“The Song of Selling Olives”: Acoustic Experience and Cantonese Identity in Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau Across the Great Divide of 1949
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China Perspectives 2019-3 | 2019 Sinophone Musical Worlds (1) “The Song of Selling Olives”: Acoustic Experience and Cantonese Identity in Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau across the Great Divide of 1949 Nga Li Lam Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/9321 DOI: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.9321 ISSN: 1996-4617 Publisher Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine Printed version Date of publication: 1 September 2019 Number of pages: 9-16 ISSN: 2070-3449 Electronic reference Nga Li Lam, « “The Song of Selling Olives”: Acoustic Experience and Cantonese Identity in Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau across the Great Divide of 1949 », China Perspectives [Online], 2019-3 | 2019, Online since 01 September 2020, connection on 24 December 2020. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/9321 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives. 9321 © All rights reserved Special feature china perspectives China: An International Journal (CIJ) is published in February, May, August and November by the East Asian “the Song of Selling Olives”: Institute, National University of Singapore. The Journal focuses on acoustic experience and Cantonese contemporary China, including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, covering Identity in Canton, hong Kong, the fields of politics, economics, society, geography, law, culture and and Macau across the Great Divide international relations. of 1949* China: An International Journal is available online in Project MUSE (an electronic database for journals in the humanities and social NGa lI LAM sciences). For more details, visit http://muse. jhu.edu or email [email protected]. ABSTRACT: This essay looks into the cultural identity and acoustic experience shared among Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau through “The Song of Selling Olives,” a piece from Siu Yuet Pak – a 1950 Cantonese opera adaptation of Flame of Lust, a 1948 story broadcasted For print subscriptions and order enquiries, please contact: in Canton (as Guangzhou was known in the Republican era) that soon become a household name across the region. By means of The Journal Manager, NUS Press Pte Ltd, National University of Singapore, AS3-01-02, 3 Arts Link, archival research and close-reading, I will explicate ways in which the song appropriates the cultural icon of Siu Yuet-pak and re-invents Singapore 117569, Tel: (65) 6776-1148, Fax: (65) 6774-0652, Email: [email protected] the tradition of “selling olives,” projecting the boundary-crossing experience among the three Cantonese-speaking areas in a time of frequent exchanges, occasional competition, and potential disconnection from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. Call for papers: KEYWORDS: Stories on air, radio, Cantoneseness, Cantonese song, popular music, selling olives. The Journal welcomes the submission of theoretically- and empirically-based research articles, review articles, short comments and notes. Manuscripts oriented towards East Asian specialists are preferred, but pieces written for a wider audience will also be considered. All submissions must be fully documented. All correspondence on editorial matters should be sent to: Introduction (as Guangzhou was known in the Republican era), Macau, and Hong Kong in a time of frequent exchanges, occasional competition, and potential The Editors, China: An International Journal, East Asian Institute, n Youtube, one can find several videos about “aeroplane olives” – disconnection – that is, from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. In retrospect, National University of Singapore, 469A Tower Block #06-01, Bukit Timah Road, Singapore in which a seller throws packs of olives to customers standing on the year 1949 not only marks the birth of New China, but also opens a 259770, Tel: (65) 6779-1037, Fax: (65) 6779-3409, Email: [email protected] Overandas or balconies.1 As a by-gone tradition, “aeroplane olives” new page for Hong Kong society as well as, to some extent, for the city’s often appeared in Hong Kong nostalgia films representing the sense of popular music industry. Indeed, the city broke further away from Communist community long lost among flyovers, chain stores, and skyscrapers.2 Yet it China as stricter border controls and censorship were imposed. This was INSTITUTIONS was more than a spectacular sight involving the action of throwing a pack of accompanied by an influx of immigrants, including Shanghai capitalists snacks precisely onto the hands of customers several floors up – it was also and talent, which had a huge influence over the film industry and caused Singapore / ASEAN / China Elsewhere an acoustic experience in itself: hawkers often sang while walking along the Mandopop to set root in the Cantonese-speaking city, becoming a model 1 year (Print Only) S$100 / US$85 US$100 streets in order to draw attention.3 for the still-emerging