among youth] will develop truth and authentic character. Xu Yan, Xu Jiarui luezhuan [Biography of Xu Jiarui] (Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 2013), 46. 18. Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 30. According to her niece, Peng Jikuan was scorned as a “baiyi”—a pejorative term used by Han Chinese chauvinists to describe ethnic minorities. Nie Lihua, “Nie Er zai guxiang” [Nie Er in his hometown], in Yunling gesheng no. 3 (September 15, 1979): 23. 19. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 53. 20. Ibid., 23. 21. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 23; Interview with Nie Lihua, February 11, 2008, Kunming; Song Guiliang, “Shilun Nie Er yinyue chuangzuo yu Yuxi bentu wenhua jiding” [Nie Er’s compositions and their basis in Yuxi’s indigenous culture], in Yuxi Nie Er yinyue yanjiu keti zu and Yunnan Nie Er yinyue jijinhui, eds., Nie Er yinyue yanjiu wenji [Collected research articles on Nie Er’s music] (Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chubanshe, 2006), 71. (Henceforth cited as NEYYW.) 22. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 46–48. 23. Ibid., 70. 24. Zhang Cangrong, “Huiyi Nie Er” [Remembering Nie Er], Yunnan wenshi ziliao xuanji no. 21 (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1984), 72. 25. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 55–56. 26. Ibid. 27. Song, “Shilun Nie Er yinyue chuangzuo yu Yuxi bentu wenhua jiding,” 72. 28. Wu Xueyuan, “Nie Er yu Kunming Dongjing yinyue mantan” [Informal discussion of Nie Er and Kunming’s Dongjing music], in NEYYW, 92. 29. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 74. 30. Wu, “Nie Er yu Kunming Dongjing yinyue mantan,” 92. 31. Ibid., 64–66. 32. Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 54. 33. “Jiemi bainianqian laowai tu Dian ji” [Uncovering a secret record of foreigners coming to Yunnan a century ago], accessed on January 7, 2016, http://www.yn.xinhuanet.com​ /newscenter/201010/11/content_21092823_1.htm. The railroad connecting Hanoi and Mengzi, Yunnan, provided the French with control over the main trade route and transit tolls. Wilbur Burton, The French Strangle-Hold on Yunnan: A First-Hand Survey (Shanghai: China Weekly Review, 1933). 34. Nie Er—Winter Vacation Daily from diary held at China Arts Institute, copied from original in 1955. 35. NEQJ 2: 118. For Bo Xiwen, see also Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 66–67 and http://​ www.yndaily.com/html/20040518/news_82_262359.html (accessed June 29, 2011). 36. Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 45. 37. Chu Tu’nan, “Shanghai wairen cansha Zhongguoren shijian” [Incident of a Shanghai foreigner murdering a Chinese], in Yunnan shengli diyi zhongxue xiaokan no. 56 (May 20, 1925), 1. 38. Yang Fuduan, “Diguozhuyi xia de Zhongguo” [China under imperialism], in Yunnan shengli diyi zhongxue xiaokan, no. 56 (May 20, 1925), 4.

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Notes to Pages 19–25

39. Yunnan Provincial Museum, Nie Er Archives, item no. 442. 40. Nie Er diary (June 1, 1926), NEQJ 2: 165. 41. Zhang Cangrong, “Huiyi Nie Er,” 73. 42. Ibid., 75. 43. Nie Er diary (December 30, 1927), NEQJ 2: 185. This remains Nie’s only reference to opium despite its prevalence in Yunnan during the 1920s. According to Wilbur Burton’s reporting of the early 1930s, Yunnan produced 8–10 million pounds of crude opium per year, which supplied the provincial government with 20 percent of its annual revenue and constituted the “life blood of the military.” Burton states that he was “reliably informed” that “there is at least one addict in every Yunnanfu [Kunming] family.” Burton, The French Strangle-Hold on Yunnan, 27. 4 4. Nie Er diary (January 11, 1929), NEQJ 2: 203. Italics indicate English language usage in the original. 45. Goldoni’s character Mirandolina is an astute and independent-minded innkeeper who fends off the courtship of three noblemen before marrying the waiter working at her inn. Her free spirit and rejection of a subordinate role would have appealed to the May Fourth generation. 46. Zhang Cangrong, “Huiyi Nie Er,” 76. 47. Man Xinlai, “Shi geju haishi huaju: Lun ‘Yangzi jiang baofengyu’ zuowei ‘xin’geju’ de ming yu shi” [Is it an opera or drama? Discussing “The Yangzi tempest” as a new-style opera], Yinyue yanjiu [Music Research], no. 3 (September 2007): 65. Kangzheng is described as “one of the very few plays of the 1920s depicting the insolence of the foreign powers in China, inquiring into the reasons why the foreigners are in a position to outrage Chinese citizens and demonstrating how the Chinese can resist them.” See Bernd Eberstein, ed., A Selective Guide to Chinese Literature 1900–1949, vol. 4, The Drama (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), 334. 48. Nie Er, “Xiju wei shehui jiaoyu zhi liqi” [Drama is a sharp weapon of social education], NEQJ 2: 5. 49. Nie Er, “Tan xiju” [Discussing drama], NEQJ 2: 9. 50. Nie Er diary (October 13, 1927), NEQJ 2: Bonnie S. McDougall, The Introduction of Western Literary Theories into Modern China, 1919–1925 (Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1971), 76–77. 51. Nie Er diary (June 23, 1927), NEQJ 2: 171. 52. Yao Chen, “Huiyi Nie Er qingshaonian shiqi de shenghuo” [Remembering Nie Er’s life in his youth], Yinyue yanjiu [Music research], no. 6 (December 15, 1958): 89. 53. Nie Er, “Wo zhi rensheng guan” [My outlook on life], NEQJ 2: 3. 54. Nie Er, “Wo de rensheng guan” [My outlook on life], NEQJ 2: 20. 55. Ibid. 56. Nie Er, “Kexue yu guogu ji wo guo xianshi ying tichang kexue zhi yuanyin” [Science, our national heritage, and why my country should now advocate science], NEQJ 2: 17. 57. For the origins of the term “proletarian literature,” see Cheng Hongqi, Zhongguo zuoyi wenxue de fasheng 1923–1933 [The occurrence of Chinese left-wing literature 1923–1933] (Guangzhou: Jinan daxue chubanshe, 2010), 29–30. 58. Nie Er, “La fu,” [Press gang], NEQJ 2: 14–15. 59. Nie Er, “Wu ti” [Untitled], NEQJ 2: 27. 60. S. A. Smith, Like Cattle and Horses: Nationalism and Labor in China, 1895–1927 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002). 61. Nie Er, “Jinri guonei bagong fengchao shuping” [Recent domestic strike waves], NEQJ  2,  7.



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62. Nie Er, “Wo de nianjia shenghuo” [My New Year’s holiday], NEQJ 2: 12. (Estimated to have been written during the first half of 1926.) 63. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 76, 78. 6 4. Ye Zuyin, “Wu si qianhou Yunnan baokan chuanbo Maliezhuyi qingkuang jianshu” [A brief account of the dissemination of Marxism and Leninism by the Yunnan press during the May Fourth Movement], in Yunnansheng xinwen chubanju and Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, eds., Xinminzhu zhuyi geming shiqi Yunnan geming chuban shiliao [Historical materials of the Yunnan revolutionary press during the New Democracy Revolution] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1994), 108. 65. Yunnansheng zonggonghui and Zhonggong Yunnan shengwai dangshi yanjiushi, eds., Yunnan gongren yundongshi, 1872–2000 [The Yunnan labor movement, 1872–2000] (Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 2003), 24. 66. Ibid., 26. Wang Youde was admitted to Beijing University in 1918, where he studied German and was in frequent contact with Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. By 1920 he had joined the Beijing University Marxist Research Group and participated in the translation of The Communist Manifesto. 67. Xie Benshu, Zhanshi xuezhe Ai Siqi [Warrior, scholar Ai Siqi] (Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe, 2000), 56. 68. Both brothers studied French at Beijing University and participated in the Marxist Theory Research Group led by Li Dazhao. Wang Fusheng was an early member of the Chinese Socialist Youth Corps before joining the CCP in July 1921. Wang Desan joined the CCP in 1922 through the introduction of Deng Zhongxia. Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhonggong Yunnan difangshi diyi juan [Chinese Communist Party Yunnan local history, vol. 1] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2001), 33. Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi ziliao zhengji weiyuanhui bian, Wang Desan yiwen xuanbian [Selected bequeathed writings of Wang Desan] (Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 1987), 226. 69. “Yunnan jindaishi” bianxiezu, ed., Yunnan jindaishi [Modern history of Yunnan] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1993), 343. 70. Ye Zuyin, “Yunnan qingnian nulihui ji qi geming chuban huodong” [Yunnanese Diligent Youth Association and revolutionary publishing activities], in Yunnansheng xinwen chubanju and Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, eds., Xinminzhu zhuyi geming shiqi Yunnan geming chuban shiliao [Historical materials of the Yunnan revolutionary press during the New Democracy Revolution] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1994), 140. 71. Popular texts included The Communist Manifesto, Kautsky’s Class Struggle, Bukharin’s The ABC of Communism, and translations of the Japanese socialist Kawakami Hajime. Yang Jun, “KangRi zhanzhengqian de Yunnan jinbu shudian” [Yunnan’s progressive bookstores before the Anti-Japanese War], in Yunnansheng xinwen chubanju and Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, eds., Xinminzhu zhuyi geming shiqi Yunnan geming chuban shiliao, 155. 72. Ye, “Yunnan qingnian nulihui ji qi geming chuban huodong,” 142. 73. Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhonggong Yunnan difangshi, 41, 51. 74. Ye, “Yunnan qingnian nulihui ji qi geming chuban huodong,” 143. Li Guozhu had joined the CCP in 1926 and became provincial secretary of the Communist Youth League two years later. In 1930, he and his wife, Wu Cheng, were arrested and executed in Kunming. Wang Yuzhi, Nie Er zhuan, 62. 75. Guomindang support for the military coup against Tang Jiyao to prevent him from impeding the Northern Expedition is analyzed by J. C. S. Hall, The Yunnan Provincial Faction, 1927–1937 (Canberra: Department of Far Eastern History, Australian National University, 1976), chap. 1. 76. Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhonggong Yunnan difangshi diyijuan,

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Notes to Pages 31–34

57, 62. Yunnansheng zonggonghui and Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, ed., Yunnan gongren yundongshi, 1872–2000, 33–34. 77. Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhonggong Yunnan difangshi (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2001), 87. Liu Zhizhi, “Yunnandang zuzhi fazhan chuqi de youguan qingkuang” [Situation regarding early development of the Yunnan based Party organization], Yunnan wenshi ziliao xuanji, no. 14 (1981), 76. 78. Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhonggong Yunnan difangshi di yi juan, 69–70. 79. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 102. 80. Nie Er diary (October 13, 1927), NEQJ 2: 177–178. 81. Yunnan Provincial Museum, Nie Er archives, Nie Er no. 362, Nie Er zajiben. 82. Leonard Woolf, Economic Imperialism (London: Swarthmore Press, 1920), 102. Nie had signed copies of the 1929 translation of Woolf’s text, Jingji de diguozhuyi (Shanghai: Beixin shuju, 1929), and Sakai Toshihiku (Jieli Yan), Xiandai shehui shenghuo trans. by Gao Xisheng (Shanghai: Guanghua shuju, 1929). These texts are stored in the Yunnan Provincial Museum, Nie Er Archives, item nos. 205–206. 83. Maurice Meisner, Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait (Malden, MA: Polity, 2007), 17–18. 84. Nie Er, “Zibenzhuyi yu shehui wenti” [Capitalism and social problems], NEQJ 2: 23. 85. The slogans were published in the May 15, 1926, inaugural issue of Yunnan xuesheng, cited in Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 56. 86. Zhuo Li, “Yunnan Qingnian Nulihui shimo jianshu” [Brief narrative of the development of the Yunnan Diligent Youth Association], in Yunnan wenshi ziliao xuanji no. 14 (1981), 50. 87. Yao, “Huiyi Nie Er qingshaonian shiqi de shenghuo,” 91. 88. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 117–118. Jacques Guillermaz, A History of the Chinese Communist Party (London: Methuen & Co., 1972), 155. 89. Yang Zipei letter to Nie Er (August 11, 1928). Nie Er file 331 at Yunnan Provincial Museum. 90. Deng Lianzhi letter to Nie Er (January 9, 1929). Nie Er file 333 at Yunnan Provincial Museum. 91. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 126–128. 92. Nie Er letter to Peng Jikuan (April 17, 1929), NEQJ 2: 105. 93. Nie Er diary (May 30, 1929), NEQJ 2: 213. 94. Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhonggong Yunnan difangshi diyi juan, 117. Yao, “Huiyi Nie Er qingshaonian shiqi de shenghuo,” 90. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 141. 95. Hans J. Van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920–1927 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). 96. Nie Er diary (September 11, 1928), NEQJ 2: 191. 97. Zhang Cangrong, “Huiyi Nie Er,” 76. As a student in Kunming, Nie Er was well versed in Li Jinhui’s compositions, having purchased most of Li’s children’s operas written during the 1920s. These scores are stored at the Yunnan Provincial Museum, Nie Er archives. 98. Zhang, “Huiyi Nie Er,” 76. Zhang emphasizes Nie’s singular devotion to Yuan Chunhui perhaps to offset critics of Nie Er who questioned his friendships with Shanghai actresses, most famously Wang Renmei. Nie defended his relationship with Wang, explaining to Zhang that “I call her ‘dry sister’ and she calls me ‘dry brother.’ From this you can tell the nature of our relationship!” He confided that Yuan Chunhui was the only woman he had loved. Nie Er letter to Zhang Yuhou (April 5, 1933), NEQJ 2: 137. 99. Nie Er diary (September 19, 1930), NEQJ 2: 248.



Notes to Pages 34–41

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100. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 144. It is unclear who Zheng Ruoju was. 101. Nie Er diary (January 15, 1930), NEQJ 2: 216–217. 102. Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 147. 103. Nie Xulun describes how he had left Osaka for Kunming to provide a financial report to the Yunnan Far East Fur and Skin Company. He had also planned to have his younger brother replace him as an accountant at the company, but the plan for Nie Er to work in Japan was foiled when the price of cowhides and sheepskins collapsed. The company then diverted its business to Shanghai as the Yunfeng shenzhuang, a branch store specializing in Lianzhu cigarettes. The company accepted Nie Xulun’s proposal that his brother be allowed to work there as a “customs officer.” Nie, Shaonian shidai de Nie Er, 148. Chapter 2  Reading Nie Er’s Diary 1. Written in 1939, Liu’s text exhorted Communists to be selfless, altruistic, and loyal to the party, and to honor the collective good. Liu Shaoqi, “How to Be a Good Communist,” in Wm. Theodore De Bary and Richard Lufrano, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition from 1600 through the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 427–432. In crafting the official representation of Nie Er, the 1964 edition of his diary deleted information that tarnished a more idealized image. For instance, references to Nie’s mother playing mah-jongg are omitted as is Nie’s caustic remark on December 30, 1927 that Western culture was deprived of “three essential features of Chinese culture—women’s bound feet, opium and mah-jongg.” Zhongguo yinyue xueyuan and Zhongguo yinyue yanjiusuo, bian, Nie Er zhuanji [Nie Er special collection], vol. 2 (Beijing, Neibu ziliao, 1964), 7. Professor Pu Fang related that the editorial committee (which included her father) overseeing the 1985 publication of the Complete Works of Nie Er discussed omitting diary entries that touched on Nie Er’s romantic interests, perceiving these to be embarrassing to his legacy. Ultimately, however, the diary was published in its entirety. Conversation with Pu Fang (Beijing, August 20, 2016). 2. Nie Er diary (October 25, 1931), NEQJ 2: 323. 3. Claiming that popularization was the central task of the artistic movement and that he would no longer be “distant from the masses,” Nie Er remarked that he no longer needed to write a detailed life chronology (nianpu), since individual and family matters were of no concern to society. Nie Er diary (October 19, 1930), NEQJ 2: 246. 4. Nie Er diary (July 14, 1935), NEQJ 2: 541. 5. Nie’s contemporary, the modernist writer Mu Shiying, coined the phrase to describe the contradictory thrills and revulsions evoked by the metropolis. Andrew David Field, Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919–1954 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2010), 8. 6. Nie Er diary (October 21, 1932), NEQJ 2: 477. A graduate of Yunnan’s First Provincial Middle School, Ke Zhongping was a student activist in Kunming during the May Fourth Movement. After attending the Beiping University of Law and Politics, he worked in Shanghai for the publishing department of the Creation Society Press before teaching at the Shanxi First Middle School and at Shanghai’s Jianshe (Construction) University. In 1930 he joined the CCP, and worked in the labor movement before being arrested and sentenced to execution. His sentence was later commuted to three years in prison. Best known as a radical poet, he also published in 1927 a series of lectures, “Geming yu yishu” [Revolution and art]. Wang Lin, ed., Ke Zhongping jinian wenji [Selected writings of Ke Zhongping] vol. 1 (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2002), 398–400.

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Notes to Pages 41–44

7. Marston Anderson, The Limits of Realism: Chinese Fiction in the Revolutionary Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). 8. Ban Wang, “Revolutionary Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism: Song of Youth,” in Kirk A. Denton, ed., The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 238. 9. Tani E. Barlow, ed., with Gary J. Bjorge, I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), 27. 10. Leo Ou-fan Lee, The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 111. 11. Yu Dafu, “Sinking,” trans. Joseph S. M. Lau and C. T. Hsia, in The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, eds. Joseph S. M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 44–69. 12. Jeannette Faurot, quoted in Kirk A. Denton, “The Distant Shore: Nationalism in Yu Dafu’s ‘Sinking,’ ” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 14 (December 1992): 109. 13. Henri Lefebvre, Critique of Everyday Life, trans. John Moore (London: Verso, 1991). 14. Rob Shields, Lefebvre, Love, and Struggle: Spatial Dialectics (London: Routledge, 1999), 72–73. 15. Nie Er letter to Nie Ziming (August 31, 1930), NEQJ 2: 122. 16. Nie Er letter to Zhang Yuhou (October 13, 1930), NEQJ 2: 126. 17. Nie Er letter to Nie Ziming (August 31, 1930), NEQJ 2: 123. 18. Nie Er letter to Zhang Yuhou (September 10, 1930), NEQJ 2: 124–125. 19. Zhang Cangrong, “Huiyi Nie Er,” 78. 20. Nie Er letter to Zhang Yuhou (September 10, 1930), NEQJ 2: 124. 21. Jiang Tongru letter to Nie Er (February 6, 1929) in Nie Er Archives, File 329. 22. Born in Yuxi county to a farm family, Zheng Yili enrolled at Beijing University’s Agricultural Institute in 1924 and joined the New Yunnan Association led by Wang Desan. In 1927 Zheng attended the Tokyo Industrial School before returning to Yunnan in 1928 and joining the CCP. The repressive climate led Zheng to seek exile in Shanghai, where he associated with Nie Er and with fellow Yunnanese Marxists Ai Siqi and Huang Luofeng. During the 1930s, Zheng became chairman of Readers Life press and published with Ai Siqi their co-translation of Dialectical Materialism, renamed Xin zhexue dagang [General outline of the new philosophy] (1936) to avoid censorship. Zheng commissioned and edited Guo Dali’s translation of Mar x’s Capital (1939). http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=Uy7f VtNLespcXpBe​ _S6Ik4buUL4SVDVakWI-oAGapxYz0Vb-yWA7B_6d1QtEpPJws67EG9DbPvUSdvHe9m 2jm. Accessed on June 2, 2016. Zhang Zaiyun, “Zhuiyi shishui liunian: Zibenlun zhongyiben fanyi chuban yishi” [Anecdote of publishing the Chinese translation of Capital], in Qi Song, ed., Zheng Yizhai he Zheng Yili (Yuxi: Yunnan Nie Er yinyue jijinhui and Yuxishi gaoxin jishu kaifaqu guanli weiyuanhui, 2007), 108–110. 23. Nie Er diary (February 9, 1931), NEQJ 2: 255. 24. Nie Er diary (February 23, 1931), NEQJ 2: 262. 25. Nie Er diary (August 6, 1930), NEQJ 2: 242. 26. Nie Er diary (February 20, 1931), NEQJ 2: 261. 27. Nie Er diary (March 7, 1931), NEQJ 2: 268. 28. Ibid. 29. Nie Er diary (November 11, 1930), NEQJ 2: 258. 30. Nie Er diary (March 18, 1931), NEQJ 2: 271. 31. Nie Er diary (March 8, 1931), NEQJ 2: 268.



