{"id":36223,"date":"2026-05-29T20:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/?p=36223"},"modified":"2026-05-26T21:51:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T13:51:05","slug":"xinyaos-small-sentiments-and-big-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2026\/05\/29\/xinyaos-small-sentiments-and-big-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Xinyao\u2019s Small Sentiments and Big Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few genres in Singapore\u2019s cultural history are remembered as warmly as xinyao, a uniquely Singaporean genre of Mandarin songs that emerged among students in the late 1970s and 1980s. Often associated with campus life, youth, friendship, and simple guitar melodies, xinyao is frequently treated as a musical expression of ‘small sentiments’. Yet behind these intimate songs lies a much larger story about language, identity, and social change in Singapore. In \u2018\u65b0\u8c23\u7684\u5c0f\u60c5\u6000\u548c\u5927\u65f6\u4ee3\u2019 [\u2018Xinyao\u2019s Small Sentiments and Big Times\u2019] (Lianhe Zaobao<\/em>, 14 May 2026), Raffles Professor of Humanities Ong Chang Woei (NUS Chinese Studies) revisits the beginnings of xinyao and asks how we might understand it not only as a student music movement, but also as a response to the historical conditions of its time.<\/p>\n

Ong notes that xinyao is commonly remembered through songs of youth and everyday emotion. In this popular framing, xinyao appears gentle, personal, and modest. Its lyrics often seem to focus on friendship, longing, dreams, and the emotional life of young people. Ong argues that this is only one side of the story, however. To see xinyao merely as \u2018small sentiment\u2019 risks missing the larger pressures and possibilities that shaped its emergence.<\/p>\n

The article places xinyao against the backdrop of Singapore\u2019s rapid economic development, education reform, and shifting language environment. In the early 1980s, students were creating songs in a society where English was becoming increasingly dominant, while Chinese-language education and culture were undergoing major change. Rather than simply imitating foreign pop music, xinyao gave young Singaporeans a way to write and sing from their own social position, using local experiences, local anxieties, and local forms of expression. Ong pays particular attention to how xinyao developed within what he calls the discourse of national and familial development. The movement did not exist apart from Singapore\u2019s state-building project. Instead, it unfolded during a period when official narratives emphasised progress, discipline, economic survival, and social cohesion.<\/p>\n

By reading xinyao through both sentiment and history, Ong invites us to move beyond nostalgia. Xinyao was not just a collection of campus songs, nor simply a pleasant memory of youth. It was also a cultural response to an era of transition. Its quietness was part of its power: through simple tunes and personal lyrics, it registered the hopes, unease, and imagination of a generation coming of age in a rapidly changing Singapore.<\/p>\n

This post discusses Part I of Ong\u2019s two part article. Read Part I of the article here<\/a> and Part II here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo: \u201cOne of the Xinyao groups singing at the Xinyao Festival in 1985.\u201d ST File from \u201cBeyond nostalgia: Can xinyao still strike a chord?\u201d (The Straits Times<\/em>, 3 April 2026).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Few genres in Singapore\u2019s cultural history are remembered as warmly as xinyao, a uniquely Singaporean genre of Mandarin songs that emerged among students in the late 1970s and 1980s. Often associated with campus life, youth, friendship, and simple guitar melodies, xinyao is frequently treated as a musical expression of ‘small sentiments’. Yet behind these intimate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":404,"featured_media":36224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","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":"set","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":[4533,4529,4609,4604],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chinese-studies","category-news","category-singapore-research-nexus","category-visible"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36223","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\/404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36223"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36245,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36223\/revisions\/36245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}