Sun Yat Sen and Sun Yan Zi: Connecting Singapore to China
by Hu Wen
I learn a lot from my students during tutorials, sometimes more than they do from me. During one tutorial when we were discussing some aspects of early twentieth century Singapore history, a student of Chinese nationality suddenly spoke up, “Sun Yan Zi played a very important role in connecting overseas Chinese and China.” The whole class went silent trying to digest what had just been said, and then burst out laughing hilariously! The student had unwittingly mixed up the two “Suns”: Sun Yan Zi the pop singer, also known as Stephanie Sun; and Sun Yat Sen, widely regarded as the founding father of Republican China.
However, the student could be right to some extent. Stephanie Sun DOES play a very important role in connecting China and Singapore today. About a century ago, there was no independent Singapore as we know it today. The majority of the migrant population in colonial Singapore was Chinese sojourners. Most of them saw China as their real home and took a greater interest in the political, economic and social developments in their homeland, rather than in the place they came to work in. The Chinese people sent relief to the victims of various disasters in China. They remitted money back home to build up industries, infrastructure and education. Hence, Sun Yat Sen was able to make use of this emotional connection to drum up support for his revolutionary plans during his visits to Singapore, (which indirectly culminated in the 1911 Revolution).
After Singapore gained independence in 1965, the Chinese in Singapore had to see themselves as Singaporeans; while the Chinese in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) look upon Singapore as a foreign country. Since then, the economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries have been quite close, but these high-level considerations do not always directly affect the daily lives of the general public in both countries. Rather, it is the various aspects of popular culture which connects both Chinese and Singaporean youths, for instance, pop music, literature, gaming etc.
External cultural influences are unavoidable with increasing globalisation. Western (or more accurately American) popular culture is perhaps the strongest, permeating most areas of the globe. Intellectuals and scholars have highlighted the negative effects of Westernisation, for instance, movies from Hollywood, MacDonald’s, all of which are common sights in China nowadays. The world becomes even closer with the advent of new media, such as the Internet. Chinese youths can now share information almost instantaneously with their American counterparts online. For instance, Chinese fans can watch an episode of Prison Break online just a day after it is released in America.
However, it is interesting to note that despite the apparent hegemony of Western moving pictures, Chinese music is still dominant. One notices that in the music collection of most Chinese youths (usually in digital format nowadays), they listen more to Mandarin pop music. The singers usually hail from the Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the US, and in some rare cases, from Indonesia or even Thailand. Bearing Chinese names and features, it is difficult to distinguish off-hand who is who, and from which region. While music is able to cross national and regional boundaries, it does seem unable to transcend the language boundary just as easily. Excluding the really famous and popular foreign music stars, Chinese youths generally only listen to those who sing in Mandarin.
Stephanie Sun is one of them. During my college days, her songs were among the most popular ones during karaoke sessions. While most Chinese youths cannot tell the difference between Hokkien and Hakka, I did not even know that they were two different dialects until I came to Singapore, they nonetheless can all sing “ti o o” (literally meaning “sky is getting dark”) in S. Sun’s song Cloudy Day (Tian Hei Hei). Other Singaporean pop stars are also becoming popular in China, e.g. Wayne Lin Junjie and Huang Yida, who could be said to be even more popular than Stephanie Sun presently. These pop stars bring Singapore, or at least some aspect of it, to the Chinese youths. Their ideas and perceptions of Singapore are not shaped by school textbooks, which seldom mention Southeast Asia; not by the newspapers, which are usually focused on local and international important news, and certainly not by the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park. Instead, Chinese youths know Singapore through the Singaporean-produced songs they listen and sing along to.
Historically, the actions of Sun Yat Sen in Singapore leading up to the 1911 Revolution are significant. When I had highlighted other contributions of Singapore Chinese had made to China, aside from the revolution, they also made contributions of money and military equipment to support their brethren during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945); some of them even went back to fight. I know Chinese students do appreciate these historical facts.
But I also realised that for the youths of China, Singapore only becomes more relevant when talking about Sun Yan Zi, rather than Sun Yat Sen.
The author is a Chinese national and holds a Master’s in History from the National University of Singapore. She is currently doing her Ph.D. at the Department of History, National University of Singapore.