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32. The film was produced by Universal in 1930 and starred Lew Ayres and Louis Wolheim. Nie Er diary (November 11, 1930), NEQJ 2: 251–252. 33. Lawrence Wang-chi Wong, “A Literary Organization with a Clear Political Agenda: The Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers, 1930–1936,” in Literary Societies of Republican China, eds. Kirk A. Denton and Michael Hockx (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 325–326. 34. Nie Er diary (November 8, 1930), NEQJ 2: 248–249. 35. Wang Yuhe, Nie Er yinyue zuopin (Changsha: Hunan wenyi chubanshe, 2003), 155. http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=S49hAqwrfGwomLx3RE7tlB3g4p2gPaELVKjXIIicRzjQ1B 4zQShBi4xKlA-gfcgTlDfTkrqj7xHEdJwbaQITVa. Accessed on June 1, 2016. 36. Nie Er diary (February 28, 1931), NEQJ 2: 265. 37. Nie Er diary (March 24, 1931), NEQJ 2: 274. 38. Nie Er diary (August 13, 1930), NEQJ 2: 243. 39. Ibid. 40. Nie Er diary (November 27, 1930), NEQJ 2: 252. 41. Nie Er diary (December 4, 1930), NEQJ 2: 252. 42. Nie Er diary (March 19, 1931), NEQJ 2: 272. 43. Nie Er letter to Nie Ziming (February 13, 1931), NEQJ 2: 131. 4 4. Nie Er diary (March 27, 1931), NEQJ 2: 275. 45. Michael G. Chang, “The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful,” in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, ed. Yingjin Zhang (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 146. Despite the name change, Nie Er uses the former term, “Bright Moon,” which I also retain. 46. Nie Er diary (April 1, 1931), NEQJ 2: 280. 47. Established in March 1930 by the Hong Kong producer Luo Mingyou (Law Ming-yao) and director Li Minwei (Lai Man-wai), Lianhua Productions sought to counteract American dominance of the Chinese film market by producing artistically attractive films and using Hollywood production and distribution techniques. Lianhua coopted previously independent film studios and established operations in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong; actors, musicians, and technicians were trained at in-house schools; and a managerial structure was established based on the Hollywood model of vertical integration that would oversee both production and distribution. Lianhua also emphasized its young actresses’ professional artistry and dedication to the patriotic mission to distance them from any association with prostitution, a common discourse on actresses in the 1920s. Anne Kerlan-Stephens, “The Making of Modern Icons: Three Actresses of the Lianhua Film Company,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 6, no. 1 (2007): 49, 66. 48. Chang, “The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful.” 49. Criticism of Li Jinhui’s yellow music came from May Fourth–era musicians, from the Nationalist government, and from leftist musicians such as Nie Er. Jones, Yellow Music. 102–103. 50. Wang Yuhe, Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyueshi [A history of modern Chinese music], 2nd ed. (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 2001), 149. 51. Jones, Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age, 83. 52. Nie Er diary (December 25, 1931), NEQJ 2: 342. 53. Nie Er diary (February 19, 1932), NEQJ 2: 54. Nie Er diary (July 1, 1931), NEQJ 2: 283. On how new sound technology and the proliferation of movie magazines facilitated Hu Die’s stardom, see Chang, “The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful,” 144–145. 55. Nie Er diary (August 22, 1931), NEQJ 2: 292.

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Notes to Pages 49–54

56. Nie Er diary (December 2, 1931), NEQJ 2: 332. 57. Nie Er diary (December 18, 1931), NEQJ 2: 339. Paths of Love was a collection of Kollontai’s stories “Three Generations” and “Sister,” as well as the Japanese Marxist novelist Hayashi Fusao’s essay on Kollontai’s sexual ethos that the leftist dramatist Xia Yan had translated from the Japanese. Lynn Pan, When True Love Came to China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015), 263. 58. The prime negative example was Li Jinguang, who “was quite willing to shake off his wife” and had the ambition of marrying a second woman. Li Jinguang’s frustration that he couldn’t accomplish anything with wife and child in tow led Nie to comment, “I felt sorry for him, but it serves him right! Didn’t he ask for it?” Nie Er diary (December 7 and 24, 1931), NEQJ 2: 334, 342. Nie also agreed with Kollontai’s emphasis on mutual recognition of the rights of the other when he chastised a colleague who was embittered upon finding an old love letter in his girlfriend’s possession. Nie asked him, “Why should you be selfish? Didn’t she have the freedom to have an old flame before your engagement?” Nie Er diary (January 9, 1932), NEQJ 2: 350. 59. Alexandra Kollontai, “Make Way for the Winged Eros,” in William G. Rosenberg, ed., Bolshevik Visions: First Phase of the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 94. 60. Nie Er diary (February 12, 1932), NEQJ 2: 368. 61. Nie Er diary (December 15, 1931), NEQJ 2: 337. 62. Nie Er diary (December 24, 1931), NEQJ 2: 341. 63. Ibid., 342. 6 4. Wang Renmei and Jie Bo, Wo de chengming yu buxing: Wang Renmei huiyilu [My fame and misfortune: Wang Renmei’s memoir] (Beijing: Tuanjie chubanshe, 2007), 46. 65. Nie Er diary (November 29, 1931), NEQJ 2: 331. 66. Nie Er diary (December 6, 1931), NEQJ 2: 333. 67. Ibid. 68. Nie Er diary (August 17, 1931), NEQJ 2: 290. 69. Nie Er diary (September 24, 1931), NEQJ 2: 309. 70. Nie Er diary (September 23, 1931), NEQJ 2: 308. Tian Han directed the Southern Drama Society (Nanguo She), which the Korean-born Jin Yan joined in 1928 after working odd jobs in the film industry. In 1930, Jin’s movie career took off after he joined the Lianhua movie studio and assuming leading roles with Wang Renmei in films such as Ye meigui (Wild Rose). His charisma and rugged good looks made him the “Rudolph Valentino of Shanghai.” Richard J. Meyer, Jin Yan: The Rudolph Valentino of Shanghai (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), 121. 71. Ibid. 72. Nie Er diary (December 14, 1931), NEQJ 2: 336. Xiao Bai was Nie Er’s diminutive name for Bai Lizhu, aka Bai Hong. Li Jinhui had recruited her for Bright Moon when she was thirteen and later introduced her to act in Dan Duyu’s 1934 film, Renjian xianzi (A female celestial among humans), but her forte remained singing. At her peak in the 1940s, considered one of Shanghai’s Seven Great Singing Stars, she developed a loose swinging jazz style. Until their divorce in 1950, she was married to composer Li Jinguang. http://www.kuwo.cn/mingxing​ /%E7%99%BD%E8%99%B9/info.htm. Accessed on May 21, 2015. 73. Nie Er diary (December 15, 1931), NEQJ 2: 337. 74. Nie Er diary (January 29, 1932), NEQJ 2: 360. 75. Nie Er diary (June 29, 1931), NEQJ 2: 281. 76. Nie Er diary (July 5, 1931), NEQJ 2: 286. 77. Nie Er diary (August 16, 1931), NEQJ 2: 289.



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7 8. Nie Er diary (August 26, 1931, December 19, 1931), NEQJ 2: 294, 339. 79. Nie Er diary (December 31, 1931), NEQJ 2: 344. 80. Nie Er diary (January 3, 1932), NEQJ 2: 346. 81. Nie Er diary (October 16, 1931), NEQJ 2: 319. 82. Nie Er diary (January 23, 1932), NEQJ 2: 356. 83. Nie Er diary (October 23, 1931), NEQJ 2: 322. 84. Wang Yong, Ruqin heyi: Yihai wuya: Wang Renyi xiansheng cishi ershi zhounian jinian [Unity between man and violin, artistry reaching the corners of the world: Commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Mr. Wang Renyi’s death] (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi yinxiang chubanshe, 2007), 38. 85. Nie Er diary (February 9, 1931), NEQJ 2: 255. 86. Nie Er diary (February 9, 1931), NEQJ 2: 254–255. 87. Nie Er diary (June 29, 1931), NEQJ 2: 281. 88. Nie Er diary (August 30, 1931), NEQJ 2: 296. 89. Nie Er diary (February 15, 1932), NEQJ 2: 369. 90. Nie Er diary (November 18, November 25, 1931), NEQJ 2: 329, 331. 91. Nie Er diary (December 2, 1931), NEQJ 2: 332. 92. Nie Er diary (September 15, 1932), NEQJ 2: 464. 93. Nie Er diary (October 4, 1931), NEQJ 2: 315. 94. Ibid. 95. Nie Er diary (August 29, 1931), NEQJ 2: 295. 96. Nie Er diary (March 6, 1931), NEQJ 2: 267. 97. Nie Er diary (September 28, 1931), NEQJ 2: 311. 98. Nie Er diary (October 28, 1931), NEQJ 2: 324. 99. Nie Er diary (October 29, 1931), NEQJ 2: 324. 100. Nie Er diary (September 4, 1931), NEQJ 2: 300. 101. Nie Er diary (September 4, 1931), NEQJ 2: 298. 102. Nie Er diary (July 4, 1931), NEQJ 2: 285. 103. Nie Er diary (May 29, 1932), NEQJ 2: 409. 104. Nie Er diary (August 28, 1931), NEQJ 2: 295. 105. Nie Er diary (November 4, 1931), NEQJ 2: 325. 106. Nie Er diary (October 15, 1931), NEQJ 2: 319. 107. Nie Er diary (November 5, 1931), NEQJ 2: 325. 108. Nie Er diary (January 18, 1932),NEQJ 2: 355. 109. Nie Er diary (July 21, 1932), NEQJ 2: 435. 110. Nie Er diary (October 26, 1931), NEQJ 2: 323. 111. Nie Er diary (December 25, 1931), NEQJ 2: 342. 112. Nie Er diary (September 5, 1931), NEQJ 2: 301. 113. Nie Er diary (September 11, 1931), NEQJ 2: 303. 114. Nie Er diary (November 22, 1931), NEQJ 2: 340. 115. Nie Er diary (January 22, 1932), NEQJ 2: 356. 116. Nie Er diary (February 7, 1932), NEQJ 2: 365. 117. Nie Er diary (September 20, 1931), NEQJ 2: 307. 118. Nie Er diary (September 21, 1931), NEQJ 2: 308. 119. Nie Er diary (September 24, 1931), NEQJ 2: 310. 120. Nie Er diary (January 29, January 31, and February 2, 1932). For a diplomatic and military study of the war, see Donald A. Jordan, China’s Trial by Fire: The Shanghai War of 1932 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001).

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Notes to Pages 58–65

121. Nie Er diary (January 29, 1932), NEQJ 2: 359. 122. Nie Er diary (January 30, 1932), NEQJ 2: 360. 123. Nie Er diary (February 1, 1932), NEQJ 2: 362. 124. Nie Er diary (February 4, 1932), NEQJ 2: 364. 125. Ibid. 126. Nie Er diary (March 21, 1932), NEQJ 2: 383. 127. Nie Er diary (May 19, 1932), NEQJ 2: 404. 128. Nie Er diary (May 18, 1932), NEQJ 2: 404. 129. Nie Er, “Zhongguo gewu duanlun” [Opinion piece on China’s song and dance], Dian­ ying yishu [Cinematic Art] (July 22, 1932), NEQJ 2: 48. 130. Nie Er diary (June 16, 1932), NEQJ 2: 423. 131. Curiously, Nie had praised the ensemble on its recent tour to Hankou for maintaining its dignity and avoiding appeals based on “erotic sexiness” (xiangyan rougan). Nie Er diary (June 1, 1932), NEQJ 2: 411. 132. Nie Er diary (July 30, 1932), NEQJ 2: 440. 133. Zheng Yili’s “Heitianshi shidai de Nie Er” [Nie Er during the times of Black Angel], in Zhongguo yinyuexueyuan, Zhongguo yinyue yanjiusuo, Nie Er zhuanji, vol. 3 (Beijing, 1964), 115. 134. Nie Er diary (August 1, 1932), NEQJ 2: 444. 135. Ibid. 136. NEQJ 2: 555. 137. Wang Liming, Nie Er zai lishi yinjizhong jiexi renmin yinyuejia [Nie Er: Analyzing the people’s musician from historical images and records] (Kunming: Yunnan chubanshe and Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2016), 55. 138. Nie Er diary (February 9, 1931), NEQJ 2: 253. 139. Nie Er diary (December 24, 1931), NEQJ 2: 341. 140. Nie Er diary (February 28, 1932), NEQJ 2: 373. 141. Nie Er diary (April 6, 1932), NEQJ 2: 392. 142. Nie Er diary (May 16, 1932), NEQJ 2: 403. 143. Nie Er diary (June 16, 1932), NEQJ 2: 422. Italics in original. 144. Nie Er diary (May 17, 1932), NEQJ 2: 403. 145. Nie Er diary (June 15, 1932), NEQJ 2: 421. 146. Nie Er diary (June 28, 1932), NEQJ 2: 429. 147. Letter from Nie Er to Peng Jikuan in NEQJ 2: 133. The letter is undated, but editors of Nie Er’s Complete Works suggest that it was written on June 28, 1932, based on Nie’s diary reference. 148. Nie Er diary (July 30, 1932), NEQJ 2: 441. 149. Nie Er first uses this term in Nie Er diary (May 16, 1932), NEQJ 2: 403. 150. Haiyan Lee, Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China, 1900–1950 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), 261. Chapter 3  The Politics of Music 1. See, for example, Xiaomei Chen, “Tian Han and the Southern Society Phenomenon: Networking the Personal, Communal, and Cultural,” in Kirk A. Denton and Michel Hockx, eds., Literary Societies of Republican China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 241–278. Contrary to Cheng Jihua’s interpretation, which emphasizes the CCP’s role in guiding the ideological cohesiveness of left-wing films, Laikwan Pang argues that the left-wing artists’ approach to filmmaking was guided by “social thoughts that are critical of tradition and/or



Notes to Pages 66–73

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the contemporary.” This inclusive definition elides ideological differences among filmmakers. Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932–1937 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 5. 2. Wong, “A Literary Organization with a Clear Political Agenda,” 313–338. 3. Neither Nie Er nor Ai Siqi mention each other in their personal or public writings. We have only one letter that Nie wrote to Ai from Tokyo, describing his studies and the active music scene. Nie Er letter to Ai Siqi (May 11, 1935), NEQJ 2: 155. 4. Nie Er diary (February 7, 1932), NEQJ 2: 365. 5. Mina Yang, “East Meets West in the Concert Hall: Asians and Classical Music in the Century of Imperialism, Post-Colonialism, and Multiculturalism,” in Asian Music, 38, no. 1 (Winter–Spring, 2007), 3. 6. Ju Qihong, Ershi shiji Zhongguo yinyue [Twentieth-century Chinese music] (Qingdao: Qingdao chubanshe, 1992), 6. 7. Melvin and Cai, Rhapsody in Red, 87. 8. Hong-Yu Gong, “To Sing for the Nation: Japan, School Song and the Forging of a New National Citizenry in Late Qing China, 1895–1911,” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 13, no. 2 (December 2011): 47. 9. Feng Wenci, Zhongwai yinyue jiaoliushi [History of Chinese and Foreign Musical Exchange] (Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1998), 306. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., 308. 12. Huang Zi, “Zenyang cai ke chansheng wo guo minzu yinyue” [How we can develop our country’s national music], Chenbao (October 21, 1934), in Zhang Jingwei, ed., Sousuo lishi: Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyue wenlun xuanbian [In search of history: Selection of China’s modern and contemporary music essays] (Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, 2004), 173. Henceforth cited as ZJYWX. 13. The quotes and Nie Er’s reactions were written in Nie Er diary (January 8, 1932), NEQJ 2: 349–350. Xia published the essay on drama and music in the composer Sha Mei’s and playwright Zhang Min’s 1931 inaugural issue of the left-wing journal Huaju yu yinyue [Drama and Music]. The identity of Xia Mandi remains an open question. A foreign authorship was perhaps feigned to give more credence to the expressed views and also disguise the identity of the author, none other than Xia Guoqiong, the daughter of Dong Zhujun (one of China’s first female entrepreneurs and founder of the Jinjiang Hotel), at the time a sixteen-year old pianist and student of Sha Mei at the Shanghai Academy of Arts. Man Xinying, “Wuwang Xia Mandi: Tanxun Zhongguo nü gangqinjia Xia Guoqiong zaonian de yishu zuyi” [Exploring the Early Art Footprints of the Chinese Pianist Xia Guoqiong], in Gangqin yishu [Piano art] (2011.6): 12. 14. Tian Han, “Jiuyiba de huiyi” [Remembering the Manchurian Incident], Wenxue yuebao [Literature monthly] 1, no. 3 (October 15, 1932), in “Tian Han quanji” bianji weiyuanhui, ed., Tian Han quanji vol. 18 (henceforth abbreviated as THQJ) (Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000), 280. 15. Ming, Ershi shiji Zhongguo yinyue piping daolun, 161. 16. Nie Er, “Zhongguo gewu duanlun” NEQJ 2: 48. 17. Tian Han, “Yi Nie Er” [Remembering Nie Er], in Nie Er quanji (zeng dingban) xiajuan, ziliaojuan (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2011), 195. 18. Dong Jian, Tian Han zhuan [Biography of Tian Han] (Beijing: Beijing shiyue wenyi chubanshe, 1996), 426–428. 19. The authoritative Chinese biography of Tian Han is Dong Jian’s Tian Han zhuan. Besides his expertise in modern Chinese drama, Dong Jian was personally tied to Tian Han’s tragic

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Notes to Pages 73–79

denouement as a member of the revolutionary work committee that interrogated Tian during the Cultural Revolution. Dong’s approach is to trace Tian Han’s ideological and psychological development. By contrast, Xiaomei Chen analyzes how Tian’s personal life and relations with women influenced his work and the female characters of his dramas. Liang Luo questions the sharp break between the two decades in Tian Han’s conversion to Marxism, and underscores his hybrid qualities, straddling both the aesthetic avant-garde and the proletarian vanguard. Luo, The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China, 73–76. 20. Jarmila Haringová, “The Development of T’ien Han’s Dramatic Writings during the Years 1920–1937,” in Jaroslav Prusek, ed., Studies in Modern Chinese Literature (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1964), 139. 21. Ibid., 148. 22. Ming, Ershi shiji Zhongguo yinyue piping daolun, 162. 23. Cheng Fangwu, “From a Literary Revolution to a Revolutionary Literature,” in Kirk A. Denton, ed., Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893–1945 ((Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 274–275. 24. Ding Yi, Dazhong wenyi lunji [Collection of essays on popular literature] (Beijing shifandaxue, 1951), 5. 25. Nie Er diary (October 19, 1930), NEQJ 2: 246. 26. Guo Zhigang and Li You, eds., Zhongguo sanshi niandai wenxue fazhanshi [A History of Literature in China, 1930–1939] (Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1998), 42. 27. Tian Han, “Xiju dazhonghua he dazhonghua xiju” [The dramatization of popularization and the popularization of drama], Beidou 2, nos. 3–4 (July 20, 1932), in THQJ 15: 233. For the original quote from the German Marxist theorist Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin (January 1924), see http://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1924/reminiscences-of-lenin.htm​ #h03. Accessed February 18, 2014. 28. Tian Han, “Xiju dazhonghua he dazhonghua xiju,” in THQJ 15: 234. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., 235. 32. Ibid., 236. 33. For instance, the Blue Shirt Ensemble at the Songhu Railroad Machine Plant performed the play Explosion (Baozha), based on a boiler explosion at a Zhabei factory. Liu Ping, Xijuhun: Tian Han pingzhuan [The spirit of drama: A critical biography of Tian Han] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1998), 288. Ping Liu, “The Left-Wing Drama Movement in China and its Relationship to Japan,” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 14, no. 2 (2006): 461. 34. Liu, Xijuhun: Tian Han pingzhuan, 283. 35. Tian Han, “Nanguo” yuekan Su E dianying zhuanhao juantouyu [Preface to special issue on Soviet Russian cinema in Nanguo monthly], Nanguo yuekan 2, no. 4 (July 20, 1930), in THQJ 18: 72. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid., 73. Italics connote use of English in the original. 38. Tian Han, “Chongxing zhankai geming de minzu dianying yundong” [Launch the revolution’s national film movement], Zhonghua ribao (September 30, 1934), in THQJ 18: 111. 39. Ibid., 112. 40. Tian Han, “Sulian dianying yishu fazhan de jiaoxun yu wo guo dianying yundong de qiantu” [Lessons of Soviet cinematic development and prospects for our country’s film movement], Nanguo yuekan (July 20, 1930) 2, no. 4, in THQJ 18: 86. 41. Ibid., 83.



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42. Nie Er diary (May 16, 1932), NEQJ 2: 403. 43. Nie Er diary (May 28, 1932), NEQJ 2: 408. 4 4. Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 193. 45. Hei Tianshi, “Xialiu” [Low class], Dianying yishu, 1 (July 8, 1932), in NEQJ 2: 38. 46. Hei Tianshi, “He ‘Rendao’ de daoyuanzhe de duihua” Dianying yishu, no. 2 (July 15, 1932), in NEQJ 2: 39–40. 47. Hei Tianshi, “Shijiulujun yi bingshi: Xinwenpian coucheng da keyi zhuanqian” [Soldier of the Nineteenth Route Army: A news film happens to be made that can make profits], Shanghai Shibao, supplement Dianying shibao (July 10, 1932), NEQJ 2: 42. 48. For the connection between Allesandro Sardi, who directed LUCE (L’Unione Cinematografica Educativa) and represented the International Educational Cinematographic Institute, and the Chinese Education Film Association, see Zhu Jing, “Wo guo diyi ge dianhua jiaoyu zuzhi—Zhongguo jiaoyu dianying xiehui” [Our country’s first e-education organization: The Chinese Education Film Association], Dianhua jiaoyu yanjiu [E-education research], no. 214 (February 2011): 116–120. 49. Nie Er, “Dui jiaoyu dianyingxiehui suibian tantan wenwen” [An informal discussion about the Education Film Association], Shibao supplement Dianying shibao (July 14, 1932), in NEQJ 2: 46. 50. Nie Er, “Li Jinhui de “Bajiaoye shangshi” [Poem written on banana leaf]. Shibao supplement Dianying shibao (July 13, 1932), NEQJ 2: 45. 51. “Zhongguo gewu duanlun” [Opinion piece on Chinese song and dance]. Dianying yishu [Movie Art] (July 22, 1932), NEQJ 2: 48. 52. Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 202. 53. One such resident, Nie’s close friend Zhang He, reestablished ties to the party after the Manchurian Incident. Nie also was helped at the Yunnan huiguan by his friend Xu Qing, who had been imprisoned for two years before coming to Beiping, and his wife, Chen Zhonghu. The adopted daughter of the director of the Yunnan Xuanwei Ham Company, Chen provided Nie with financial assistance to tide him over in Beiping when he arrived strapped for cash. Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 204. 54. Lu Wanmei, “Nie Er zai Beiping” [Nie Er in Beiping], in Yinyue yanjiu, 3 (1980), in “Nie Er quanji” bianji weiyuanhui, ed., Nie Er quanji, vol. 3 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2011), 212. 55. Wang, Nie Er zhuan, 204. 56. Nie Er diary (August 12, 1932), NEQJ 2: 449. 57. Lu Wanmei, “Nie Er zai Beiping,” 213. 58. Nie Er diary (August 21–22, October 17, 1932), NEQJ 2: 452, 474. 59. Nie Er diary (September 16, 1932), NEQJ 2: 464. 6 0. For these episodes, see Nie Er diary (August 13, August 19, August 29, August 31, October 22, 1932), NEQJ 2: 450, 451, 453, 455, 478. 61. Nie Er diary (August 31, 1932), NEQJ 2: 455. 62. Nie Er diary (August 19, 1932), NEQJ 2: 451. 63. Nie Er diary (August 16, October 15, October 21), NEQJ 2: 450, 473, 477. 6 4. Nie Er diary (August 31, 1932), NEQJ 2: 455. 65. Nie Er diary (August 19, 1932), NEQJ 2: 450. 66. Madeleine Yue Dong, “Juggling Bits: Tianqiao as Republican Beijing’s Recycling Center,” Modern China 25, no. 3 (July 1999): 303–342. 67. Nie Er diary (September 11, 1932), NEQJ 2: 461–462. 68. Nie Er diary (September 23, 1932), NEQJ 2: 467.

