Complicating Nostalgia

THE GIRL IN PINAFORES NOSTALGIAS FOR XINYAO

Peiwen Soh 2015

KINGS COLLEGE LONDON UNDERGRADUATE DISSERTATION |

This dissertation would not have been possible if not for the generous sharing of information by
xinyao enthusiasts (Mr Yee-Wei Chia, Ms Eva Tang, Ms Theresa Lim, Mr Fung Chee Kong), the astute
comments from my supervisor (Professor Martin Stokes), loving support from friends and family and
most importantly, God, whose mercies abound.

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1. Introduction
People often wistfully smile and comment that music in the past was better. All over the world,
from Kroncong in Indonesia to Beatlemania in Britain, as the passing of time has relegated some styles
to a less visible (and audible) position, there are undoubtable strains of yearning for musics past their
heydays. Musics temporal nature seems to provide a particularly effective springboard for nostalgia
as it allows listeners to associate with the passing of time metaphorically with the listening
experience.1 For many people, it is the music of their youth they yearn for because of its symbolic
innocence and reminder of how their identities were constructed.2 More poignantly, it is a time that
they cannot return to. Unlike how the listener can circumvent time and hit the replay button to
overcome the fleeting nature of music, this sense of yearning seems to be circular because it is
impossible to relive moments in the past even if the same music is being played. Nostalgia can border
on melancholia as it drives listeners to listen obsessively while reminiscing about the past, but
sometimes it is relieved by interaction with a community who apparently shared the same intimate
memories, and therefore, the same sense of loss. In both cases, the sense of loss is eventually
highlighted more acutely, leading to a stronger yearning for an impossible return.
This is similarly observed in the phenomenon of xinyao and its supposed continued presence in
Singapore today. Xinyao is a mandarin folk-pop movement that flourished in Singapore between the
80s to the 90s. Etymologically, it is made up of two mandarin characters- xin, which means new and
can also be a reference to Singapore, and yao- song and is widely accepted to be a condensed form of
songs sung by Singaporean youths.3 This explication of locality eventually evolved to become an
implication of genre. In popular perception, it is differentiated from other styles of mandarin popular
music through its simple acoustic guitar accompaniment and poetic lyrics revolving around themes

Mal Guesdon and Philippe Le Guern, Retromania: Crisis of Progressive Ideal and Pop Music Spectrality,
Media and nostalgia: yearning for the past, present and future, ed. Katharina Niemeyer, (London and New
York, 2014).
2
Simon Frith, Music and Identity, Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. Stuart Hall and Paul de Gay. (New York,
1996), 108-148.
3
Lily Kong, Making music at the margins: a social and cultural analysis of xinyao, Asian Studies Review, 19:3,
1996, 99-124.

3
like youth, love, friendship, nation and nostalgia.4 In actuality, xinyao is stylistically diverse, ranging
from pop ballads, rock anthems, television theme songs, ethnic arrangements to laments, uses a broad
range of instruments and plays into multiple discourses.5
Main initial proponents and consumers of xinyao were Chinese students in their late teens to early
twenties. The movement seemed to die out in the early 90s as these students eventually entered the
workforce, got conscripted into the army or became invested in commercial music business. 6
However, throughout the years, there have been attempts to sustain xinyaos visibility- such as annual
Reunion concerts organised by TCR, (an events company set up by an early influential xinyao singer)
and performing in a landmark TV programme, S-Pop Hurray about Singapore musics. 7 In 2014,
Singaporean director Yee-Wei Chai released a movie, The Girl in Pinafore, celebrating the narrative of
xinyao to great box office success. These efforts to resuscitate xinyao and plant an interest especially
in those who have not grown up with it reveal yearning backwards glances to the movement in the
80s-90s. For some of them, there is an unashamed admittance of nostalgia for xinyao in its purest
form, where students were making music and expressing themselves simply for the sake of selfexpression and pleasure. 8
As a Singaporean Chinese who has not experienced the xinyao movement firsthand, I am privy to
both emic and etic knowledge about it. Having grown up being vaguely exposed to xinyao as some
sort of Singaporean music made in the past, I am sensitive to the nuanced cultural references and
the type of nostalgia it can evoke for, broadly speaking, Singaporean Chinese youths who have not
experienced xinyao in the 80s, and Singaporean Chinese adults for whom xinyao is part of their