Cantopop (Wong 2003: 12-4). While such an account The vernacular songs associated with selling “aeroplane olives” – or 1 year (Online Only) S$100 / US$85 US$100 “white olives” as they were also known – could have been produced rather * An earlier draft of this paper was presented at “Cantonese Connection: Periodical Studies in the Age of Digitalisation,” organised by The Centre for Greater China Studies of Hang Seng University 1 year (Print and Online) S$120 / US$105 US$120 spontaneously; these songs could have vanished without a trace alongside 4 of Hong Kong. The author would like to thank participants of that workshop for their comments. the waning trade. Yet the song discussed in this article, called “The Song The author is also grateful to the suggestions of the two reviewers of this essay. of Selling Olives” (mai lan ge 賣覽歌), is an exception. Surviving on several 1. For instance, see this Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpzY6lZikr0 (accessed on 任劍輝 22 August 2019). INDIVIDUALS (Print only) records, it was originally sung by the famous diva Yum Kim Fai (1913- 2. These examples include, among others, He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother (Xin nan xiong nan di 新 1989) for the Cantonese opera Siu Yuet Pak (Xiao Yuebai 蕭月白), which was 難兄難弟 Singapore / ASEAN / China Elsewhere ) (Chan 1994). based on the famous radio programme known as Flame of Lust (Yu yan 慾 3. It seems that hawkers selling olives did not merely sing about olives, but sang various other songs as well. One is known as “發瘋仔自嘆” (Fa feng zai zitan, A self-pity song from an insane man). 1 year S$50 / US$45 US$60 燄). The song is more than a simple ethnographic record of a by-gone street- The famous singer Little Star (Xiao Ming Xing 小明星) learned it when she was young. See Mo life custom. It arguably embodies the intra-regional and media-crossing (1988: 12). interaction between reproducibility and authenticity of acoustic experience, 4. The trade had become less and less popular by the 1980s, if not earlier. And Mr. Kwok, possibly Rates include GST. For registered airmail delivery, add US$30.00 (ASEAN) and US$40.00 the last hawker of the trade, passed away in 2013. For an account on Mr. Kwok’s legend, see telling a riveting story of cultural consumption and identities among Canton Poon (2009). (elsewhere). Credit card payments are preferred. Please make cheques payable to NUS Press Pte Ltd. For cheques drawn in US$, an additional bank charge of US$20 applies. N o . 2 0 1 9 / 3 • china perspectives peer-reviewed article 9 CIJ ad bw 140x205mm_May 2019.indd 1 5/8/19 9:57 AM Special feature of events is commonplace and generally accurate, it has unfortunately and against the historical context in which this operatic adaptation took bypassed the Cantonese tides in popular culture and specifically in popular place in Hong Kong in 1950, that is, right after the great divide. It highlights music. Such tides in the city and amongst its nearby regions continued ways in which the song on the one hand localises the story after a greater to linger regardless of the divide between Communist China and the free division between Hong Kong and its nearby regions had been imposed, world, and contributed to the formation of a Cantonese identity amidst while on the other hand it reinvents the Cantonese tradition of selling the interfusion between the North – for Hongkongers that would be the olives. The essay concludes with a rethinking of the relationship between Shanghainese newcomers – and the South. My discussion of “The Song of acoustic experience and Cantoneseness – while the acoustic experience Selling Olives” and its implications hopes to bring a “regional perspective” being circulated among the three Cantonese cities is yet another example alternative to the national discourse and inter-states narratives offered by of how soundscape deviates from national boundaries to define social studies on Modern China or Cold War studies. It may also contribute to a communities. This Cantoneseness should not be regarded as an umbrella fuller and historically contextualised understanding of what might be called term to make a case for an uncritical celebration of Cantonese identity, a “Cantonese” identity amidst recent calls for, and resentment of, further but rather as a point of departure to confront the complex ways in which integration between Hong Kong and nearby Guangdong and Macau in the popular culture was consumed and identities negotiated among Hong Kong, blueprint of the PRC’s “Greater Bay Area,”5 as well as providing a glimpse Macau, and Canton. into the cultural roots of a continuous regional sentiment that is often expressed through a defence of the Cantonese language6 – again highlighting Cantonese song and vernacularity the acoustic aspect of Cantonese identification. The following discussion comes in three parts. The first part positions the Two main scholarly directions are prominent so far in studies of song and productions in the framework of “Cantonese song.” “Cantonese “Cantonese popular music.” The first orientation of research has focused song” is the English translation of the Chinese term “yue qu” (粵曲), to on Cantopop.