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69. Ibid. 70. Nie Er diary (September 21, 1932), NEQJ 2: 467. 71. Nie Er diary (September 16, 1932), NEQJ 2: 72. Nie Er diary (October 28, 1932), NEQJ 2: 73. Nie Er diary (September 25, 1932), NEQJ 2: 74. Nie Er diary (October 19, 1932), NEQJ 2: 75. Nie Er diary (October 14, 1932), NEQJ 2: 76. Nie Er diary (October 27, 1932), NEQJ 2: 77. Nie Er diary (October 13, 1932), NEQJ 2: 78. Li Lanqing, Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyue bitan [Essays on the modern music of China] (Beijing: Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 2009), 326. 79. Later, they would be joined by Zhang Shu’s wife and fellow musician, Zhou Ji, and by Lü Ji, who returned to Shanghai from Wuhan in October 1933. Similar to his mentorship of Nie Er, Tian Han worked with Zhang Shu, who wrote interlude music for several of Tian’s dramas. Zhang had joined the Southern Drama Society in 1926 and pursued his musical training in voice and composition at the Shanghai Arts University and the National Conservatory of Music. Between 1929 and 1932, Zhang was arrested twice, did prison time, and emerged a full-fledged revolutionary. Through the introduction of Tian Han, Zhang joined the CCP in 1933. Wang Xiaopeng, “Jiuge chuan sihai—yisi zu qianqiu: Zuoqujia Zhang Shu” [Nine songs spread across the land, upon death still worth a thousand years: Composer Zhang Shu], in Xiang Yansheng, ed., Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyuejia zhuan (henceforth abbreviate as ZJYZ) [Biography of modern and contemporary Chinese musicians], vol. 2 (Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, 1994), 3–5. Wang Yuhe, Zhongguo jindai yinyueshi [Modern History of Chinese Music] (Beijing: Zhongyang minzu daxue chubanshe, 2006), 288. 80. Chen, “Tian Han and the Southern Society Phenomenon,” 270. 81. Zhou Qiying, “Sulian de yinyue” fanhouji [Translator’s postscript to Soviet music], from Joseph Freeman, translated by Zhou Qiying (Shanghai: Shanghai liangyou yinfa gongsi chuban, 1932) in ZJYWX, 197. Freeman’s essay appeared in Joseph Freeman, Joshua Kunitz, and Louis Lozowick, eds., Voices of October: Art and Literature in Soviet Russia (New York: Vanguard Press, 1930). 82. Ibid. Alexander Alexandrovich Davidenko graduated in 1929 from the Moscow Conservatory after studies with Reinhold Glière and Alexander Kastalsky. In 1925, he composed one of his most popular works, “Budenny’s Cavalry,” and became the first Russian composer to name it a “mass song.” From 1925 to 1929 he headed the Production Collective of Student Composers of the Moscow Conservatory (Prokoll), worked with amateur musical groups, and authored numerous songs and choral compositions with revolutionary themes and (with Boris Shekhter) the opera, The Year 1905. Daniel Jaffé, Historical Dictionary of Russian Music (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012), 99. 83. Zhou, “Sulian de yinyue” fanhouji, in ZJYWX, 197. 84. Lü Ji, “Huiyi Zuoyi julian yinyue xiaozu” [Remembering the small music group of the League of Left-Wing Dramatists], in Lü Ji wenxuan [Lü Ji selected works], vol. 2 (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 1988), 99. 85. Nie Er diary (June 3, 1933), NEQJ 2: 511. 86. Tian Han, “Yi Nie Er” [Remembering Nie Er], in Nie Er quanji (zeng dingban) xiajuan, ziliaojuan (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2011), 196. 87. Nie Er diary (May 27, 1933), NEQJ 2: 510. 88. Li Yedao suggests Lü’s anarchist leanings with details of his learning Esperanto during 1925 alongside anarchist classmates at the Hunan First Provincial Normal School, a friend’s



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warning to Lü two years later not to return to the school because anarchists were being arrested, Lü’s enrollment in December 1927 at the Shanghai Labor University, his translation of the article “On Tolstoy” for the anarchist editor Lu Jianbo’s journal, “Wenhua pipan” [Cultural criticism], and a brief teaching stint at a school in Quanzhou dominated by Communists and anarchists. Li Yedao, Lü Ji pingzhuan [Biography of Lü Ji] (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 2001), 7–13. 89. Ting Shi, “Cong yinyue yishu shuo dao Zhongguo de shiyongzhuyi” [From music art to discussing China’s pragmatism], Xinyebao “yinyue zhoukan,” no. 4 (October 25, 1934), in ZJYWX, 200. 9 0. Mu Hua (Lü Ji), “Da duhai yinyue de weixin lunzhe—Mr. Ting Shi,” published in Zhong­ hua ribao (December 8, 1934), in ZJYWX, 207. 91. Nie Er, “Yi nian lai de Zhongguo yinyue,” in NEQJ 2: 86. 92. Ibid. 93. Nie Er diary (June 3, 1933), NEQJ 2: 511. 94. Wang, Nie Er yinyue zuopin, 167, and Xiang Yansheng, “ ‘Sulian zhi youshe’ yinyue xiaozu yu ‘Zhong Su yinyue xuehui’ ” [Soviet Union Friendship Society Music Group and the Sino Soviet Music Society], in Yuefan shiji: Xiang Yansheng yinyuexue yanjiu wenji [Historical relics of music: Xiang Yansheng’s collected essays on musicological research] (Jinan: Shandong wenyi chubanshe, 2002), 338. 95. Tian Han, “Yi Nie Er” [Remembering Nie Er], in Nie Er quanji (zeng dingban) xiajuan, ziliaojuan (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2011), 196. 96. Tian Han, “Kan yingpian ‘Nie Er’ hou” [After watching the film Nie Er], Dazhong dian­ ying [Mass cinema] (1960), in THQJ 18: 240. 97. Nie Er, “Zhongguo gewu duanlun,” in NEQJ 2: 48. 98. Nie Er diary (June 3, 1933), NEQJ 2: 511. 99. Wang, Nie Er yinyue zuopin, 18. 100. Zhao and Huang were the leading songwriters and composers among the May Fourth generation. After graduate work in linguistics at Harvard, Zhao assumed a post at the Central Research Institute in Beiping from 1928 to 1938. His representative work, Collection of New Poems and Songs (1928), showed a mastery of harmony and counterpart and the ability to match tune and lyrics. Huang developed a compositional technique rooted in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European music as reflected by his cantata, Changhen’ge [Song of everlasting regret] and orchestral overture, Huaijiu [In memoriam] (1929). Liu, A Critical History of New Music in China, 12, 141, 151. Although he followed the styles of Schubert and Schumann, Zhao developed a Chinese musical style by using the rhythms found in chanted poetry, using brief interludes to impart a Chinese operatic flavor, and developing harmony with the pentatonic scale. Upon returning to China in 1929 and becoming a major figure in teaching (music theory and composition) at the National Conservatory of Music, Huang composed primarily vocal music—art songs (based on Tang and Song poetry), anti-Japanese patriotic songs, and children’s songs. His representative patriotic songs include “Resist the Enemy” (Kang di ge) and “The Flag Is Fluttering” (Qizheng piaopiao, 1933) both four-part choral works based on march rhythm and abundant polyphony. These patriotic songs originate the march style and folk song tone that Nie Er would later advance. Between 1933 and 1935, Huang wrote twenty-eight student songs to counter the allegedly “lewd” songs of Li Jinhui. Despite being labelled an “academic” composer and smeared by the CCP, especially by the late 1950s, he shared common ground with Nie Er in his patriotic songs, his aversion to popular songs, and, by the mid-1930s, his use of new-style poetry as the basis of his lyrics. Nancy Hao-Ming Chao, “Twentieth Century Chinese Vocal Music with Particular Reference to Its Development and Nationalistic Charac-

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teristics from the May Fourth Movement (1919) to 1945,” PhD diss., University of California Los Angeles, 1995), 87, 90, 115, 119. 101. This paragraph is indebted to Andrew Jones’s analysis in Yellow Music, 107–109. The two quotes are from page 109. 102. Ibid., 70. Chapter 4  Composing for the Revolution 1. Nie played the roles of an accountant, a doctor, a peddler, and a violinist in the films Chengshi zhi ye, Tiyu huanghou, Xiao wanyi, and Chuxi. Wang Liming, Nie Er: Zai lishi yinjizhong jiexi renmin yinyuejia, 10. 2. The association, which issued a manifesto advocating the organization of film workers to combat the aggression of imperialism and oppression of feudal forces, was a veritable “who’s who” of the Shanghai film industry. See Feng Desheng and Cun Wenxue, Nie Er: Cong Yunnan dashan zouchulai de yinyue dashi [Nie Er: From the Yunnan mountains to a music master] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1999), 278; and Cheng Jihua, Li Shaobai, and Xing Zuwen, Zhongguo dianying fazhan shi (diyi juan) [The development of Chinese cinema, volume one] (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1963; Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1998), 196. 3. Nie Er diary (January 29, 1934), NEQJ 2: 516. 4. A full listing of the songs is provided in the appendix table, “Nie Er’s Song Compositions.” 5. Wang Yuhe, Nie Er yinyue zuopin. 6. Liu, A Critical History of New Music in China, 156. 7. For why Nie Er should be considered a songwriter rather than a composer, see Wang Xilin’s April 20, 2014, blog post, “Zai lun Nie Er bushi zuoqujia—60 nian de fansi” [Further discussion of why Nie Er is not a composer: Sixty years of reflection], accessed on http://blog.sina​ .com.cn/s/blog_93e305950101hxnl.html (October 22, 2017). Wang, an acclaimed symphonic composer in the PRC, seeks to reverse the standards used during the Maoist era and rehabilitate composers trained in the Western tradition since many had been persecuted as rightists. 8. Thus, The Complete Works of Nie Er misleadingly presents Nie Er’s compositions with the addition of piano accompaniment. Although these arrangements may keep to the spirit of Nie Er, Liu Ching-chih is correct to note, “One cannot go further and examine the agreement, contrasts, balance, variations, etc., between his harmonic colour and his melodies, harmony, and lyrics, because the piano accompaniments to his songs were not written by him.” Liu, A Critical History of New Music in China, 160. 9. See John Winzenburg, “Aaron Avshalomov and New Chinese Music,” in Twentieth-Century China 37, no. 1 (January 2012): 69, and Hon-Lun Yang, “The Shanghai Conservatory, Chinese Musical Life, and the Russian Diaspora, 1927–1949,” in Twentieth-Century China 37, no. 1 (January 2012): 81. 10. An Ping, “Nie Er de minzu qiyue chuangzuo” [Nie Er’s compositions for national musical instruments], in Renmin yinyue [People’s Music] 249, no. 12 (1985): 11. 11. Frederick Lau, Music in China: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), xv. 12. According to musicologist Fan Zuyin, some twenty-four songs, approximately twothirds of Nie’s compositions, rely on pentatonic modes. “Nie Er gequ diaoshi yanjiu” [Research on Nie Er’s song modes], in NEYYW, 28. I have identified the pentatonic mode or key of each song in the appendix table, “Nie Er’s Song Compositions.” The pentatonic scale consists of five main tones (zhengyin). Each of the five tones (Gong, Shang, Jue, Zhi, Yu) can serve as the tonic



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of a scale and is named after the tone, e.g., Gong scale. Each scale has many kinds of variations by adding one (and less frequently) two bianyin. 13. Nie Er letter to Peng Jikuan (May 28, 1933), NEQJ 2: 139. 14. Chang-tai Hung, Going to the People: Chinese Intellectuals and Folk Literature, 1918–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies Harvard University, 1985), 17. 15. Laurence A. Schneider, Ku Chieh-kang and China’s New History: Nationalism and the Quest for Alternative Traditions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 137. 16. For details on Li’s classification and transcription of folksongs that would lay the foundation for a music of the common people ( pingmin yinyue), see Li Zerong, “Ertong gewuju de chuangshizhe—zuoqujia Li Jinhui” [Pioneer of children’s song and dance—composer Li Jinhui], in ZJYZ 1: 180–182. 17. Nie Er diary (September 23, 1932, and March 7, 1933), NEQJ 2: 467, 498. 18. Nie Er letter to Zhang Yuhou (October 31, 1934), NEQJ 2: 148. 19. Wang, Nie Er yinyue zuopin, 173. 20. Nie probably learned about northern Chinese folksongs in 1932 from his Left League dramatist friends in Beiping who had performed for several weeks in Suiyuan. Xiang Yan­sheng, “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guoge de zuoquzhe: Zuoqujia Nie Er” [The People’s Republic of China’s composer of the national anthem: Composer Nie Er], in ZJYZ 2: 224. 21. In terms of pentatonic modes, parts one and three use the C “Gong” scale. The first part ends on a G, thus connecting seamlessly into the second part, which is based on the “Zhi” pentatonic scale of G. An Ping, “Nie Er de minzu qiyue chuangzuo” [Nie Er’s compositions of traditional instrumental music], in Renmin yinyue 249 (December 1985): 13. 22. Nie indicates some twenty million people had visited the West Lake Exposition. Nie Er letter to Zhang Yuhou (May 28, 1933), NEQJ 2: 140. 23. Hon-Lun Yang, “Music, China, and the West: A Musical-Theoretical Introduction,” in Hon-Lun Yang and Michael Saffle, eds., China and the West: Music, Representation, and Reception (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), 9. 24. Nie Er letter to Nie Xulun (undated, but editors suggest it was written in July 1934), NEQJ 2: 146. 25. Wang Weiyi, “Nie Er de ‘Jinshe kuangwu’ ” [Nie Er’s ‘Jinshe kuangwu’], in Renmin yinyue 417 (January, 2001): 21. 26. Nie’s approach was likely informed by Shanghai’s Great Unity Music Society (Datong yuehui), an amateur music organization promoting traditional Chinese music. Zheng Jinwen founded the music society in 1920, and it remained active until 1937. Zheng advocated modern Western standards for technique, instrumental organization, and improving tone quality of traditional instruments so they could play in harmony and produce “sonic qualities in synch with Western music aesthetics.” Frederick Lau, “Nationalizing Sound on the Verge of Chinese Modernity,” in Kai-Wing Chow et al., eds., Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm: In Search of Chinese Modernity (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2008), 214. Nie was well aware of the ensemble, having panned one of their August 1934 performances for their lack of good instruments, insufficient technique, and choice of repertoire (Zhonghe Shaoye), a “simple melody without harmony.” Nie, “Yi nian lai de Zhongguo yinyue,” in NEQJ 2: 85. 27. The Little Painter was inspired by a Russian amateur theater troupe’s performance of a farce about “feudal family education.” The opera represents Li’s goals for a new educational system in which the arts (in this case painting) would emancipate the individual. Ming, Zhongguo xin yinyue, 64–65; He Xide, ed., Ershi shiji Zhongguo wenyi tuwenzhi: Yinyue juan [­Twentieth-century Chinese literature and arts pictorial and text gazetteer: Music volume] (Shenyang: Shenyang chubanshe, 2002), 33–34. Li’s songs in his early children’s operas followed

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Notes to Pages 101–103

the school song tradition of adding lyrics to preexisting melodies (xuanqu tianci). For instance, the song “Feifeiqu” from Sparrow and Child, is an adaptation of Shen Xingong’s school song, “Blacksmith” (Tiejiang, 1912), which itself was an adaptation of an English Country dance. Wang Yuhe, Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyueshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao vol. 1 (Xian: Shijie tushu chuban Xian gongsi, 2000), 24, 43, 102–104. 28. As cited in Ming, Zhongguo xin yinyue, 62. 29. Li’s quote cited in Pu Fang, “Nie Er de ertong gequ chuangzuo” [Nie Er’s composition of children’s songs], in Tianfu xinsheng: Shenyang yinyue xueyuan xuebao 3, no. 4 (December 1985): 37. 30. “Xiao Yemao” (Little wild kitten), cited in NEQJ 1: 31–33. All lyric translations are provided by the author. 31. Joshua H. Howard, “A History of Child Labor in China,” in Kristoffel Lieten and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, eds., Child Labour’s Global Past, 1650–2000 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011), 501–526. 32. “Little Worker” (Xiao gongren), cited in NEQJ 1: 104. 33. Pu, “Nie Er de ertong gequ chuangzuo,” 35. 34. “Song of the Newspaper Seller” (Maibaoge), cited in NEQJ 1: 22–24. For context on the song’s origins, see He Xide, ed., Ershi shiji Zhongguo wenyi tuwenzhi: Yinyuejuan, 62–63. 35. Xue Sisi, “Lingting lishi de shengyin: Ting Nie Er de gequ “Mai bao ge” suigan” [Respectfully listening to historical sound: Listening to Nie Er’s song, “Song of the Newspaper Seller”], in Liang Maochun, ed., 20 shiji Zhongguo mingqu jianshang [Appreciation of Twentieth-­ Century Chinese famous compositions] (Hefei: Anhui wenyi chubanshe, 2006), 52. 36. NEQJ 2: 558. 37. Lian Bo, Guoyue piaoxiang: Zhongguo chuantong yinyue wenhua shangxi [The Fragrance of National Music: Appreciation and Analysis of Chinese Traditional Music and Culture] (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 2001), 5–8. Igor Iwo Chabrowski, Singing on the River: Sichuan Boatmen and Their Work Songs, 1880s–1930s (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 113, 120. 38. “Mining Song” (Kaikuangge), cited in NEQJ 1: 15–19. 39. Against her mother’s wishes Xiao Ming proceeds to marry and moves to Southeast Asia. Her witnessing of brutality against the miners and the indifference of her in-laws are harbingers of her own treatment. Within a year of the marriage her husband becomes enamored with a sing-song girl and ignores Xiao Ming, who has become bedridden after giving birth to a baby girl. Upon receiving a telegram with the news of her daughter’s illness, Hui Ying implores her husband for travel money but he refuses her. By contrast, Jia Hu, who has established a nursery school for indigent and working-class children, agrees to pawn goods to raise money for the trip. Hui Ying finally relates to Xiao Ming the identity of her father. Xiao Ming divorces and returns to Shanghai with her mother and baby girl. Hui Ying also divorces and reunites with Jia Hu. The film ends tragically, though, when Xiao Ming’s infant dies of syphilis, contracted from her father. Xiao Ming performs a final concert—a fundraiser for the nursery school— while holding the dead child in her arms. 4 0. By 1929 Nie Er had received the translated lyrics of “The Volga Boatman” from his friend Ai Siqi. Zhao Yuanren’s “Song of Labor” (Laodong ge, 1922), which features work chants, may have influenced Nie’s “Mining Song,” but in Nie’s compositions, these figure more prominently as the motif. For Zhao’s song, see Wang Yuhe, Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyueshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao [Reference materials for the study of China’s modern and contemporary music history] Vol. 1 (Xian: Shijie tushu chuban Xian gongsi, 2000), 59–60. 41. Nie Er diary (May 11, 1932), NEQJ 2: 401. 42. “Dockworkers” (Matou gongren), cited in NEQJ 1: 37–40.



