{"id":29774,"date":"2022-07-12T11:00:26","date_gmt":"2022-07-12T03:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/?p=29774"},"modified":"2022-07-12T10:53:23","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T02:53:23","slug":"contested-chineseness-and-third-sister-liu-in-singapore-and-hong-kong-folk-songs-landscape-and-cold-war-politics-in-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2022\/07\/12\/contested-chineseness-and-third-sister-liu-in-singapore-and-hong-kong-folk-songs-landscape-and-cold-war-politics-in-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"Contested Chineseness and Third Sister Liu in Singapore and Hong Kong: Folk Songs, Landscape, and Cold War Politics in Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Photo: \u2018Liu Sanjie Statue\u2019 by David Schroeter\/Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On July 12, 1962,\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>, a Chinese musical film, was first screened in Singapore. It shattered all box-office records in the country and was continually screened in theatres for more than seven months. Audience members even wrote down the songs one by one and memorized them. Many watched the film more than ten times.<\/p>\n

In \u2018Contested Chineseness and\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>\u00a0in Singapore and Hong Kong: Folk Songs, Landscape, and Cold War Politics in Asia\u2019, a chapter in\u00a0The Cold War and Asian Cinemas<\/em>\u00a0(2020), Associate Professor Xu Lanjun (NUS Department of Chinese Studies) examines the fever over\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>and its relationship with the radical political movements of labourers in Singapore during the 1960s. She focuses on three films:\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>, which was shot in mainland China, as well as two of its adaptations from Hong Kong,\u00a0The Shepherd Girl<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Songfest.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>By comparing the three films\u2019 usage of folk songs, crowds, love and romance, and landscape, A\/P Xu investigates how a sentimental narrative mode like the musical was closely intertwined with local politics of decolonization in Southeast Asia, cultural diplomacy of the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC), and the cultural connection between Communist China and the diasporic Chinese communities in Cold War Asia.<\/p>\n

As a major form of mass culture, cinema has become an important tool to win the hearts and minds of overseas Chinese, especially those in geopolitically significant locations such as Hong Kong and Singapore. The landscape of the remote southwest in China presented in the film relieved the homesickness of many immigrants and created a closer sentimental link with their homeland.<\/p>\n

The popularity of\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>between 1962 and 1963 paralleled a period in which Singaporeans were debating the issues of merger and independence. In the film, the legend of Third Sister Liu was adapted to \u201cexpress gender awareness and class struggle\u201d, notes A\/P Xu. \u00a0She argues that a major reason for the popularity of the film in Singapore was that it effectively expressed the public frustrations over social injustices under the British government\u2019s colonial rule. The film was used by different political agents in the independence campaign as it exactly fit the specific moments of conflict and confrontation in Singapore in the 1960s and enjoyed great popularity among the Chinese community. Both the People\u2019s Action Party (PAP) and the Socialist Front held free screenings of\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>in order to attract a working class audience. A\/P Xu emphasizes that identification with\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>\u00a0by both parties did not entail a preference for the communist PRC, but was aimed at mobilising the mass audience towards greater political activism.<\/p>\n

The fever of\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>suddenly died out in January 1963, with the end of the conflict between the PAP and the Socialist Front. Despite the official containment of leftist interests after 1960,\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>continues to have a following even today.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the popularity of\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>, the two Hong Kong adaptations\u00a0The Shepherd Girl\u00a0<\/em>(1964) and\u00a0The Songfest<\/em>\u00a0(1963)\u00a0were not very well-received in Singapore. In fact, many reviews did not even connect the two films with\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>\u00a0as the issue of class struggle, which was the main theme of\u00a0Third Sister Liu<\/em>, was virtually absent.<\/p>\n

Read the article\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On July 12, 1962,\u00a0Third Sister Liu, a Chinese musical film, was first screened in Singapore. It shattered all box-office records in the country and was continually screened in theatres for more than seven months. Audience members even wrote down the songs one by one and memorized them. Many watched the film more than ten times. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":29775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4529,4606,4604],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-research","category-visible"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29774"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29907,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29774\/revisions\/29907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}