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43. Zhu Jian’er, “Nie Er gequ de yishu tese” [Artistic qualities of Nei Er’s songs], in Nie Er Xian Xinghai xuehui, ed., Jinian Nie Er 70 zhounian wenji (Wuhan, 1982), 209. Zhu Jian`er, China’s most acclaimed symphonic composer, was so inspired by Nie Er’s songs as a youth that when he heard of Nie’s death, he changed his name from Rongshi to Jian’er, which literally means “carrying out Nie Er’s will.” 4 4. Wang Yuhe, “Nie Er zai yishu chuangzuoshang de dadan chuangxin” [Bold innovation in Nie Er’s artistic compositions] Xinghai yinyue xueyuan xuebao [Xinghai Music Conservatory journal] no. 1 (1986): 5. 45. “Song of the Big Road” (Dalu ge), in NEQJ 1: 46–48. 46. Wang, Nie Er yinyue zuopin, 38. 47. The film’s indictment of tabloid journalism brought Cai Chusheng under intense pressure from media circles. In response, he made extensive cuts to New Woman. Ruan Lingyu’s portrayal of the victim Wei Ming also played a role in vindictive exposés of her private life, which contributed to her suicide on March 8, 1935. For her identification with her movie roles and how that affected her personal life, see Richard J. Meyer, Ruan Ling-yu: The Goddess of Shanghai (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005). 4 8. Wang Wenhe, Bainian dianying jinqu [One hundred years of golden film songs] (Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe, 2005), 13. 49. Nie Er letter to Lü Ji (May 21, 1935), NEQJ 2: 157. 50. Brian Newbould, Schubert: The Music and the Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 293. 51. “Daily Burden” (Tiantiange), cited in NEQJ 1: 62–63. 52. “Four Don’ts Song” (Si bu ge), cited in NEQJ 1: 64–65. 53. Wang, Bainian dianying jinqu, 13. 54. Nie Er letter to Lü Ji (May 21, 1935), NEQJ 2: 157. 55. “New Woman” (Xin nüxing), cited in NEQJ 1: 67–69. 56. “Huangpu River” (Huangpu jiang), from theme song of the UPS. film New Women (January 1935). 57. Unfortunately, no copy of the film exists. Wang Wenhe, Zhongguo dianying yinyue xunzong [Tracing the steps of Chinese film music] (Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe, 1995), 139. 58. “Village Girl beyond the Great Wall” (Saiwai cunnü), cited in NEQJ 1: 91–93. 59. This connection is made by Fan Zuyin, “Nie Er gequ diaoshi yanjiu,” in NEYYW, 30. 60. Hou Ruiyun, “Nie Er gequ zhong de nüxing xingxiang” [Women images in Nie Er’s songs], in Zhongguo Nie Er, Xian Xinghai xuehui bian, Lun Nie Xian: 1985 nian Zhongguo Nie Er, Xian Xinghai yinyue chuangzuo xueshu taolunhui wenji [Collected essays from the 1985 scholarly conference on Nie Er and Xian Xinghai’s musical compositions] (Beijng, unpublished manuscript, 1985), 263. 61. Wang, Nie Er yinyue zuopin, 78. 62. Red River refers to the Sino-French War of 1884–85, when Chinese imperial forces, largely from Guangxi and Yunnan, Liu Yongfu’s Black Flag Army, and Vietnamese troops clashed with the French over control of Tonkin. 63. “Mei Niang’s Song” (Mei Niang qu), cited in NEQJ 1: 83–86. 6 4. Wang, Nie Er yinyue zuopin, 80–81. 65. Interview with Liang Maochun, Beijing (March 31, 2008). 66. Xu Xingzhi was a well-known oil painter, film director, and art critic. Educated at the Shanghai Art Academy and the Shanghai Art Research Institute, Xu went to the Tokyo Art School in 1925 to study painting. There, he developed close bonds with Guo Moruo, Cheng

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Notes to Pages 112–126

Fangwu, and Yu Dafu. Upon returning to China in 1929, he became department chair of Western painting for the Shanghai China Arts University and a founding member of the Left League, and was selected chairman of the League’s Art Federation. In 1933, he designed sets for the Shanghai Tianyi studio and a year later began directing films for the Diantong Film Studio. During the early 1930s, Xu was a sharp critic of the “art for art’s sake” approach and of the crass commercialism among fellow artists. Xu advocated that proletarian art “must be a weapon in the class struggle.” He Xide, ed., Ershi shiji Zhongguo wenyi tuwenzhi-yinyuejuan, 69.See http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E8%AE%B8%E5%B9%B8%E4%B9%8B. Accessed November 14, 2013. For an interpretation of Xu Xingzhi’s film Fengyun ernü, which conjoins the screenwriter Tian Han’s twin projects of “creating a new woman” and “going to the people,” see Luo, The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China, 118–122. 67. Nie Er diary (August 17, 1931), NEQJ 2: 290. 68. “Girl under the Iron Hoof” (Tietixia de genü), cited in NEQJ 1: 100–101. 69. See for example Me Hong’s performance at http://v.youku.com/v_show/id​ _XMzYxOTE3OTU2.html. Accessed November 16, 2013. 70. F “Gong” scale corresponds to F—G—A—C—D. 71. These songs include “Dockworkers,” “Graduation Song” (Biyege, 1934), “Trailblazers,” “Coolie Song” (Kulige, 1934, later renamed “Song of Advance” [Qianjin ge]), “Refugee Song,” and “March of the Volunteers.” Fan Zuyin, “Nie Er gequ diaoshi yanjiu” [Research on Nie Er’s song modes], in NEYYW, 32. 72. A particular pentatonic scale is made up of two three-note rows/series with the same interval structure; for instance, 5-6-1 and 2-3-5 in Zhi scales and 6-1-2 and 3-5-6 in Yu scales. Ibid., 33. 73. “Graduation Song” (Biyege), cited in NEQJ 1: 43–45. 74. After betrayal by a Shanghai CCP member, Tian Han was arrested on February 20, 1935, and imprisoned until August. Dong, Tian Han zhuan, 446. 75. Tian Han, “Yingpian ‘Fengyun ernu’ he ‘Yiyongjun jinxingqu’ in THQJ, vol. 18, 155. Tian Han, “Yingshi zhuihuailu,” in “Nie Er quanji” bianji weiyuanhui, Nie Er quanji, xiajuan, ziliao bian, vol. 3 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2011), 206. Liu, Xiju hun:Tian Han pingzhuan, 308. 76. Nie wrote his mother: Dear Mama, Life changes quickly and is so unexpected. In just two or three days I will leave for Japan. Because I have a wonderful opportunity, I will be able to visit Europe but I will first go to Japan to investigate. The trip [to Europe] will depend on my results, so I must study hard. I will investigate cinema and music, dance and music, opera, etc . . . all travel and living expenses will be state funded. I won’t have to spend a cent myself and I’ll probably stay four to five months in Japan . . .” Nie Er letter to Peng Jikuan (April 9, 1935), NEQJ 2: 154. 77. “Yiyongjun jinxingqu” [March of the volunteers], cited in NEQJ 1: 102–103. 78. Dong, Tian Han zhuan, 436. 79. Ibid., 438. 80. For analysis of the anthem’s setting—the Paris Commune of 1871—and Pottier’s experience and belief in Proudhonism, see Donny Gluckstein, “Decyphering the Internationale: The code,” International Socialism: A Quarterly Review of Socialist Theory 120 (October 6, 2008). From the end of the Bolshevik Revolution until 1944, when the Soviet Union adopted the “Hymn of the Soviet Union” as its national anthem, “The Internationale” served as an unofficial anthem. The lyrics for “The Internationale” were translated from Russian into Chinese by the Communist leader Qu Qiubai in 1923. The latter two key words of the opening verse, “Qilai, jihanjiaopo de nuli” (Arise, slaves afflicted by hunger and cold), feature prominently in several of Nie Er’s



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songs, for instance, Dong Meikan’s lyrics “Jihan jiaopo zhi ge” (literally, “Song of Hunger and Cold”), Tian Han’s “Graduation Song,” and Xu Xingzhi’s “Girl under the Iron Hoof.” 81. Dong, Tian Han zhuan, 437. This call—a potent artistic symbol of nationalist ­consciousness—figured in 1935 in the much-admired woodblock print by Li Hua entitled “Roar, China!” See Tang, Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde, 213–227. It would also be the title of Langston Hughes’s famous anticolonial poem, published in the New Masses journal February 22, 1938. 82. For how the evocation of “March of the Volunteers” in various films has reinforced its emotional and nationalist impact by focusing on the mobilization of the body, see Robert Chi, “ ‘The March of the Volunteers’: From Movie Theme Song to National Anthem,” in Ching Kwan Lee and Guobin Yang, eds., Re-envisioning the Chinese Revolution: The Politics and Poetics of Collective Memories in Reform China (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 2007), 217–244. 83. It has been suggested that this instrumental accompaniment preceding the lyrics may have been arranged by the Russian composer Aaron Avshalomov, who agreed to complete the orchestration as requested by Nie Er shortly before his death. See Winzenburg, “Aaron Avshalomov and New Chinese Music, 1931–1947,” 69. Yet Nie Er’s score, published in Tokyo in December 1935, indicates that he had written the bugle introduction sans timpani. A facsimile of the score is printed in NEQJ 1: n.p. The film scene can be seen at https://www.youtube.com​ /watch?v=6icFnCSF2yA 84. Zhu, “Nie Er gequ de yishu tese,” 212. 85. Tong Zhongliang, “Lun ‘Yiyongjun jinxingqu’ de shulie jiegou” [Discussing numerical structure of “March of the Volunteers”], in Zhongguo Nie Er, Xian Xinghai xuehui bian, Lun Nie Xian: 1985 nian Zhongguo Nie Er, Xian Xinghai yinyue chuangzuo xueshu taolunhui wenji [1985 Conference proceedings on China’s Nie Er and Xian Xinghai musical compositions] (Nie Er Xian Xinghai xuehui bianyin chuban, 1986), 184. 86. Liang Maochun, “Shiji zhi ge: Ping Nie Er de gequ, ‘Yiyongjun jinxingqu’ ” [Song of the century: Assessing Nie Er’s March of the Volunteers], in Liang, 20 shiji Zhongguo mingqu jianshang, 77. 87. By the mid 1930s, the term had become a mark of approval, used to describe other popular military songs that “March of the Volunteers” had inspired. These included Xian Xinghai’s “National Salvation Army Song” (Jiuguo junge, 1936), Mai Xin’s “March of the Broadswords” (Dadao jinxingqu, 1937), He Lüting’s “Partisans Song” (Youjiduige, 1938), Zheng Lücheng’s “March of the Eighth Route Army” (Balujun jinxingqu, 1939), and He Shide’s “Military Anthem of the New Fourth Army” (Xin sijun junge, 1939). 88. Richard Kraus, Pianos and Politics, 49; Isabel K. F. Wong, “Geming gequ: Songs for the Education of the Masses,” in Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1979, ed. Bonnie S. McDougall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 121, 136, 143. Chapter 5  The Making of a National Icon 1. Hon-Lun Yang, “Power, Politics, and Musical Commemoration: Western Musical Figures in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1964,” in Music and Politics 1, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 1–15. 2. Anderson, Imagined Communities. 3. Tuohy, “The Sonic Dimensions of Nationalism in Modern China: Musical Representation and Transformation,” 109.

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4. Ming, Ershi shiji Zhongguo yinyue piping daolun, 167. 5. Ibid., 165. 6. Luo, The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China, chap. 4. 7. Nie Er diary (July 9, 1935), NEQJ 2: 534. 8. Nie Er diary (July 7, 1935), NEQJ 2: 530. 9. Nie Er diary (July 14, 1935), NEQJ 2: 541. 10. Nie Er diary (April 22, 1935), NEQJ 2: 526. 11. Nie Er diary (July 10, 1935), NEQJ 2: 535. 12. Nie Er diary (April 24, 1935), NEQJ 2: 527. 13. Nie Er, “Riben Yingtan yi jiao” [A corner of Japan’s film forum], Yisheng [Sound of Art], vol. 2 (August 1935), in NEQJ 2: 91. 14. Nie Er diary (July 14, 1935), NEQJ 2: 540. 15. Nie Er diary (April 18, 1935), NEQJ 2: 525. Henceforth, Nie would attend four hours of class each day with other overseas Chinese students at the East Asia Japanese Remedial School. Nie was also tutored by his landlady’s younger sister, a thirty-year old elementary school teacher. See Nie Er letter to Ai Siqi (May 11, 1935), NEQJ 2: 155. 16. Nie Er diary (July 15, 1935), NEQJ 2: 541. 17. Nie Er diary (July 7, 1935), NEQJ 2: 530. 18. Brian Powell, Japan’s Modern Theatre: A Century of Continuity and Change (London: Japan Library, 2002), 82. 19. Formed in September 1934 by Murayama Tomoyoshi after he had been released from jail and recanted his political views (he had joined the JCP in 1931). Tomoyoshi had sought to reunite members of the leftist drama community who had been split by political and artistic schisms and weakened by state repression. 20. Nie Er diary (July 7, 1935), NEQJ 2: 529. 21. Hamada worked in stage lighting for the progressive Hikoukan Theater Company. 22. Cun Wenxue and Feng Desheng, Nie Er: Cong Yunnan dashan zouchulai de yinyue dashi [Nie Er: The master musician who came from Yunnan’s great mountains] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1999), 437–440. 23. Nie Er diary (July 14, 1935), NEQJ 2: 540. 24. Nie Er diary (July 11, 1935), NEQJ 2: 536. 25. Nie Er diary (July 15–16, 1935), NEQJ 2: 541–542. 26. Nie Er diary (July 16, 1935), NEQJ 2: 542. 27. Hamada Sanehiro, “Nie Er zaonan shi zhi qingxing” [The situation at the time of Nie Er’s misfortune], in Zhang Tianxu, ed., Nie Er Jinianji [Commemorative Volume Honoring Nie Er] (Tokyo, 1935) [hereafter cited as NEJNJ], 6–7. 28. Zheng Junping, “Dao Nie Er xiansheng!” (Mourning Mr. Nie Er!), in Qingqing dianying (The Chin-chin Screen) 2, no. 5 (1935): 1. 29. Qiu Fan, “Ta huo zai dazhong xinzhong” (He lives on in the hearts of the people), in Yunnan ribao, July 17, 1938. 30. Cheng Ji, “Nie Er zhuanji” (Biography of Nie Er), in NEJNJ, 4. 31. Diantong banyue huabao (Denton Gazette) no. 7 (August 1935). 32. Like Nie Er, political persecution led Zhang to flee Kunming for Shanghai, where he joined the Left League. In early 1931, Zhang moved to Beiping and became a proponent of proletarian literature. He completed his representative novel, Iron wheel (Tielun), in 1933, the same year that he joined the CCP. While in Japan during 1935, Zhang edited Guo Moruo’s literary journal, Eastern Flow (Dongliu), and became an activist in the Tokyo branch of the Left League. He returned to Shanghai carrying the ashes of Nie Er. After his death from illness in 1941 he



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was buried near Nie Er in the Western Hills, Kunming. See http://baike.baidu.com/view​ /4431311.htm, accessed May 22, 2011. 33. Cheng, “Nie Er zhuanji,” in NEJNJ, 5. 34. Ibid., 4. 35. Yi Wen, “Ji Nie Er” [Remembering Nie Er], in NEJNJ, 23. 36. Zhang Tianxu, “Nie Er lun” [Discourse on Nie Er)], in NEJNJ, 8. 37. Ibid., 11. Given his public stature, the criticism of Xiao Youmei may be more understandable than justified, but that of the Shanghai native Chen Gexin remains a mystery. The criticism of Chen expressed in the 1935 publication may have revolved around his cosmopolitan background. Chen had studied composition, conducting, and piano with the GermanJewish refugee composer Wolfgang Fraenkel. In 1935, he taught at the Shanghai Shaoxing Opera Training Institute and began composing China’s first Western-style opera, Xi Shi, named after the legendary beauty of the Spring and Autumn Period. In 1936, Chen wrote a critical article concerning Nie Er in a paper run by the Guomindang official Pan Gongzhan. But by 1937, he shared a similar ideological position with his critics, and had introduced Soviet songs and patriotic songs via an experimental music association that he founded. Zhongguo yishu yanjiuyuan yinyue yanjiusuo “Zhongguo yinyue cidian” bianjibu, ed., Zhongguo yinyue cidian xubian (Chinese music dictionary, continuation) (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 1992), 22. 38. Chen Bo’er, “Dao Biyege zuoquzhe” [Memorializing the composer of “Graduation Song”], in Denton Gazette no. 7 (August 1935). 39. Xi Ju, “Qingnian yinyuejia Nie Er zhi si” [Death of the young musician Nie Er], in Dongfang ribao (July 24, 1935). 40. Zhang Tianxu, “Nie Er lun,” NEJNJ, 8. 41. Jones, Yellow Music, 113. 42. Zhang Tianxu, “Nie Er lun,” NEJNJ, 9. 43. Pi Yu, “Geming geren” [Revolutionary songwriter], NEJNJ, 13. 4 4. Lin Di, “Jinian Nie Er de yiyi” [The significance of remembering Nie Er], NEJNJ, 16. 45. In one of the lighthearted moments of the film, for instance, one of the female protagonists looks down from a hilltop on the eight male friends and construction workers who are bathing in the river and soaking in the sun’s rays. Paul Clark notes the physicality and brotherly spirit evoked by such scenes. Paul Clark, Chinese Cinema: Culture and Politics since 1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 14. Chris Berry interprets the bathing scene as a transgression of social norms and cinematic conventions, arguing that it stimulates revolutionary ardor in the audience by arousing libidinal desire. “The Sublimative Text: Sex and Revolution in The Big Road,” East-West Film Journal 2, no. 2 (June 1988): 78. 46. Zhou Yang, “On National Defense Literature” (trans. by Richard King), in Kirk A. Denton, ed., Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893–1945 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 413. 47. Tang, Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde, 208. 48. Xian Xinghai, “Xian jieduan Zhongguo yinyue yundong de jige wenti” (Several issues regarding the current phase of China’s music movement), Xin yinyue 5, no. 3 (May 1, 1943): 101. 49. Zhang Tianxu, “Youqing yu daonian” (Friendship and mourning), Geyong gangwei no. 3 (1940): 23. 50. Ming, Ershi shiji Zhongguo yinyue piping daolun, 166. 51. Liu Liangmo, “Huiyi jiuwang geyong yundong” [Remembering the national salvation choral movement], Renmin yinyue, no. 7 (1957): 25. 52. Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978).

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Notes to Pages 146–150

53. He Lüting, “Xin Zhongguo yinyue qimeng shiqi yongge yundong,” 54. 54. Liu Liangmo, “Women yao dasheng de chang ge lai zhenfa quanguo de mingqi” [We must sing loudly to arouse the nation’s popular spirit]. Originally published in 1935. Liu Liangmo xiansheng jinian wenji [Collected works and commemoration of Mr. Liu Liangmo]. (Shanghai: Zhonghua jidujiao qingnianhui quanguo xiehui, 2010), 20–21. Henceforth abbreviated as LLXJW. 55. Luo Weihong, “Liu Liangmo yu kangri qunzhong geyong huodong” [Liu Liangmo and War of Resistance mass song activities], Shiji (October 15, 2005), in LLXJW, 93. 56. Ding Ke, “Tianxia wuren bu zhi Liu” [Everyone knows Liu], in Lianhe shibao (August 28, 2009), in LLXJW, 100. 57. Frank B. Lenz, “He taught China to sing,” Christian Herald (Chappaqua, NY: October 1942): 52. 58. Liu, “Minzhong geyonghui: Jiangjia minjiaoguan lianxi huiyuan” (June 11, 1936), in LLXJW, 24. 59. The Xian Incident refers to the December 1936 hostage-taking of Chiang Kai-shek by his subordinates Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng. As a condition for his release, the Nationalists agreed to forge a second United Front with the Communists premised on resistance to Japan. Wang Yuhe, Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyueshi [History of modern and contemporary Chinese music], 2nd ed. (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, Huayue chubanshe, 2002), 229–230. 60. Liu Liangmo, “Shanghai kangri jiuwang de geyong yundong” [The Shanghai anti-­ Japanese National Salvation Song Movement], Shanghai wenshi ziliao xuanji (1978), no. 1, LLXJW, 49. 61. Liu Liangmo, “Huiyi jiuwang geyong yundong” [Remembering the National Salvation Song Movement], in Renmin yinyue (1957) 7: 25. 62. Liu, “Shanghai kangri jiuwang de geyong yundong,” in LLXJW, 49. 63. Israel Epstein, History Should Not Be Forgotten (Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2005), 32. 6 4. Wang Yuhe, Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyuejia pingzhuan: Shangce, jindai bufen [Critical biographies of modern and contemporary Chinese musicians, vol. 1, modern era] (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1992), 237. 65. Chen Meiqi, “Yituan chire de huo—yizhi shidai de ge” [Blazing flame, a song for the ages: Composer Mai Xin], in ZJYZ 2: 510. 66. Chen Jianhua and Chen Jie, eds., Minguo yinyueshi nianpu [Chronicle of music history during the Republic, 1912–1949] (Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, 2005), 255–259, 273–277, 292–296. 67. Zou Taofen, “Minzhong geyonghui qiantu wuliang” [Boundless future of the People’s Song Association], Hong Kong. Shenghuo ribao (June 22, 1936), in LLXJW, 31. 68. Meng Bo and Qiao Shutian, “Zou Nie Er de lu” [Take the path Nie Er explored], in Yinyue yanjiu, no. 2 (1982): 7–8. 69. Lin Yutang, “Singing Patriots of China,” Asia 41, no. 2 (February 1941): 71. Joshua H. Howard, “ ‘Music for a National Defense’: Making Martial Music during the Anti-Japanese War,” in Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 4, no. 1 (May 2015): 256–258. 70. Stephen R. MacKinnon, Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). 71. Guo Chao, Guoge lichen [The course of the national anthem] (Beijing: Zhongguo guoji guangbo chubanshe, 2002), 22. 72. Xiang Yansheng, “Li Baochen yu yingwen ban ‘Zhongguo kangzhan gequji’ ” [Li Baochen



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and the English edition, China’s Patriots Sing] Zhongyang yinyue xueyuan xuebao [Central Conservatory Newsletter], no. 4 (November 2007): 49. 73. Guangbo zhoubao [Broadcast weekly] no. 133 (1937): 76. The author is indebted to Professor Zhu Ye for this note. 74. “Wilkie Urges Aid to China at Rally,” New York Times, October 3, 1941, p. 7. 75. Tian Han, “Duiyu women xinyinyue zuojia kunan shi tai dale” [Our distress for the new music movement musician is too great], Xin yinyue 6, no. 1 (1946). 76. Lin, “Singing patriots of China,” 70. 77. For wartime militarization of music, see Howard, “ ‘Music for a National Defense.’ ” 78. Que Shiqi (alias for Lü Ji), “Lun guofang yinyue” [On national defense music], Shenghuo zhishi 1, no. 12, April 5, 1936, 614–615. 79. Lü Ji, “Zhongguo xinyinyue de zhanwang” [The prospects of China’s new music], Guangming 1, no. 5 (March 10, 1936). Lü Ji’s politicization of the new music movement anticipates Maoist-era official discourse on new Chinese music as analyzed by Barbara Mittler, Dangerous Tunes: The Politics of Chinese Music in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China since 1949 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997). 8 0. Yang Yibo, “Nie Er xiansheng de shenghuo yu qi zuopin” [Mr. Nie Er’s life and his works], Yunnan ribao, July 17, 1938. 81. “Nie Er xiansheng shishi sanzhou nian jinian tekan [Special edition commemorating the third anniversary of Mr. Nie Er’s death], Xinhua ribao, July 17, 1938, 4. 82. See, for example, Xu Maijin, “Xuexi Nie Er xiansheng” [Study Mr. Nie Er], in Xinhua ribao, July 17, 1938, p. 4. 83. Nie Ziming, “Nie Er de diyici jiejin yinyue” [Nie Er’s first time approaching music], Dawanbao (July 15, 1938), in Zhongguo yinyue xueyuan Zhongguo yinyue yanjiusuo, eds., Nie Er zhuanji [Nie Er special collection] (hereafter cited as NEZJ), vol. 3 (n.p., 1964), 76; Nie Ziming, “Geyong hanglie li de Nie Er” [Nie Er in the singing ranks], Geyong gangwei 3 (1940): 20–21. 84. Gao Han, “Nie Er shishi san zhounian jinian teji: Nie Er he yi shi weida de?” [Special edition commemorating the third anniversary of Nie Er’s death: Wherein lies Nie Er’s greatness?], Yunnan ribao, July 17, 1938. 85. Li Luyong, “Xin yinyue yundong dao dichao ma?” [Has the new music movement reached low tide?], in Xin yinyue 1, no. 1 (January 1, 1940): 1, 3–4. 86. Xian Xinghai and Wu Peng, “Gequ chuangzao jianghua” [Discussion of song composition], in Xin yinyue 1, no. 1 (January 1, 1940): 22–24. 87. Mao Tse-tung, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art,” in Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1971), 250–285. 88. Isabel K. F. Wong, “From Reaction to Synthesis: Chinese Musicology in the Twentieth Century,” in Bruno Nettl and Philip V. Bohlman, eds., Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 46–47. 89. Sand and Swift were the noms-de-plume for Charles Seeger and Elie Siegmeister during the mid-1930s when they participated in the Composers’ Collective, an offshoot of the Communist Party’s International Music Bureau and the Pierre Degeyter Club of New York. 90. Mai Xin, “Luelun Nie Er de qunzhong gequ—wei jinian Nie Er tongzhi shishi qi zhounian er zuo” [Brief discourse on Nie Er’s mass songs: In commemoration of Comrade Nie Er’s seventh anniversary of his death], in Minzu yinyue 1, nos. 3–4 (July 1, 1942), in NEZJ, vol. 3 (n.p., 1964), 87, 91–92. 91. Zhiyin, “Guanyu Nie Er xiansheng de gequ” (Regarding Mr. Nie Er’s songs) and “Nie

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Notes to Pages 154–159

Er xiansheng yizuo liu shou” (Six posthumous works of Mr. Nie Er), in Xin yinyue 3, no. 2 (September 1, 1941): 56–63. 92. For similar measures in Europe, see Bohlman, Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe, chap. 4. 93. Mai Liufang, Xuni rentong: Zaoqi Malaiya Huaren de aiguo gequ [The virtual identity: Chinese patriotic songs in early Malaya] (Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre, 2011), 40. 94. Lin Tie, Wei Hua, eds., Gechang zai qixia, 1940–1990 [Singing under the flag, 1940–1990] (Hong Kong: Dangdai wenyi chubanshe, 2003), 1–2. 95. Ye Qisi, ed., Chizi danxin: Wuhan hechangtuan Nanyang chouzhen xunhui yanchu jishi [Pure loyalty: Chronicle of the Wuhan Choir’s Nanyang concert tour for relief aid] (Beijing: Zhongguo Huaqiao chubanshe, 2006), vi, 4–9. 96. Mai Liufang, Xuni rentong: Zaoqi Malaiya Huaren de aiguo gequ [The Virtual Identity: Chinese Patriotic Songs in Early Malaya] (Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre, Nanyang Technological University, 2011), 66. 97. Gene Z. Hanrahan, The Communist Struggle in Malaya (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1954), 39. 98. Guo, Guoge licheng, 24. It remains unclear when the lyrics were changed, although it may have been after the Japanese occupation since the MCP in September 1946 undertook a “Malayanization” of the Communist Party and development of a “Malay national movement” to prevent further clashes between ethnic Chinese and Malays. Cheah Boon Kheng, Red Star over Malaya: Resistance and Social Conflict during and after the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 1941–46, 4th ed. (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 1983 [2012]), 69. 99. Xu Jiarui, “Nie Er de yisheng” [Nie Er’s life], in NEZJ, 111. 100. By 1936, Paul Robeson viewed his artistry as a political weapon and used his concerts to galvanize support for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. At the same time, he identified the civil rights struggle in the United States with the struggle against fascism. In an interview conducted in July 1937, the same month that the Sino-Japanese War broke out, Robeson linked these two struggles. “Events in Abyssinia, Spain and China have led me beyond the racial problem to the world problem of which it is a part—the problem of defending democracy against the onslaught of Fascism. Democracy should be widening, but instead a drive is being made to subjugate not only my group but all oppressed groups throughout the world.” Paul Robeson Jr., The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist’s Journey, 1898–1939 (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001), 286. 101. Liu Liangmo letter to Paul Robeson, January 5, 1941, from Robeson Family Archives, Paul Robeson Correspondence, Box Kb-Ma; Manuscript Division, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University. 102. Liu Liangmo, “Paul Robeson: The People’s Singer” (1950), in Judy Yung et al., eds., Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 206. 103. Alice Eversman, “Robeson Stirs Audience to Shouts,” Evening Star, April 26, 1941. 104. Box 38 Paul Robeson papers, Programs, 1941–1980 Folder Programs—1942 concerts (June–Dec). Manuscript Division, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University. 105. Liu Liangmo, “China Speaks: A Closer Understanding between Negro, Chinese Will Hasten Victory,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 15, 1943, p. 6. For analysis of Pearl Buck and Liu Liangmo’s efforts to change African American opinion of China during WWII, see Marc Gallichio, The African American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), chap. 8. 106. Howard Taubman, “Records: China at War,” New York Times, November 30, 1941.



Notes to Pages 159–161

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107. Richard So places the Robeson–Liu collaboration in the context of their aesthetic theories, such as Robeson’s belief in the universality of the pentatonic scale, and connections forged by the global recording industry and Western missionary involvement in China. See Richard Jean So, Transpacific Community: America, China, and the Rise and Fall of a Cultural Network (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 112. 108. MRL 6: United China Relief Records, 1943–1949, Box 1, Folder 5, Transcript of “Speaking of China,” Series 9. “The Music of China,” Mr. Liu Liang-mo, Elisabeth Kingham and Mrs. Maurice T. Moore. Broadcast on WQXR, April 19, 1943. 109. War Department, Signal Corps and Army Service Forces, Why We Fight: The Battle of China. Directed by Frank Capra. Washington, DC, 1944. 110. “State Department Lists Concert to Be Played on Day of Victory,” New York Times, August 27, 1943, p. 8. 111. Mai, “Luelun Nie Er de qunzhong gequ,” in NEZJ, 86–94. Ferenc Szabó was a student of the Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, whose influence is seen in his chamber works of the late 1920s. He joined the Communist Party in 1927 and led workers’ choirs and wrote music for performance by the masses. Forced to emigrate to the Soviet Union in 1932, he became well known for his mass songs and film scores. See János Maróthy, “Ferenc Szabó,” in Grove Music Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 112. Luo, The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China, 173. According to the conference rules, each participating country was to have its national anthem performed. This created a dilemma for the Chinese Communist Party delegation, since they had not yet selected a national anthem for the incipient PRC. Foreshadowing the controversy surrounding “March of the Volunteers” lyrics, which would be debated in the fall of 1949, while some delegates proposed performing the song at Prague, others objected that the lyrics “The Chinese nation faces its greatest danger/And everyone is forced to let out a last roar” were inappropriate to the times. Through Guo Moruo’s intervention, the lyrics were changed to “The Chinese nation stands up [fanshen]/Villages and cities will all let out a roar of liberation,” reflecting the revolution’s promise of national liberation and social transformation. Qi Song, “Guo Moruo de Nie Er qing he guoge qing” [Guo Moruo’s affection for Nie Er and the national anthem], in Qi Song, ed., Guohun song: Jinian Nie Er sanwenji [Ode to the national soul: Prose collection commemorating Nie Er] (Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 2008), 57. 113. Peng Guanghan, “Guanyu diyiqu zhengxie taolun he queding ‘Guoge’ de jingguo” [Regarding how the first Political Consultative Conference discussed and decided the national anthem], in Guo Chao, Guoge licheng (Beijing: Zhongguo guoji guangbo chubanshe, 2002), 92–93. 114. “ ‘Yiyongjun jinxingqu’ zhenhanzhe Huangpujiang tou” [“March of the Volunteers” sends tremors throughout the Huangpu River], in Zhonghua xuesheng congkan no. 3 (1948): 50. 115. “Xie zai Nie Er shishi 14 zhounian” [Writing on the fourteenth anniversary of Nie Er’s death] (July 7, 1949), in Ma Jianhua, ed., Nie Er quanji [Collected works of Nie Er] (Shanghai: Shanghai wanxiang shudian chuban, 1951), 43. Chapter 6  Creating the “People’s Musician” 1. The theory of New Democracy, based on Mao Zedong’s 1940 essay, proposed a political coalition comprised of the national and petty bourgeoisie, peasants, and proletariat. As a democratic phase of historical development, the coalition would pursue moderate social policies and economic development that would create the material conditions for socialism. 2. Unfortunately, I was unable to access the submitted lyrics and music. According to Li Lanqing, several song lyrics focused on the liberation of the Chinese people and the leadership

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role of the CCP, while others stressed China’s civilization and rich natural resources. Guo Moruo’s submitted lyrics were said to have been profound, but too profuse. Li, Zhongguo jin­ xiandai yinyue bitan, 340. 3. Ibid., 340–341. 4. See Xiang, “ ‘Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guoge’ yansheng jishi,” 75–79. For quotes from intellectuals present at the meeting, see Li, Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyue bitan, 342. For Zhou and Mao’s comments, see Peng, “Guanyu diyiqu zhengxie taolun he queding ‘Guoge’ de jingguo,” in Guo, Guoge licheng, 93. 5. Chang-Tai Hung, Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), 257. 6. Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). 7. Paul Clark, Chinese Cinema: Culture and Politics since 1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), chap. 2. 8. Paul G. Pickowicz, China on Film: A Century of Exploration, Confrontation, and Controversy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), 204. 9. Shu Qi, “Jinian Nie Er xuexi Nie Er” [Commemorate Nie Er, study Nie Er], in Guangming ribao (July 17, 1955). 10. Liu, A Critical History of New Music in China, 368. 11. The musician He Shide, for instance, reminded film music workers that they should “model themselves on Nie Er” and took them to task for composing music that glorified Wu Xun in the Life of Wu Xun (1951). Ibid. Mao’s “anonymous” editorial in People’s Daily launched a campaign against this film and Shanghai artists’ bourgeois attitudes. Paul Clark interprets the campaign as evidence of the ascendance of the Yan’an heritage in support of Maoist popularization against the legacy of the left-wing Shanghai filmmakers. Clark, Chinese Cinema, 48–55. 12. Liu, A Critical History of New Music in China, 310. 13. Feng, Zhongguo jindai yinyue sichao yanjiu, 358. 14. Kraus, Pianos and Politics in China. 15. The process of creating a Chinese style of music based on “minjian” (folk) music was promoted by the state. Numerous local and regional artists, for instance, were recruited by professional ensembles and music schools, thus elevating the stature of “folk” music. See Lau, Music in China, 26; Liang Mingyue, Music of the Billion: An Introduction to Chinese Musical Culture (New York: Heinrichshofen Edition, 1985), 154–156. 16. Wang Yuhe, Zhongguo xiandai yinyue shigang, 1949–2000 [Survey of contemporary Chinese music, 1949–2000] (Beijing: Zhongyang yinyue xueyuan chubanshe, 2009), 28. 17. Ju Qihong, Xin Zhongguo yinyueshi: 1949–2000 [A History of Chinese Music: 1949– 2000] (Changsha: Hunan meishu chubanshe, 2002), 3. 18. Liu, A Critical History of New Music in China, 311, 314. 19. Guo Moruo’s stature in the world of arts and letters as well as his leading role in the cultural bureaucracy made him an obvious choice to boost Nie Er as a socialist hero. Moreover, although Guo had never met Nie Er, they shared friendships and ties to Japan. Guo eulogized both Nie and Zhang Tianxu, who was buried close to Nie Er. Guo also married Yu Liqun (stage name Li Mingjian), who had worked with Nie Er for Bright Moon as an actress. Qi Song, “Guo Moruo de Nie Er qing he guoge qing,” [Guo Moruo’s affection for Nie Er and the national anthem], in Qi Song, ed., Guohun song: Jinian Nie Er sanwenji [Ode to the national soul: Prose collection commemorating Nie Er] (Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 2008), 58. 20. Krista Van Fleit Hang, Literature the People Love: Reading Chinese Texts from the Early Maoist Period (1949–1966) (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 5–7.



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21. Guo Moruo, “1954 nian Nie Er mubeiwen” [1954 Nie Er tomb inscription], in Nie Er quanji, 19. 22. For the different criteria used to determine martyrdom and how China’s propaganda apparatus created the “cult of the red martyr” to mobilize the population during the 1950s, see Hung, Mao’s New World, chap. 9. 23. Advocating an expertise based on a Communist worldview and ethic of serving the people, Li Ding cited the negative example of a musical ensemble comprised of Shanghai Conservatory graduates who refused to perform for the People’s Liberation Army during their tour of Guilin. Li Ding, “Fandui ‘zhuan er buhong,’ ” [Oppose “expert and not red”], in Renmin yinyue (December 1957), 23. 24. Ma Ke, “Yi ge you hong you zhuan de yinyuejia—jinian Nie Er shi 23 zhounian” [A musician both red and expert—remembering the twenty-third anniversary of Nie Er’s passing], in Beijing wanbao (July 17, 1958). 25. Zhou Shu, “Xuexi Nie Er, hongtou zhuanshen” [Study Nie Er, thoroughly red and deeply expert], Renmin yinyue [People’s music], (July 1958): 5. 26. Meng Bo was an activist musician during the national salvation song movement. By the late 1950s, he worked as party secretary at the Shanghai Conservatory. Wang, Zhongguo jin­ xian­dai yinyuejia pingzhuan: Jindai bufen, 237. 27. Pickowicz, China on Film, 204. 28. For how most Chinese intellectuals, even dissidents, shared close connections to the party state during the 1950s and 1960s, see Carol Lee Hamrin and Timothy Cheek, eds., China’s Establishment Intellectuals (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe Press, 1986). 29. Ni Jun, Zhongguo dianyingshi [China’s cinematic history] (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 2004), 120. 30. Yu Ling had intended to write the screenplay in 1955 to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Nie’s death, but he became afflicted with chronic hepatitis. Yu Ling, Nie Er: Cong juben dao yingpian [Nie Er: From screen play to film] (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1963), 102–103. 31. Maria Galikowski, Art and Politics in China, 1949–1984 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1998), 100. 32. “Cong yi ge ren biaoxian yi ge shidai—‘Yishubao’ zuotan caise gushipian ‘Nie Er’ ” [From the individual reflecting an era—roundtable discussion of the “Literature and Arts Daily” on the film Nie Er], in Yu, Nie Er, 405. 33. Cheng Jihua, “Zhandou de shenghuo, zhandou de zuopin” [Life of struggle, works of struggle], in Yu, Nie Er, 445. 34. Zheng Junli, “Yingpian Nie Er daoyan houji” [Director’s reflections on the film, Nie Er], in Yu, Nie Er, 275. 35. Mao, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art,” 255. 36. Yu, Nie Er, 264. 37. Zhao Dan, “Nie Er xiangxiang de chuangzao ji qita” [Creating the image of Nie Er and other matters], in Yu, Nie Er, 355. 38. Zheng, “Yingpian Nie Er daoyan houji,” in Yu, Nie Er, 272. For the original source, see Mao, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art,” 266. 39. The film takes the license to meld fiction and fact by alluding to the “flying meeting” that Nie sought to attend and his observation in his diary entry that demonstrations had occurred despite heightened vigilance in the international concessions and the Chinese district. Nie Er diary (August 1, 1930), NEQJ 2: 241.

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Notes to Pages 170–174

40. The shutdown was based on similar events at the Xinguang Theatre in Shanghai. Zhao Dan, “Nie Er xingxiang de chuangzao ji qita,” in Yu, Nie Er, 330. 41. Van Fleit Hang, Literature the People Love, 81. 42. Ban Wang views the Nie Er-Zheng Leidian relationship as the sublimation of their love into revolutionary and nationalistic goals. “Nie Er’s feeling for her also undergoes a psychic purification in the direction of politics: his private sexual passions are sublimated into a powerful creative energy that allows him to write revolutionary music.” Ban Wang, The Sublime Figure of History: Aesthetics and Politics in Twentieth-Century China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 141–142. 43. Cai Xiang, Revolution and Its Narratives: China’s Socialist Literary and Cultural Imaginaries, 1949–1966, trans. Rebecca E. Karl and Xueping Zhong (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), 171. 4 4. Zheng, “Yingpian Nie Er daoyan houji,” in Yu, Nie Er, 276. 45. Ibid., 278. 46. By the late 1950s, the term “yellow songs” was defined in class and moral terms, referring to pre-1949 popular songs that had circulated in cities via the phonograph, broadcasts, and live dance hall performances. Because they were love songs that expressed the “degenerate views of the bourgeoisie and petty capitalists,” yellow songs obstructed the aims of the new democratic revolution and promotion of socialist values. Musically, yellow songs used jazz elements (abrupt rhythmic changes with frequent rests on downbeats and mellifluous melodies) to create a variety of “unhealthy moods” including “wildness, perplexity, gloom, demoralization, nostalgia, frivolity and grief.” See Lian Kang, “Huangse gequ shi ducao” [Yellow songs are poisonous weeds], Renmin yinyue, no. 54 (September 1957): 35–36. Cheng Yun defined yellow songs in more politicized terms, indicating that they benefited the ruling class in three ways: singing the praises of money worship and the life of luxury and dissipation; having a numbing and docile effect on laboring people; and serving as a weapon in the struggle against revolutionary music. See Cheng Yun, “Shouxian yingcong zhengzhishang yu huangse gequ huaqing jiexian” [First make a clear break in political terms from yellow songs], Renmin yinyue, no. 59 (February 1958): 8. 47. Li Xi as quoted in Li Ling, “Xiuzhengzhuyi guandian shi huangse yinyue de zhichizhe, bo Li Xi, Lan Daming de lundian” [Yellow music advocates hold revisionist perspectives: Refute Li Xi and Lan Daming’s thesis], in Renmin yinyue, no. 59 (February 1958): 5. 48. Ai Kesi, “Jue bu xu huangse gequ maochong xianghua” [Absolutely forbid yellow songs from being passed off as fragrant flowers], Renmin yinyue, no. 53 (August 1957): 16. In a separate editorial published a month later, Lü Ji wrote a scathing criticism of Liu Xue’an, accusing him of seeking to subvert the socialist realist path pioneered by Nie Er and Xian Xinghai and to question the leadership of the Chinese Musicians Association. Lü reminded the music community that Liu had collaborated with the Nationalist government in wartime Chongqing by writing “reactionary” songs such as “National mobilization” (Guojia zongdongyuan). Lü Ji, “Baowei shehuizhuyi yinyue shiye, chedi dakua youpaifenzi de jingong!” [Protect the socialist music enterprise and thoroughly rout the rightists’ attack!], Renmin yinyue, no. 54 (September 1957): 2–3. 49. Li Jinhui, “Zhanduan dugen chedi xiaomie huangse gequ” [Eliminate the poisonous roots and obliterate yellow songs], in Renmin yinyue, no. 60 (March 1958): 24. 50. Ibid., 25. 51. Qian Renkang had published his research in the Shanghai Conservatory journal, Music Research (Yinyue yanjiu), nos. 4 and 5 (1958).



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5 2. Ju, Xin Zhongguo yinyueshi, 52–53. 53. Yu, Nie Er, 80. 54. Ibid., 81. 55. For the film lyrics, see ibid., 82. The lyrics of the film song version differ slightly from Liu Xue’an’s original lyrics, but convey the optimistic outlook of the original. 56. Shi Changshu, ed., Nie Er (Shenyang, Liaoning meishu chubanshe, 2011). Reprint of 1964 edition, p. 3. 57. Ibid., 5. 58. Ibid., 25. 59. Ibid., 32. 60. Wang Zhixiong and Guo Ling, eds., Qinren xinzhong de Nie Er [Nie Er dear to our hearts] (Beijing: Zhongguo minzu shiying yishu chubanshe, 2008), 273–278. The bibliography lists all Renmin ribao articles (with author, title, and date) regarding Nie Er that were published between 1946 and 2007. Since Nie died on July 17, 1935, most articles were published in mid-July. One sees a spike in the number of articles published on special anniversary years, such as 1950 (seven articles) and 1955 (five articles), and the high point in 1960 (twelve articles). 61. It is unclear what would have happened to Nie Er had he lived during the Cultural Revolution. His reputation as a national hero did not shield his siblings. Nie Ziming was mistakenly sentenced to five years of labor reform in the anti-Rightist campaign, and Nie Xulun “came under attack” during the Cultural Revolution. Zhonggong Yuxishi Hongtaqu wei and Yuxishi Hongtaqu renmin zhengfu, eds., Guohun yongcun—Yuxi Nie Er guju [Immortal spirit of the nation: Nie Er’s native Yuxi home] (Kunming: Yunnan chuban jituan gongsi and Yunnan meishu chubanshe, 2013), 74, 77. 62. Tian Han, Xia Yan, Zhou Yang, and Yang Hansheng were all leaders in the League of Left-Wing Writers who had participated in polemics with Lu Xun. Lu accused the intellectuals of being too dogmatic and vilified them as the “Four Fellows.” The term was revived in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution in attacks against the cultural bureaucracy. Xia Yan had worked in the Shanghai Department of Propaganda. Yang Hansheng was the chairman of the China National Federation of Arts and Letters. Zhou Yang had served as deputy director of the Ministry of Propaganda and Ministry of Culture. 63. For its lyrics and the ubiquity of “The East Is Red” during the Cultural Revolution, see Barbara Mittler, A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2012), 100–101. Chapter 7  Marketing Nie Er in Yunnan 1. This chapter focuses on physical sites and physical references, although Pierre Nora’s term lieux de mémoire is much broader, encompassing “places, sites, causes” in a “material, symbolic, and functional” sense. Nora, ed., Rethinking the French Past Realms of Memory, vol. 1, 14. 2. Robert Chi, “ ‘The March of the Volunteers’: From Movie Theme Song to National Anthem,” in Ching Kwan Lee and Guobin Yang, eds., Re-envisioning the Chinese Revolution: The Politics and Poetics of Collective Memories in Reform China (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 2007), 221. 3. Wai-Chung Ho, Culture, Music Education, and the Chinese Dream in Mainland China (Singapore: Springer, 2018), 109. 4. For how China’s leaders conceived the patriotic education campaign to restore its legitimacy and redefined that legitimacy in terms of a non-Communist ideology, see Suisheng Zhao, “A State-Led Nationalism: The Patriotic Education Campaign in Post-Tiananmen China,”

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Communist and Post-Communist Studies 31, no. 3 (1998): 287–302. For analysis of “bottomup” and Party-led nationalism, see Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 5. Wang Hui, The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity (London: Verso, 2009), 5. 6. Kong Xianggeng, “Nie Er shidai jingshen yongzhu guxiang” [The spirit of Nie Er’s times is forever present in Yuxi] [Yuxi ribao, July 20, 2005, A4], in Wang Zhixiong and Guo Ling, eds. Yongheng jiyi—Yuxi Ribao shang de Nie Er: 1989.9—2007.6 (henceforth abbreviated as YJYRSNE) (Kunming: Yunnan chuban jituan gongsi and Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2008), ii. 7. Yi Shunwen, “Jiang Kun Yuxi xing—changtan wenhua chuanda xiao de wenhou” [Travels from Kunming to Yuxi: Thinking about cultural transfusion] [Yuxi ribao, April 25, 2005], in YJYRSNE, 208. 8. Peter Hays Gries, “Popular Nationalism and State Legitimation in China,” in Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen, eds., State and Society in 21st-Century China: Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 189. 9. Rubie Watson, ed., Memory, History, and Opposition under State Socialism (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1994). 10. Tim Oakes, “China’s Provincial Identities: Reviving Regionalism and Reinventing ‘Chineseness,’ ” Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 3 (August 2000): 669, 684. 11. Kirk A. Denton, Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014), chap. 3. 12. Nie Xulun, “Huzhao anbian yi qinren” [Remembering a loved one by the banks of the pond] (February 27, 1982), p. 4, in Wang Zhixiong and Guo Ling, eds., Yongheng jiyi—Yunnan Ribao shang de Nie Er: 1980.7—2007.12 (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2008), 16. Memorialization of Nie Er in Fujisawa played an important role during the Cold War in maintaining unofficial Sino–Japanese relations, especially among leftist Japanese. The first memorial for Nie Er was established at Fujisawa on November 1, 1954. The director of the Chinese Red Cross, Li Dequan, presided over the unveiling ceremony of a memorial tablet bearing the inscription of Akita Ujaku, who eulogized Nie’s proletarian and internationalist spirit. Saito Koji, Nie Er: Shanguang de shengya [Nie Er: Flash of career] (trans. by Zhuang Li) (Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, 2003), 242. 13. In February 1978, the Second Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CCP approved new lyrics for the national anthem: “March on! People of all heroic nationalities! Let us continue the Long March under the great Communist Party’s guidance. Millions with but one heart toward a communist tomorrow. Develop and protect the country, fight bravely. March on, march on, march on! We will for generations. Raise high Mao Zedong’s banner, march on! Raise high Mao Zedong’s banner, march on! March on! March on! On!” Tim F. Liao, Gehui Zhang, and Libin Zhang, “Social Foundations of National Anthems: Theorizing for a Better Understanding of the Changing Fate of the National Anthem of China,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 42, no. 1 (2011): 127. 14. To make this even more official, on March 14, 2004, the Second Plenary Session of the Tenth National People’s Congress passed a constitutional amendment to make the national anthem “March of the Volunteers,” in Article 13. 15. Liao et al., “Social Foundations of National Anthems,” 120. 16. Nie Er’s ashes were first buried on October 10, 1937 (the anniversary of the 1911 Revolution), on the Western Hills near the road leading to Huaqing Temple. In 1980 the tomb was moved to its present location—a hillside situated between Taihua Temple and Sanqing Pavilion. In 1988 the site became designated a major national cultural relic protection site.



Notes to Pages 186–189

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17. Critics of Jiang Zemin accuse him of exaggerating his involvement in the patriotic song movement to deflect criticism of his conciliatory policy on the Diaoyu Islands controversy, which first erupted in the mid-1990s, and charges that his father was a lower-level official working for Wang Jingwei’s quisling regime. See the YouTube report of “China’s Forbidden News” (Zhongguo jinwen) on NTDTV.com at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=​ MUYabOZhqLo, accessed January 14, 2013. 18. Yunnan Nie Er yinyue jijinhui, ed., Renmin yinyuejia Nie Er [The people’s musician Nie Er] (Kunming: Yunnan meishu chubanshe, 2005), 9. 19. “Yong bu xiaoshi de yinyue” [The Music Never Disappears] (Chengdu: Sichuan yinxiang chubanshe, 2005). 20. Liao Wandong, “Ba jijinhui zhe zhang ‘mingpian’ zuocheng yige ‘liangdian’ ” [Making this foundation’s “business card” into a “bright point”] [Yuxi ribao, May 26, 2004, 4], in YJYRSNE, 182. 21. Li Jiang, “Zai jinian Nie Er shengzhen 90 zhounian dahuishang de jianghua” [A speech remembering Nie Er on the ninetieth anniversary of his birthday] [Yuxi ribao, February 8, 2002, A3], in YJRSNE, 24. 22. Kong, “Nie Er shidai jingshen yongzhu guxiang,” in YJYRSNE, ii. 23. Wang Zhixiong and Guo Ling, eds., Qinren xinzhong de Nie Er [Nie Er dear to our hearts] (henceforth abbreviated as QXNE) (Beijing: Zhongguo minzu shiying yishu chubanshe, 2008), 205. 24. Ibid., 246. 25. Ibid. 26. Nie Er guju [Nie Er’s old home], distributed at the Nie Er former residence in Yuxi, Yunnan, 2012 (no date or publication information provided), 2. 27. Qi Song, “Nie Er yu Yuxi” [Nie Er and Yuxi] [Yuxi ribao, July 15, 2005, B3], in YJYRSNE, 230. 28. Nie Er guju, 2. 29. Cai Zhuanbin, “Nie Er—Yuxi zhi zi” [Nie Er—Yuxi’s son] [Yuxi ribao, November 22, 2005, B3], in YJYRSNE, 55. 30. Ibid. 31. Yuxishi Nie Er jinianguan, 14. 32. QXNE, 255. 33. “Ba Nie Er dazao cheng Yunnan zhongyao de wenhua pinpai” [Make Nie Er into an important Yunnan brand] [Yuxi ribao, August 31, 2005], in YJYRSNE, 170. 34. Li Xiangwen and Xu Zhiqiang, “Wo xinzhong de Nie Er” [The Nie Er of my heart] [Yuxi ribao, July 14, 2005, B2], in YJYRSNE, 41–42. 35. Yi Shunwen, “Yuxi bufen wenxue yishujia chang yi sheli ‘Nie Er jinianri’ ” [Yuxi literary artists propose establishing a “Nie Er Day”] [Yuxi ribao, May 25, 2005, A2], in YJYRSNE, 211. 36. Liao, “Ba jijinhui zhe zhang ‘mingpian’ zuocheng yige ‘liangdian,’ ” in YJYRSNE, 183. 37. Qi, “Nie Er yu Yuxi,” in YJYRSNE, 232. 38. Wang Chunmei, “Nie Er wenhua wei shengtai chengshi jianshe zhuru linghun” [Nie Er culture has penetrated the soul of urban development] [Yuxi ribao, July 14, 2006, 3], in YJYRSNE, 255. 39. Li and Xu, “Wo xinzhong de Nie Er,” in YJYRSNE, 37–40. 40. YJYRSNE, 107. 41. Cai Zhuanbin, “ ‘Maibaoge’ de youlai” [Origins of the “Song of the newspaper seller”] [Yuxi ribao, February 6, 2002, B2], in YJYRSNE, 109. 42. Yang Qiancheng, “ ‘Kaikuangge’ jianshuo” [A brief discussion of “Mining song”] [Yuxi ribao, June 22, 2005, B4], in YJYRSNE, 111. 43. Yang Qiancheng, “ ‘Daluge’ jianshuo” [Brief discussion of “Song of the big road”] and

250

Notes to Pages 192–200

“ ‘Matou gongren’ jianshuo” [Brief discussion of “Dockworkers”] [Yuxi ribao, June 25, 2005, 6] and [Yuxi ribao, July 7, 2005, B4], in YJYRSNE, 115, 118. 4 4. Yang Qiancheng, “ ‘Xiao yemao’ jianshuo” [Brief discussion of “Wild kitten”] [Yuxi ribao, June 28, 2005, 7], in YJYRSNE, 116. 45. Yang Qiancheng, “ ‘Chashan qingge’ jianshuo” [Brief discussion of “Chashan love song”] [Yuxi ribao, August 2, 2005, B8], in YJYRSNE, 129. 4 6. Yang Qiancheng, “ ‘Meiniangqu’ jianshuo” [Brief discussion of “Mei Niang’s song”] [Yuxi ribao, July 26, 2005, B8], in YJYRSNE, 125. 47. Qi Song, “Nie Er—shijie zhi guang” [Nie Er: Light of the world] [Yuxi ribao, February 6, 2002, B1], in YJYRSNE, 13. 48. Wang and Guo, eds., QXNE, 257. 49. Song Jialiang, “Shilun Nie Er yinyue chuangzuo yu Yuxi bentu wenhua jidian” [Examining Nie Er’s musical compositions and Yuxi native culture], in NEYYW, 73. 50. Li Hongyuan and Li Hongyun, “Nie Er yinyue zuopinzhong yunhan de ‘xiangyin’ ” [The implications of “responses” in Nie Er’s musical compositions], in NEYYW, 54. 51. NEYYW, 56. 52. Cai Zhuanbin, “Nie Er jiejianguo Tonghai Dongjing guyue” [Nie Er drew on Tonghai Dongjing ancient music], [Yuxi ribao, May 25, 2004, 4], in YJYRSNE, 110. 53. Li and Li, “Nie Er yinyue zuopinzhong yunhan de ‘xiangyin,’ ” in NEYYW, 59–60. 54. Kong Xianggeng, “Fengyu renshenglu’ du hou gan” [Thoughts after reading “Fengyu renshenglu”] [Yuxi ribao, June 16, 2005, B3], in YJYRSNE, 37. 55. Yi Shunwen and Pan Quan, “Li Lanqing wei Nie Er yinyue ketizu zhiming yanjiu fang­ xiang” [Li Lanqing indicates the Nie Er music group’s research direction] [Yuxi ribao, September 22, 2005, A2], in YJYRSNE, 135. 56. Kong Xianggeng, “Xuexi Nie Er de shidai jingshen” [Study Nie Er’s spirit of the era] [Yuxi ribao, May 25, 2005, A1], in YJYRSNE, 35. 57. Li Zhilin, “Nie Er meiyou zou” [Nie Er has not left] [Yuxi ribao, July 20, 2005, A5], in YJYRSNE, 48. For analysis of China’s contemporary music education and songs that praise homeland, parenthood and friendship, see Ho, Culture, Music Education, and the Chinese Dream in Mainland China, 144–147. 58. Yang Guang, “Yuxi: Changxiang yinyue shengdian” [Yuxi: Imagining a musical temple], [Yuxi ribao, June 2, 2004, 5], in YJYRSNE, 200. 59. Wang Chunmei, “Yuxi neng dazao yizuo yinyuecheng ma?” [Can Yuxi build a music city?], [Yuxi ribao, May 28, 2004, 15], in YJYRSNE, 196. 60. Yang Xue and Wang Chunmei, “Zouxiang Nie Er guxiang de xinnian yinyuehui” [Attending Nie Er’s hometown for the New Year’s concert], [Yuxi ribao, December 30, 2004, 15], in YJYRSNE, 206. 61. Yang Xue, “Gui Jiangjing: Nie Er wenhua pinpai cu jizhi chuangxin” [Gui Jiangjing: Creating a Nie Er cultural brand], [Yuxi ribao, May 25, 2005, A3], in YJYRSNE, 213. 62. Wang Chunmei, “Zhu Liyun: Fanrong qunzhong wenhua, tisheng chengshi pinwei” [Zhu Liyun: Flourishing mass culture, promoting the urban brand], [Yuxi ribao, May 25, 2005, A4], in YJYRSNE, 216. Epilogue 1. Rob Schmitz, “In Hong Kong, Booing China’s National Anthem Is About to Get More Risky,” NPR Morning Edition, November 27, 2017. Available at https://www.npr.org/sections​ /parallels/2017/11/27/565919263/in-hong-kong-booing-chinas-national-anthem-is-about-to​ -get-more-risky, accessed January 17, 2018.

Notes to Pages 200–205

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2. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo guogefa [National Anthem Law of the People’s Republic of China] di shiwu tiao [fifteenth clause], adopted at the twenty-ninth meeting of the Standing Committee of the twelfth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China on September 1, 2017. 3. Bergsten estimates that some 200 million people have been lifted out of poverty since 1978, but cautions that more than 400 million people live on the equivalent of less than $2 a day. C. Fred Bergsten et al. eds., China: The Balance Sheet: What the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower (New York: PublicAffairs, 2006), 3, 6. 4. Key works include Judith Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2016); Deborah S. Davis and Wang Feng, eds., Creating Wealth and Poverty in Postsocialist China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009); Thomas P. Bernstein and Xiaobo Lü, Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Dorothy J. Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasant Migrants, the State, and the Logic of the Market (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Ching Kwan Lee, “Precarization or Empowerment? Reflections on Recent Labor Unrest in China,” Journal of Asian Studies, 75, no. 2 (May 2016): 317–333; Kevin J. O’Brien, ed., Popular Protest in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 5. Lin, The Transformation of Chinese Socialism, 61.

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Notes to Pages 205–206

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Feng Wenci. Zhongwai yinyue jiaoliushi [History of Chinese and Foreign Musical Exchange]. Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1998. Field, Andrew David. Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919–1954. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2010. Guo Chao. Guoge licheng [The course of the national anthem]. Beijing: Zhongguo guoji guangbo chubanshe, 2002. Haringová, Jarmila. “The development of T’ien Han’s dramatic writings during the years 1920–1937.” In Studies in Modern Chinese Literature, edited by Jaroslav Prusek, 137–148. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1964. He Lüting. “Xin Zhongguo yinyue qimeng shiqi geyong yundong” [The song movement during the era of the New Chinese music enlightenment] (February 28, 1939). In He Lüting quanji [Complete Works of He Lüting], Vol. 4, edited by He Lüting quanji bianji weiyuanhui, 53–55. Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, 1999. He Xide, ed. Ershi shiji Zhongguo wenyi tuwenzhi: Yinyue juan [Twentieth-century Chinese literature and arts pictorial and text gazetteer: Music volume]. Shenyang: Shenyang chubanshe, 2002. Howard, Joshua H. “ ‘Music for a National Defense’: Making Martial Music during the Anti-Japanese War.” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review e-journal 13 (December 2014): 1–50. Hu, Jubin. Projecting a Nation: Chinese National Cinema before 1949. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003. Hung, Chang-tai. Going to the People: Chinese Intellectuals and Folk Literature, 1918–1937. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1985. ———. War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. ———. “The Politics of Songs: Myths and Symbols in the Chinese Communist War Music, 1937–1945.” Modern Asian Studies 30 no. 4 (Oct. 1996): 901–929. ———. Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011. Jones, Andrew F. Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. Ju Qihong. Xin Zhongguo yinyueshi [A history of Chinese music: 1949–2000]. Changsha: Hunan meishu chubanshe, 2002. Kong Xianggeng. “Nie Er shidai jingshen yongzhu guxiang” [Yuxi ribao, July 20, 2005, A4]. In YJYRSNE, preface i–ii. Kraus, Richard Curt. Pianos and Politics in China: Middle-Class Ambitions and the Struggle over Western Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Lau, Frederick. Music in China: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Li Hongyuan and Li Hongyun. “Nie Er yinyue zuopin zhong yunhan de ‘xiangyin’ ” [“Native place accents” contained in Nie Er’s musical compositions]. In NEYYW, 52–68. Li Jinhui. “Zhanduan dugen chedi xiaomie huangse gequ” [Eliminate the poisonous roots and obliterate yellow songs]. Renmin yinyue 60 (March 1958): 24–25. Li Lanqing. Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyue bitan [Essays on the modern music of China]. Beijing: Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 2009.

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Zhang Cangrong. “Huiyi Nie Er” [Remembering Nie Er]. Yunnan wenshi ziliao xuanji [Selections from Yunnan historical materials], no. 21: 72–85. Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1984. Zhang Jingwei, ed. Sousuo lishi: Zhongguo jinxiandai yinyue wenlun xuanbian [In search of history: Selection of China’s modern and contemporary music essays]. Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, 2004. Zhang Tianxu, ed. Nie Er Jinianji [Commemorative volume honoring Nie Er], Tokyo, 1935. ———. “Nie Er lun” [Discourse on Nie Er]. In NEJNJ, 8. Zhao Dan. “Nie Er xingxiang de chuangzao ji qita” [Creating the image of Nie Er and other matters]. In Nie Er: Cong juben dao yingpian, edited by Yu Ling, 320–359. Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1963. Zheng Junli. “Yingpian Nie Er daoyan houji” [Director’s reflections on the film Nie Er]. In Nie Er: Cong juben dao yingpian, edited by Yu Ling, 266–319. Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1963. Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, ed., Zhonggong Yunnan difangshi diyi juan [Chinese Communist Party Yunnan local history, vol. 1]. Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2001. Zhonggong Yunnan shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhonggong Yunnan difangshi di yi juan [Chinese Communist Party Yunnan local history, vol. 1]. Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2001. Zhongguo yinyue xueyuan and Zhongguo yinyue yanjiusuo, comp. Nie Er zhuanji [Nie Er special collection]. 3 vols. Beijing, n.p., 1964. Zhonghua jidujiaoyu qingnianhui quanguo xiehui, ed. Liu Liangmo xiansheng jinian wenji [Collected works in memory of Mr. Liu Liangmo]. Shanghai: Zhonghua jidujiaoyu qing­nianhui quanguo xiehui, 2010. Zhu Jian’er. “Nie Er gequ de yishu tese” [Artistic qualities of Nei Er’s songs.] In Jinian Nie Er 70 zhounian wenji [Collected articles commemorating the 70th anniversary of Nie Er], edited by Nie Er Xian Xinghai xuehui, 206–217. Wuhan, 1982. Zhuo Li. “Yunnan Qingnian Nulihui shimo jianshu” [Brief narrative of the Yunnan Youth Hardworking Association]. In Yunnan wenshi ziliao xuanji [Historical materials of Yunnan], vol. 14, Jinian Zhongguo gongchandang chengli liushi zhounian [Commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s founding], 42–59. Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshanghuiyi Yunnansheng weiyuanhui, 1981. Films

Daluge (The Big Road), 1934. Dir. Sun Yu. Lianhua Film Company Fengyun ernü (Children of the Storm), 1935. Dir. Xu Xingzhi. Diantong Film Company Muxing zhi guang (Maternal Radiance), 1933. Dir. Bu Wancang. Lianhua Film Company Nie Er (Nie Er), 1959. Dir. Zheng Junli. Shanghai Haiyan Film Company Taoli jie (Plunder of Peaches and Plums), 1934. Dir. Ying Yunwei. Diantong Film Company Xin nüxing (New Woman), 1934. Dir. Cai Chusheng. Lianhua Film Company Yong bu xiaoshi de yinyue (The Music Never Disappears), 2005. Dir. Ji Lin. Sichuan Yin­ xiang chubanshe

Bibliography 259

G LO S S A R Y- I N D E X

Ai Siqi 艾思奇 (1910–1966), Marxist philosopher, 6, 33, 223n22, 228n3 Akita Ujaku 秋田雨雀 (1883–1962), writer and Esperantist, 142, 144, 249n12 Aksakov, Sergei (1890–1968), composer, 98–99 All Quiet on the Western Front, film, 49 An E 安娥 (1905–1976), dramatist and poet, 7, 93, 96, 200, 208; lyrics for “Little Worker” and “Song of the Newspaper Seller,” 106–107; Tian Han and, 91 Anderson, Benedict, 9, 138, 216n36; on “unisonance,” 9 Anderson, Marston, 44 Anti-Imperialist Great Harmony Alliance (‌反帝大同盟 Fandi Datongmeng), 50 Anti-Japanese War (1937–1945), 9, 139, 154, 180, 190 Anti-Rightist Campaign, 172, 214n6, 233n7, 248n61; Qian Renkang and, 181; “yellow songs” and, 179–180, 247n46, 247n48 art: art for art’s sake, 69, 77, 147; political function of, 78, 177. See also popularization Association of Chinese Film Culture (中國電 影文化協會 Zhongguo dianying wenhua xiehui), 97 avant-garde (前衛 qianwei), 7, 140, 162, 215n24, 229n19

Bai (1920–1992), singer, 57, 66–67, 70, 225n72 Beijing, also given as Beiping: Nie Er’s activities in, 86–90; Tianqiao district, 88–89 Berry, Chris, 240n45 biaoyan chang (表演唱 dramatic action and song), 8 Big Road (大路 Dalu), film, 114–115, 149, 240n45 Black Angel (黑天使 Hei tianshi). See Nie Er Bo Xiwen 柏希文, aka Mr. Bernie (b. 1886), educator, 25–26, 61 Bohlman, Philip, 10, 73 Brecht, Bertolt (1898–1956), playwright, 7 Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe (明月 歌舞團 Mingyue gewutuan), 3, 52, 67; Nanjing and Wuhan tours, 62, 83 “Bright Spring Day” (九九艷陽天 Jiujiu yanyangtian), 180 Bu Wancang 卜萬倉 (1903–1974), film director, 68, 109; Humanity (人道 Rendao), 84 Buck, Pearl (1892–1973), writer, 243n105; Dragon Seed, film, 162 Bukharin, Nikolai (1888–1938), Bolshevik revolutionary: The ABC of Communism, 35, 220n71

Bahr, Hermann (1863–1934), writer, 77 Bai Hong 白虹, aka Bai Lizhu 白丽珠 or Xiao

Cai Chusheng 蔡楚生 (1906–1968), film director, 84, 96–97, 236n47

261

Cai E 蔡鍔 (1882–1916), revolutionary leader, 15–16, 25 Cai Xiang, 177 Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 (1868–1940), philosopher, 75 Chen Bochui 陳伯吹 (1906–1997), children’s literature writer, 104 Chen Gexin 陳歌幸 (1914–1961), songwriter, as target of criticism, 147, 240n37 Chen Huangmei 陈荒煤 (1913–1996), writer, 173 Chen Jiongming 陳炯明 (1878–1933), military leader, 36 Chen Xiaomei, 91, 229n19 Cheng Ji (承箕), memorialization of Nie Er, 144, 146 Chi, Robert, 185, 238n82 Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 (1887–1975), 36, 154, 241n59 Children of the Storm (風雲兒女 Fengyun ernü), film, 98, 126–127, 132 Chinese Communist Party (中國共產黨 Zhongguo gongchandang, CCP): in Beiping, 86, 89; cultural policies, 8, 155, 158, 169, 172; legitimacy challenged, 185, 188, 205; promoting nationalist icon, 159, 168; propaganda, 166–167. See also League of Left-Wing Dramatists; League of Left-Wing Writers; Mao Zedong; popularization Chinese Education Film Association (中國教 育電影協會 Zhongguo jiaoyu dianying xiehui), 85 Chu Tu’nan 楚圖南 (1899–1994), writer, 25, 192 Cinematic Art (電影藝術 Dianying yishu), 4, 68, 83 Clark, Paul, 167, 240n45, 245n11 commemoration of Nie Er, 138, 186, 192; epitaph, 168; at Fujisawa, xi, 249n12; at Jincheng Grand Theater, 144; mass-singing rallies and, 139, 150, 154; memorials, 144–145, 192; Nie Er Day, 157, 159, 195–196; philatelic stamps, 189; publications, 138, 140, 145–149, 159. See also Nie Er (film); patriotic education sites commercialization of Nie Er “cultural

262

Index

brand” (文化品牌 wenhua pinpai), 186, 195, 197, 203–204 Communist International (Comintern), 8, 155 Complete Works of Nie Er (聶耳全集 Nie Er quanji), 189, 233n8 compositional techniques: ascending fourths, 110, 119, 134, 202; bianyin (變音 deviating tone from the pentatonic mode), 112, 124, 136; combining pentatonic and major modes (宮大調 Gong dadiao), 129; descending fourths, 118; labor chants (號子 haozi), xii, 108–110, 112, 115; modulation, 126; syncopation, 130, 132, 134 cosmopolitanism, 59, 141, 144–145, 215n23; reform-era representations of Nie Er as, 188–189, 192–193 Cultural Revolution, 169, 248nn61–62; changes to anthem, 184 Curtis, Benjamin, 7 Datongshe (大同社 Great Unity Association), 32 Davidenko, Alexander Alexandrovich (1899–1934), composer, xiii, 91–92, 162, 231n82 Dawn of Yunnan (曙滇 Shu Dian), 31 “decadent music” (靡靡之音 mimi zhi yin), 69 Deng Xianglian 鄧象連, 39 Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平 (1904–1997), 172 Denton, Kirk, 188 Denton Film Company (電通影業公司 Diantong yingye gongsi), 98, 145 Ding Ling 丁玲 (1904–1986), writer, “Miss Sophie’s Diary,” 45 Dirlik, Arif, 16 dizi (笛子, bamboo flute), 18, 22, 63, 196 Dong Jian, 132, 228n19 Dongjing music (洞經音樂 Dongjing yinyue), 23, 157, 201; musicians (Dong Xinglin 董 杏林, Dong Yunjia 董雲家, Jin Zizhen 金子 箴), 24 “The East Is Red” (東方紅 Dongfang hong), 184, 248n63 Eisler, Hanns (1898–1962), composer, xiii, 7

erhu (二胡, two-stringed bowed fiddle), 100, 198 Fan Shisheng 范石生 (1887–1939), military leader, 36–37 Fan Zuyin, 129, 233n12 Feng Zikai 豐子愷 (1898–1975): Yinyue rumen (Introduction to music), 59 film industry: in China, 1, 3, 46, 82–83, 96. See also Hollywood; Lianhua Productions Flower lantern melodies (花燈調 Huadeng diao), 13, 22–23; commemoration of Nie and, 198–199, 204; influence on Nie’s compositions, 102, 194, 201–202 flying meeting (飛行集會 feixing jihui), 49, 246n39 folk music (民間音樂 minjian yinyue): as basis for national music, 9, 92, 245n15; research of, 8, 76, 101. See also Flower lantern melodies Fujisawa 藤沢, role in promoting Sino-Japanese ties, xi, 189, 249n12. See also Nie Er: death of Ge Yan 葛炎 (1922–2003), film composer, 178–179 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749–1832): Clavigo, 28 Goldoni, Carlo (1707–1793): The Mistress of the Inn (La Locandiera), 28, 219n45 Gorky, Maxim (1868–1936): My Childhood, 35; The Inn, 89 Great Leap Forward (大躍進 Dayuejin, 1958–61), 95, 172–174, 176; music production, 170 Great Wall: cultural symbolism, 133, 189–190 Gries, Peter: China’s “new nationalism,” 188, 249n4 Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 (1893–1980), historian, 101 Guangxi, 25, 236n62. See also Bo Xiwen Guangzhou, 36, 38; Nie Er’s activities in, 37 Guangzhou Drama Research Institute, 37 Guo Moruo 郭沫若 (1892–1978), writer and poet, 96, 154, 244n112; national anthem selection and, 163, 165–166. See also under people’s musician

Hamada Sanehiro 滨田实弘, 141–143, 239n21 Hang, Krista Van Fleit, 170 “Happy Farm Family” (農家樂 Nongjiale), song, 182 He Lüting 賀綠汀 (1903–1999), composer, 165, 182; “Partisans Song” (游擊隊歌 Youjiduige), 238n87 He Shide 何士德 (1910–2000), composer, 245n11; “Military Anthem of the New Fourth Army” (新四軍軍歌 Xin sijun junge), 238n87 Heifetz, Jascha (1901–1987), violinist, 54, 60 Herder, Johann Gottfried (1744–1803), philosopher, 9 Hershatter, Gail, 16 Hobsbawm, Eric, 5, 9 Hollywood, 161; Chinese cinema and, 52, 224n47; films screened in Shanghai, 49 Hong Kong, 25, 151, 205 Hongta Group (紅塔集團 Hongta jituan), 186, 193, 195–196, 201, 203 Hu Die 胡蝶 aka Butterfly Wu (1907–1989), actress, 54, 224n54 Hu Jintao 胡锦涛 (b. 1942), political leader, harmonious society and, 202 Hu Ruoyu 胡若愚 (1894–1949), military officer, 33–34 Huan Yu (浣玉). See Nie Er Huang Xinbo 黃新波 (1916–1980), printmaker, 145 Huang Zi 黃自 (1904–1938), composer, 76–77, 149, 232n100; changing views on, 180–182 Huangpu Military Academy, 34, 37 Huangpu River, 46, 66, 111–112; (黃浦江 Huangpu jiang), song, 121–122 Hughes, Langston (1902–1967), poet, “Roar, China!,” 238n81 Hundred Flowers Campaign: reevaluation of “yellow songs” and academic music, 180 Hung, Chang-tai, 166, 216n36, 246n22 huqin (胡琴), generic name for two-stringed fiddle, 22 instruments, Chinese. See dizi; erhu; huqin; sanxian; sheng; yueqin “Internationale, The” (song), 5, 120, 175,

Index 263

178; inspiration for “March of the Volunteers,” 133–134, 202, 237n80; Nie Er violin performance of, 89 internationalism, xi, 6–7, 14, 33, 91. See also Hughes, Langston; Nie Er: internationalism of; Robeson, Paul Ivens, Joris (1898–1989), film director, 140 Japan: leftist drama, 141–142; Nie Er’s activities in, 140–143; occupation of Manchuria, 1; Shanghai War, 64–65; Western music, 74–75. See also Fujisawa jazz music, 49, 69, 139, 147, 181 Jiang Zemin 江澤民 (b. 1926), CCP leader, 186, 191–192, 250n17; Three Represents and, 202. See also patriotic education campaign Jiangxi Soviet, 176–177 Jin Yan 金焰 (1910–1983), actor, 7, 56–57, 68, 225n70 Jones, Andrew, 4, 11, 48–49, 68, 148, 215n12; on phonographic realism, 96, 233n101 July 11 (1929) Incident, 38 Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927), philosopher, 32 Kawakami Hajime 河上肇 (1879–1946), economist, 220n71 Ke Zhongping 柯仲平 (1902–1964), writer, 32, 44, 166, 222n6 Kollontai, Alexandra (1872–1952), revolutionary, 54, 225nn57–58 Kong Xianggeng 孔祥庚 (b. 1954), Yuxi party secretary, 186, 195, 201–202 Kraus, Richard, 11, 136, 169 Kunming, xi, 3–6, 12, 15–17; demographics, 19; displacement in commemoration, 198, 201, 204; foreign community, 24; music scene, 23; political repression, 33–34, 36; radical press, 31–33; sister city of Fujisawa, 189; Western Mountain and, 22, 189, 249n16; women’s movement, 34 Kuriyagawa Hakuson 廚川 白村 (1880–1923), literary critic, 29 Leafy Luxuriant Chinese Music Troupe (森森國樂隊 Sensen guoyuedui), 102–103, 122

264

Index

League of Left-Wing Dramatists (中國左翼戲 劇家聯盟 Zhongguo zuoyi xijujia lianmeng), 77, 81, 90; Beiping chapter, 5, 89; Blue Shirt ensembles (藍衣劇團 lanyi jutuan), 81, 229n33. See also popularization; Tian Han League of Left-Wing Writers (中國左翼作家聯 盟 Zhongguo zuoyi zuojia lianmeng), 1, 2, 6, 68; call for popularization, 79–80; Mass Art and Literature (大眾文藝 Dazhong wenyi) and, 91 Lee, Haiyan, 72 Lee Sang Nam 李相南, 142 Lefebvre Henri, 45 Li Baochen 李抱忱 (1907–1979), choral director, edited Zhongguo kangzhan gequji 中國抗戰歌曲集 (China’s Patriots Sing), 154 Li Guozhu 李國柱 (1906–1930), revolutionary, 33, 36, 220n74 Li Hua 李樺 (1907–1994), printmaker, 238n81 Li Jieren 李劼人 (1891–1962), writer, 6 Li Jinguang 黎錦光 (1907–1993), songwriter, 53, 63, 69, 225n58, 225n72 Li Jinhui 黎錦暉 (1891–1967), composer, 4, 11, 63; children’s music, 41, 103–104; as mentor to Nie Er, 52–53; music for the common people (平民音樂 pingmin yinyue), 101, 104, 234n16; musical influence on Nie Er, 3, 104–105; nation-building project and, 10, 53; reevaluation of, 199–200, 214n6; as target of criticism during the 1930s, 121, 139, 147–148, 151, 224n49; as target of criticism during the 1950s, 179–180. See also Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe Li Jinhui, works of: “Drizzle” (毛毛雨 Maomao yu), 47, 148, 180; The Little Painter (小小畫家 Xiao xiao huajia), 103, 234n27; “Little Sister, I Love You” (妹妹,我 愛你 Meimei, wo ai ni), 47, 151; “Peach Blossom River” (桃花江 Taohua jiang), 121, 151, 179; Sparrow and Child (麻雀與小 孩 Maque yu xiaohai), 103, 235n27; Three Butterflies (三蝴蝶 San hudie), 41, 47 Li Lanqing 李嵐清 (b. 1932), politician, 193, 197, 200, 202

Li Luyong 李綠永, aka Li Ling 李凌 (1913– 2003), music critic, 158 Li Minwei 黎民偉 (1893–1953), film director and producer, 224n47 Li Xin 李鑫 (1926–1991), Communist organizer, 33 Liang Luo, 140, 162 Liang Maochun, 98, 126, 136 Liang Qichao (1873–1929), journalist, historian: martial music and, 75 Lianhua gewu ban (聯華歌舞班 United song and dance group). See Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe Lianhua Productions (聯華影片公司 Lianhua yingpian gongsi, United China Productions), 3, 96–97, 224n47 Liao, Tim, 189 Lin Chun, 2, 206, 214n2 Lin Yutang 林語堂 (1895–1976), writer, 155 Liu Binyan 劉賓雁 (1925–2005), journalist, 180 Liu Ching-chih, 98, 233n8 Liu Liangmo 劉良模 (1909–1988), leader of patriotic song movement, 151–153; under house arrest, 160; Pittsburgh Courier and, 161; Robeson and, 160–161, 244n107 Liu Shaoqi 劉少奇 (1898–1969), Communist leader, “How to Be a Good Communist,” 43, 222n1 Liu Xue’an 劉雪庵 (1905–1985), composer, 180, 182; criticized for “National mobilization” (國家總動員 Guojia zong­dongyuan), 247n48 Long Yun 龍雲 (1884–1962), warlord, 33–34, 36, 38 love (戀愛 lian’ai): “free love,” 12–13, 24, 27; love story narratives, 84–85, 124, 176–177, 247n42. See also Kollontai, Alexandra; Nie Er: love interests of; Nie Er: on love and marriage Lü Ji 呂驥 (1909–2002), songwriter: as anarchist, 93, 231n88; 13, 78; on folk music, 156–158; national anthem selection and, 165; National Salvation Song Movement and, 151, 154; on “new Chinese music,” 73–74, 95, 139, 156; as Party music spokesman, 168–169, 172, 247n48. See also national defense literature and music

Lu Wanmei 陸萬美 (1910–1983), writer, 86 Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881–1936), writer, 248n62; Nahan (Call to Arms), 29, 133 Luo Jialun 羅家倫 (1897–1969), historian, 29 Luo Mingyou 罗明佑 (1900–1967), filmmaker and entrepreneur, 67, 224n47 Ma Ke 馬可 (1918–1976), composer, 200; The White-Haired Girl (白毛女 Baimao nü), 171 Ma Kuangguo 馬匡國, Nationalist spy, 87 Ma Sicong 馬思聰 (1912–1987), composer and violinist, 165 mah-jongg, 27, 222n1 Mai Xin 麦新 (1915–1947), composer, 108, 151, 154; championing of Nie Er as model composer, 159, 162; co-editor with Meng Bo of Mass Singing (Dazhong gesheng), 153; “March of the Broadswords” (大刀進 行曲 Dadao jinxingqu), 238n87 Manchurian Incident: commemoration of, 89, 133; as political catalyst, 1, 78, 80, 230n53 Mao Zedong 毛澤東 (1893–1976): on internationalism, 6; on mass line, 14, 159, 202; New Democracy, 155, 244n1; personality cult of, 184; popularization and, 158–159; selection of national anthem, 165–166; “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art,” 158, 163, 167, 173, 216n28. See also Nie Er (film) “March of the Volunteers” (義勇軍進行曲 Yiyongjun jinxingqu), xi–xii, 1; change in lyrics by Tao Xingzhi (陶行知), 155; film renditions, 176–177, 179, 238n82; international reception, 138, 160–163; lyrics of, 132–133; musical analysis of, 134–136; wartime popularity, xii, 154. See also Ivens, Joris; national anthem; Robeson, Paul Marxism-Leninism, also given as Soviet Marxism: dissemination by Kunming press, 31, 33; influence among leftist artists, 73–74, 80, 82. See also Nie Er: socialist beliefs; popularization; socialism mass-singing rallies, xii, 10, 150, 153–155, 157 mass songs (群眾歌曲 qunzhong gequ), 1, 88,

Index 265

98, 139, 158, 200; as “heroic and powerful” (雄壯 xiongzhuang), 121, 163; during the 1950s, 169–170, 181; Soviet influence, 8, 91–92, 215n27; style of, 136, 201. See also Davidenko, Alexander Alexandrovich; music: gender and Maternal light (母性之光 Muxing zhi guang), film, 97, 109–110 May Fourth generation, 12, 30; socialism and, 35 May Thirtieth Movement (五卅運動 Wusa yundong), 25, 31, 33, 36, 154 media technology, 2, 10–11, 96, 149; China compared with Japan, 141 Mei Chongyuan 梅崇源, artist, 183 memory: xi, 12, 15, 193, 205; forgetting and, 163, 184; Nie’s music and, 200–202; official memory, 188; “realms of memory,” 185, 188, 192, 206. See also commemoration of Nie Er; Nora, Pierre; patriotic education sites Meng Bo 孟波 (1916–2015), composer, 151, 153, 171–172, 246n26 “Mengjiangnü ku Changcheng” (孟姜女哭長 城 Mengjiang weeps at the Great Wall), 22 Mingxing film company (明星影業公司 Mingxing yingye gongsi), 47, 144 modernity, 2, 45, 206, 214n6; colonial modernity, 4–5, 214n10 mountain songs (山歌 shan’ge), 89, 101, 157 Mu Shiying 穆時英 (1912–1940), writer, 222n5 Murayama Tomoyoshi 村山知義 (1901– 1977), playwright, 239n19 music: gender and, 121, 126, 148–149; historical materialism and, 77, 93–94; instrumental, 169; political function of, 13, 78, 156, 179, 206; publications, 153–​ 154; Soviet Russian developments of, 91–92; vocal, 8, 169–170 musical notation: numerical or “simplified” notation (簡譜 jianpu), 22, 99; staff notation, 26, 59, 165 narrative song: 唱書 changshu, 22; 說唱 shuochang, 108, 136 national anthem: xi, xiii, 1, 11, 138, 167, 184; constitutional amendment and, 249n14;

266

Index

debate over lyrics, 166, 244n112; National Anthem Law, 205; new lyrics, 249n13; official status, 189; and patriotic education campaign, 14, 185–186, 192, 195; as pre-1949 unofficial anthem, 140, 163; selection of, 162, 165–166 national defense literature and music, 8, 149, 154–155 national music, 6, 10, 74–76, 101, 157 National Revolutionary Alliance (同盟會 Tongmenghui), 36 National Revolutionary Sixteenth Yunnan Army, 36 National Salvation Amateur Choir (抗日救亡 業餘合唱團 Kangri jiuwang yeyu hechangtuan), 151 National Salvation Song Movement (救亡歌 詠運動 Jiuwang geyong yundong), xii, 9, 138–139, 150–155; support by Nationalist Party (Guomindang), 154. See also Liu Liangmo; Lü Ji; mass songs nationalism, 6–7, 12, 101, 185, 206, 214n2; anti-imperialist, xi, 1, 171; class nationalism, 100, 114, 136, 156, 163, 213n2; nationalist music, 9–10, 12–13, 73–74, 77, 162; “new,” 188; print culture and, 138; socialist construction and, 167–168; sonic dimensions of, 9–10, 42, 96, 122, 133, 164. See also national music; patriotic education campaign new Chinese music (中國新興音樂 Zhongguo xinxing yinyue), also given as new music, 1, 13, 74, 147, 156, 158; Nie Er’s championing of, 93–95; Nie Er as posthumous standard bearer, 159 New Culture Movement, 24, 74–76, 101 New Music (新音樂·Xin yinyue), 158. See also Li Luyong New Poetry (新詩歌 Xin Shige), 111 New Woman (新女性 Xin nüxing), film, 93, 117, 121–122, 236n47 New Year’s Eve (除夕 Chuxi), film, 97, 233n1 New Yunnan Association (新滇社 Xin Dianshe), 33, 86, 223n22 Nie Er 聶耳, born Nie Shouxin 聶守信, courtesy name Nie Ziyi 聶紫藝 (1912– 1935): anti-imperialist views, 25, 50, 85,

141; army experience, 37; on Battle of Shanghai (1932), 3, 65–66; Bright Moon Ensemble and, 3–4, 43, 53, 60; on capitalism/capitalists, 31, 35, 62–63, 67, 84, 121; children’s songs, 104–108; classical music and, 1, 3, 60, 64, 67; Communist Youth League and, 6, 15–16, 35, 38; death of, 143; diary writing, 26–27, 29, 44–45, 58; early education, 20, 24–25, 27; fiction writing, 30–31, 44; film criticism, 4, 83–85; on film industry, 56–57, 85; folk music research, 6, 8, 13, 101, 157; folksong influence, 15, 76, 102; folksong style, 13, 42, 103, 115, 123, 127; foreign language study, 24, 27, 47, 58, 142; former residence, 186, 193, 196; gravesite, 168, 185, 189–190, 249n16; identity formation, 5–6; internationalism of, 5, 77–78, 140–144, 206; on jazz, 63; on Li Jinhui, 67–69, 78, 85, 147; on love and marriage, 42, 45, 54–55, 71–72; love interests of, 57, 221n98 (see also Yuan Chunhui); on Manchurian Incident, 5, 43, 60, 64; march songs, 129–132, 134–137; memorial halls, 168, 192–193, 197–198; as model for socialist construction, 11, 167–169, 171; on music in Japan, 141; musical training of, 22–24, 98–100; names of, 4, 23, 58; piano studies, 26, 61, 98–99; on popularization, 8, 10, 68, 80, 95; poverty and, 16, 19–20; on Shanghai modern, 3, 43, 47–49; sing-song girls and, 55–57, 126; socialist beliefs, 4–6, 24–25, 29, 34–35, 77; Soviet Union Friendship Society and, 6–7, 90, 94; statues, 186, 190–193, 196–197; theater and, 28–29, 89, 142; traditional music arrangements, 102–103, 234n26; trauma of father’s death, 16–17; violin study and, 3, 59–61, 89–90; women’s songs, 122–129; work at Yunfeng Shop, 42, 46, 51; work songs, 108–120; Yuxi and, 27, 29, 193–195 Nie Er, works of: “Coolie Song” (苦力歌 Kuli ge), 96, 130, 132, 237n71; “Dockworkers” (‌碼頭工人 Matou gongren), 95, 110–112, 149, 200; “Girl under the Iron Hoof ” (鐵 蹄下的歌女 Tietixia de gennü), 122, 126–129, 178; “Golden Snake’s Merry

Dance” (金蛇狂舞 Jinshe kuangwu), 102, 175; “Graduation Song” (畢業歌 Biyege), 98, 129–130, 151–152, 192; “Mei Niang’s Song” (梅娘曲 Meiniangqu), 122, 124–126, 149, 200; “Mountain Kingdom Lovers” (山國情綠 Shanguo qinglu), 102, 201; “Movie Starlet” (一個女明星 Yi ge nü mingxing), 201; “New Women” (新女性 Xin nüxing), 117–121, 149; “Shepherd Girl” (牧羊女 Muyang nü), 96, 105, 108; “Song of the Big Road” (大路歌 Daluge), 114–116, 149, 200–201; “Song of the Newspaper Seller” (賣報歌 Maibaoge), 106–108, 200; “Spring Dawn at Green Lake” (翠湖春曉 Cuihu chunxiao), 102, 157; “Trailblazers” (開路的先鋒 Kailu de xianfeng), 114, 182; “Village Girl beyond the Great Wall” (塞外村女 Saiwai cunnü), 122–124, 182; “Wild Kitten” (小野貓 Xiao yemao), 104–105, 200. See also “March of the Volunteers” Nie Er (film): clash between regressive and revolutionary music, 179, 181–182; Communist feminism and, 176; folk music and, 175, 178; function of “La Marseillaise” and “The Internationale,” 178–179; “March of Volunteers,” 176–177, 179; popularization and, 175–176; on revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism, 172–173, 176–177; synopsis, 174–176; validation of Maoism, 172–174, 176–177 Nie Er (illustrated storybook), 183 Nie Er Culture Square, 186, 193, 197, 203 Nie Er Music Research Group, 201 Nie Er Park, 192–193 Nie Hongyi 聶鴻儀 (1871–1916), doctor, 16–18, 195 Nie Huiru 聶蕙如, 17–18 Nie Lihua 聶麗華 (b. 1936), film composer, 22, 199 Nie Xulun 聶敘倫 (1909–2000), xi–xii, 189, 222n103, 248n61 Nie Ziming 聶子明, 17, 22, 157, 248n61 Njal, George. See Nie Er Nora, Pierre, 12; realm of memory, 14, 248n1. See also patriotic education sites Northern Expedition, 36, 220n75

Index 267

Oakes, Tim, 188 Ouyang Yuqian 歐陽予倩 (1889–1961), writer, 37, 165 Pan Hannian 潘漢年 (1906–1977), Communist intelligence, 50 Pang Laikwan, 227n1 Pathé-EMI, 82, 91, 96–98 patriotic education campaign, 11, 185–186, 192, 205, 248n4 patriotic education sites, 185, 193, 198 Peng Jikuan 彭寂寛 (1881–1956), 17–18, 22; Dai ethnicity, 20; statue of, 196; studies, 18 pentatonic modes, 13, 101, 105, 107, 118, 127, 130, 134, 233n12, 234n21; three-note tonal group (三音列 sanyinlie) and, 129, 237n72 People’s Music (人民音樂 Renmin yinyue), 171–172, 180. See also Lü Ji people’s musician (人民音樂家 renmin yinyuejia), 1, 189; contemporary commemoration and, 192, 194, 197, 199; Guo Moruo’s inscription, 168, 170, 190 periodicals: Bright Light (光明 Guangming), 156; China Youth (中國青年 Zhongguo qingnian), 33; Chinese Women 中國婦女 Zhongguo funü), 33; Creation Monthly, 39; Eastern Miscellany (東方雜誌 Dongfang zazhi), 34; Innovation Weekly (革新週刊 Gexin zhoukan), 32–33; Iron Flower (鐵華 Tiehua), 33; Music Magazine (音樂雜誌 Yinyue zazhi), 75; New Music (新音樂 Xin yinyue), 158–159; Wartime Knowledge (戰 時知識 Zhanshi zhishi), 138 Pickowicz, Paul, 167, 171–172, 216n28 Plunder of Peach and Plum (桃李劫 Taolijie), film, 98, 129 Podushka, Josef (1877–1957), violinist, 3, 62, 99 Political Consultative Conference, 165, 189 Popular Front, xiii, 8, 140, 206 popularization (大眾化 dazhonghua), 8, 74, 80, 216n28; Lü Ji and, 92; socialist construction and, 168–169; Tian Han and, 73, 79–81. See also under Nie Er proletarian arts movement, 5, 7, 73–74, 91, 144; Russian Association of Proletarian

268

Index

Musicians and, 7–8, 92; global dimensions of, 162. See also Soviet Union Friendship Society Pu Feng 蒲鳳 (1911–1942), poet, 7, 111, 209 Qian Renkang 錢仁康 (1914–2013), musicologist, 181 Qing Zhu 青主 (1893–1959), music theorist, 74, 77, 139, 175 Qinghua University, 5, 89 Qiushi (Seek Truth) Elementary School (求 實小學 Qiushi xiaoxue), 20, 218n17 Qu Qiubai 瞿秋白 (1899–1935), Marxist theoretician, 81, 216n28, 237n80 Qu Yuan 屈原 (338–278 BCE), poet, 186 Readers Life Press (讀書生活出版社 Dushu shenghuo chubanshe), 5, 223n22 realism (現實主義 xianshizhuyi): literary, 29, 44–45; musical, 101, 123, 159; phonographic, 96; socialist, 169–170. See also Qu Qiubai; revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism Red versus Expert, 14, 167, 171, 181, 246n23 reform and opening (改革開放 gaige kaifang), 11, 185–186, 188–189, 202, 206 Refugees (逃亡 Taowang), film, 123, 182 regionalism, 2, 5, 11, 14–15, 102; contemporary Yunnan and, 188, 197–198, 204 Rejuvenation Elementary Music Primer (復 興初級音樂教材 Fuxing chuji yinyue jiaocai), 182 Ren Guang 任光 (1900–1941), composer: in Shanghai, 90–91, 94–96; in Singapore, 159 revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism (革命的現實主義和革命的浪漫 主義 Geming de xianshi zhuyi he geming de langman zhuyi), 167, 172–173 Robeson, Paul (1898–1976), actor, singer, social activist, xi, 160, 243n100, 244n107; champion of “March of the Volunteers” (Chee Lai), xiii, 138, 161, 163 Ruan Lingyu 阮玲玉 (1910–1936), actress, 117, 144, 236n47 sanxian (三弦 three-stringed plucked lute), 20, 22, 24

“Save China” (救中國 Jiu Zhongguo), 152. See Liu Liangmo school songs (學堂樂歌 xuetang yuege), 8, 22, 75, 150 Seeger, Charles, Jr. (1886–1979), pseudonym Carl Sands, musicologist, 159, 162, 242n89 Shakespeare, William: Romeo and Juliet, 28 Shanghai: Battle (1932), 1, 3, 65–66; as symbol of decadence, 146, 148, 157, 183, 194; Zhabei (閘北) district, 82 Shanghai Municipal Symphony Orchestra, 3, 60, 141 Shanghai National Conservatory of Music, 3, 63–64, 99; target of criticism, 147 Schaefer, Jacob (1888–1936), composer, 162 Shekhter, Boris (1900–1961), composer, 91 Shen Xingong 沈心工 (1869–1947), songwriter, “Blacksmith” (鐵匠 Tiejiang), 235n27 Shenbao 申報, 49, 51, 64, 94 sheng (笙 mouth organ), 22 Siegmeister, Elie (1909–1991), pseudonym L. E. Swift, composer, 159, 162, 242n89 sing-song girls, 55, 147–148; in “Girl under the Iron Hoof,” 126–129 Sinicization: of music, 8, 14, 101 Situ Huimin 司徒慧敏 (1910–1987), film director, 132 So, Richard, 161, 244n107 socialism, 2, 140, 170, 206, 214n2; with Chinese characteristics, 196; state socialism, 167, 186, 188 Song of the Fishermen (魚光曲 Yuguang qu), film, 96–97 “Song of the Volga Boatman,” 34, 110, 115, 122, 235n40 Song Qingling 宋慶齡, aka Madame Sun Yat-sen (1893–1981), political leader, 50, 161 Song Zhide 宋之的 (1914–1956), dramatist, 89 Southeast Asia (南洋 Nanyang), 64, 180. See also Nie Er, works of: “Mei Niang’s Song” Southern Drama Society (南社 Nanshe), 56, 79, 81, 225n70. See also Tian Han Soviet Union, xiii, 7, 90 Soviet Union Friendship Society (蘇聯之友社 Sulian zhi youshe), 6–7, 79, 90–91, 177

Storm on the Yangzi River (揚子江暴風雨 Yangzijiang baofengyu), 98, 110, 178 “Su Wu the Shepherd” (蘇武牧羊 Su Wu muyang), 20, 59 subaltern, xiii, 2, 5, 77, 96, 100, 139, 215n23; defined, 214n8; “nested,” 16 Suiyuan, 102, 154, 234n20 Sun Shiyi 孫師毅 (1904–1966), lyricist, 117, 121, 132 Szabó, Ferenc (1902–1969), composer, 162, 244n111 Tang Jiyao 唐繼堯 (1883–1927), warlord, 23, 31, 33–34, 38, 220n75 Tang Jiyu 唐繼虞 (1890–1939), general, 38 Tang Xiaobing, 149, 215n24 Third Bureau (軍事委員會政治部第三庭 Junshi weiyuanhui zhengzhibu di santing), 154 Tian Han 田漢 (1898–1968), dramatist: on capitalism, 83; on film industry (Hollywood, Chinese, and Soviet), 80–83; lyrics for “Graduation Song,” 130; lyrics for “March of the Volunteers,” 132–133; lyrics for “Mei Niang’s Song,” 124; lyrics for “Mining Song,” 109; national anthem selection and, 165–166; patronage of Nie Er, 6, 78–79; on popularization, 73, 79–81; “Our Self-Criticism,” 79; Song of Returning Spring (回春之曲 Huichun zhi qu), 124; victim of Cultural Revolution, 184, 248n62 Tilly, Charles, 150 Tin Pan Alley, 4, 215n12 Tonoff, Nicholas Alexander (d. 1954), violinist, 89–90, 99 transculturation, 102 Tretyakov, Sergei (1892–1937), writer: Roar, China!, 82 Tuohy, Sue, 10 United China Relief, 160–161 Vietnam, 25, 236n62 Vietnamese in Yunnan, 24 Voice of Yunnan Daily (滇聲報 Dianshengbao), 31–32 Voronsky, Aleksandr (1884–1937), Marxist critic, 29

Index 269

Wang Ban, 177, 247n42 Wang Desan 王德三 (1898–1930), Communist revolutionary, 32, 34, 220n68, 223n22 Wang Fusheng 王復生 (1896–1936), early Marxist, 32, 34, 220n68 Wang Guangqi 王光祈 (1892–1936), musicologist: on national music, 75 Wang Hui: on “depoliticization,” 185 Wang Renmei 王人美 (1914–1987), actress-singer, 55, 97, 221n98; “Girl under the Iron Hoof” and, 127 Wang Renyi 王人藝 (1912–1985), violinist, 59–60, 62, 199 Wang Weiyi 王為一 (1912–2013), film director, musician, 103 Wang Xiling 王西麟 (b. 1936), composer, xii Wang Yizhi, 11 Wang Youde 王有德 (1897–1932), Chinese Marxist, 32, 220n66 Wang Yuhe 汪毓和, xii, 11, 53, 95, 151; classification of Nie’s songs, 98; song analysis, 114–115, 126 Weill, Kurt (1900–1950), composer, 7 Wong, Isabel, 136, 158 Wong, Wang-chi Lawrence, 73 Woolf, Leonard: Economic Imperialism, 35 Wu Cheng 吳澄 (1900–1930), revolutionary, 33, 220n74 Wuhan, 154 Xia Mandi 夏蔓蒂, pseudonym of Xia Guoqiong 夏国琼 (1915–2012), 77, 228n13 Xia Yan 夏衍 (1900–1995), playwright/ screenwriter, 83, 132, 172, 248n62 Xia Zhiqiu 夏之秋 (1912–1993), choral leader, Wuhan Choir tour of Malaya and, 160 Xian Incident, 151, 241n59 Xian Xinghai 冼星海 (1905–1945), composer, 11, 108, 154, 157–158, 181, 247n48; “National Salvation Army Song” (救國軍 歌 Jiuguo junge), 238n87 Xiao Youmei 蕭友梅 (1884–1940), music educator, 41, 63–64; as target of criticism, 139, 147 xiaodiao 小調 (entertainment ditties), 22, 101 Xu Beihong 徐悲鴻 (1895–1953), painter, 163, 166

270

Index

Xu Jiarui 徐嘉瑞 (1895–1977), scholar, 20, 138, 168 Xu Xingzhi 許幸之 (1904–1991), film director, 126, 236n66 Yang Hansheng 陽翰笙 (1902–1993), playwright, 248n62 Yang Qingtian 楊青田 (1897–1980), Yunnanese Communist, 32 Yang Xuesong 楊雪松, mountaineer, 204 yellow songs (黃色歌曲 huangse gequ): as target of criticism, 178–181, 224n49, 247n46 Ying Yunwei 應雲衛 (1904–1967), director, 129; Roar, China! (怒吼吧, 中國! Nuhou ba, Zhongguo!), 133 Yu Dafu 郁達夫 (1896–1945), writer, “Sinking” (Chen Lun), 45 Yu Ling 于伶 (1907–1997), playwright, 89; scriptwriter for Nie Er (film), 171–173, 246n30 Yuan Chunhui 袁春暉, 39–42, 69–72 Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 (1859–1916), General, 36 yueqin (月琴, moon zither), 22; as cultural symbol, 175, 183, 197–198 Yunnan, 6; development of Chinese Communist Party, 31–34, 86; importance of opium, 219n43; as symbol of pristine land, 5, 157, 194; warlord politics of, 33–34, 38. See also Kunming; regionalism; Yuxi Yunnan Diligent Youth Association (雲南青 年努力會 Yunnan qingnian nulihui), 33–34 Yunnan First Provincial Middle School (雲 南第一聯合中學 Yunnan di yi sheng zhongxue), 32–33, 222n6 Yunnan First United Middle School (雲南第 一聯合中學 Yunnan di yi lianhe zhongxue), 20, 24, 29, 31 Yunnan Military Academy, 36 Yunnan native place association (雲南會館 Yunnan huiguan): in Beiping, 86–87, 230n53 Yunnan Nie Er Music Foundation, 186, 195, 197, 203 Yunnan Reform Society (雲南革新社 Yunnan Gexinshe), 32

Yunnan student (雲南學生 Yunnan xuesheng), 33 Yunnan wave (滇潮 Dianchao), 31–32 Yuxi 玉溪, 4, commemoration of Nie Er, 186, 192–193, 196; marketing of Nie Er, 188, 195–196, 203; tobacco capital, 14, 193. See also Hongta Group; Kong Xianggeng Zhang Hao 張昊 (b. 1912), pseudonym 汀石 (Ting Shi), musician, 93 Zhang Shaofu 張少甫 (1909–1974), cellist, 54, 63 Zhang Shu 張曙 (1906–1938), composer, 94–95, 151; patronage by Tian Han, 231n79 Zhang Tianxu 張天虛 (1911–1941), original name 張鶴 (Zhang He), 5, 150; author of Iron Wheel (鐵輪 Tielun), 239n32; commemoration of Nie Er, 140, 142–143, 145, 147–148 Zhang Yuhou 張庾候, 22, 26, 28, 39, 41, 101; Liao Bomin (廖伯民) and, 46 Zhao Dan 趙丹 (1915–1980), actor, 172, 174 Zhao Mingyi 趙銘彝 (1907–1999), film and drama critic, 89–90, 92 Zhao Qinxian 趙琴仙 (1906–1928), Communist activist, 34 Zhao Yuanren 趙元任 (1892–1982), linguist/ songwriter, 232n100; “Song of Labor” (勞 動歌 Laodong ge), 235n40

Zheng Boqi 鄭伯奇 (1895–1979), playwright: Resistance (抗爭 Kangzheng ), 28 Zheng Jinwen 鄭瑾文 (1871–1936), director of Great Unity Music Society (大同樂會 Datong yuehui), 234n26 Zheng Junli 鄭君里 (1911–1969), actor and director, 167, 171–174, 177. See also Nie Er film Zheng Lücheng 鄭律成 (1914–1976), composer, “March of the Eighth Route Army” (八路軍進行曲 Balujun jinxingqu), 238n87 Zheng Yili 鄭易里 (1906–2002), original name 鄭雨笙 (Zheng Yusheng), publisher, 5, 47–48, 58, 223n22 Zheng Zhengqiu 鄭正秋 (1889–1935), film director, 144 zhengyin 正音, one of the five main tones in the pentatonic scale—Gong (宮), Shang ( 商), Jue (角), Zhi (徵) and Yu (羽), 233n12 Zhou Enlai 周恩來 (1898–1976), 172; selection of national anthem, 165–166 Zhou Jianyun 周劍雲 (1893–1949), film entrepreneur, 144 Zhou Yang 周揚 (1908–1989), literary theorist, 91–92, 149, 248n62 Zhu De 朱德 (1886–1976), military leader, 36, 168 Zhu Jian’er 朱践耳 (1922–2017), composer, 112, 236n43 Zimbalist, Efrem (1889–1985), violinist, 60

Index 271

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joshua H. Howard is the Croft Professor of History and International Studies at the University of Mississippi, where he has been teaching since 1999 after receiving a PhD in history from the University of California, Berkeley. Howard has been the recipient of several fellowships including a Fulbright (2007–2008) to China, where he conducted research for this book at the Central Conservatory of Music. He was selected Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton for the academic year 2019–2020. His publications include Workers at War: Labor in China’s Arsenals, 1937–1953 (2004) and ten articles/chapters on topics ranging from child labor to patriotic mass songs. A lifelong student of the violin, Howard regularly performs at the University of ­Mississippi’s department of music.