Jaime Koh, Xinyao: Made in Singapore, NLB MusicSG articles,

http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/music/Media/PDFs/Article/49873991-cb87-4dd0-a274-99dd6ed2a54c.pdf
accessed on 14 April 2014.
5
This is revealed through surveying repertoires of singers commonly associated with xinyao, such as
6
Eugene Dairianathan and Phan Ming Yen, A Narrative History of Music in Singapore from 1819- present
(Singapore, 2002).
7
Cai Yi Ren, interviewed by Chua Ee Gein, 19 Jan 2011, Performing Arts in Singapore, National Archives of
Singapore and SPOP http://spop.mediacorptv.sg/about.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBUDfdzzSEs
8
Xie Yan Yan, Lin De Sheng, Lin Guo Ming, Hei Jiao Chang Pian Chang Chu Li Shi, Lian He Zao Bao, 17 Aug
2008, microfilm NL29465 accessed on 21 June 2014.

4
memories. This is not to say that Singaporean Chinese youths or adults are singular categories who
all share similar responses to xinyao because these identities are complicated by language (whether
they use English or Mandarin predominantly) and socioeconomic factors that would certainly affect
their perception of xinyao. Speaking Mandarin as my mother tongue also allows me to understand the
poetics of xinyao songs better without the need to translate translation between language and
culture.
However, I cannot claim to be a practitioner or to speak for those culture bearers in an emic
manner because no part of my musical or cultural life before this research was spent actively
encountering xinyao. A variety of sources, such as interviews, oral histories, newspaper articles, social
media, blogs and ethnographic observations of concerts, were used to research about todays
nostalgia for xinyao. Most of them eventually employed are representative of two groups of peopleadults who have experienced the initial phenomenon and are emotionally invested in it and youths
whose exposure to xinyao came through schools and media. Broadly, they fall into similar
socioeconomic status- bilingual, educated, middle class Singaporean Chinese. Due to limitations in
length, it is not possible to consider more fully how an unstable cultural identity affects expressions
of nostalgia. Therefore, these sources do not necessarily reflect the majoritys view, but are dominant
voices in xinyaos discourse.
A challenge in researching xinyao is that it is a largely under-studied musical culture.9 Altogether,
there are three articles that construct its history, one that critically situates the importance of voice in
xinyao, two that situate xinyao in Singapores culture and one thesis that analyses some
representative songs. Xinyaos straddling between its desire to be a folk discourse yet dealing with
commercialisation, multiple meanings of musical practice and genre, national identity building efforts
and relationship with the state are all questions need more attending to. Today, Liang Wern Fook
(prolific song writer and literature professor) towers over xinyaos identity, inevitably grounding public
desire to assess songs based on their authenticity, with his early output that fulfills xinyaos

Eugene Dairianathan and Chia Wei Khuan, Wen hua de ding wei, Chao yue jiang jie, (2007), 147-162.

5
stereotypical musical characteristics, being the pinnacle of pure xinyao music, driving the general
nostalgic gaze on xinyao today.
Using The Girl in the Pinafore, a movie about xinyao released in 2013, as a focal point on the
tendency for nostalgic expressions of xinyao today, I would like to explore the intersection between
nostalgia and music, arguing for multiple nostalgias at play in xinyao, attending especially to whose
nostalgia is at work, what types of nostalgia are expressed, who is sensitive to these nostalgic
representations, why and how the same film can catalyse different nostalgic responses. This is
significant because while nostalgia for xinyao is widely acknowledged in media and personal avenues,
there have been no attempts to attend to the complexities of their relationship in academia yet. By
drawing from different disciplines, including nostalgia, ethnomusicology and film music, it will allow
more holistic consideration of manifold nostalgias at play in xinyao.
This dissertation will follow in three main sections. First, I will draw links between theories of
nostalgia and music scholarship to consider how these two disciplines can be interlinked. To
understand nostalgia in its context, I will also look at theories of cultural memory and intimacy by
Sturken and Berlant because they seem to underpin discourses on yearning. As interest in nostalgia,
and more broadly, cultural intimacy is still quite fresh in the field of ethnomusicology, the scholarship
is drawn from a variety of geographical areas. I will also try to explain how nostalgia can be found in
music by linking in Friths work to discourses on nostalgia. Then, I will analyse The Girl in Pinafore
through how xinyao is portrayed in the film and how these expressions are received to explore reasons
for xinyaos strong nostalgic expressions and consider how xinyao can help us understand the links
between nostalgia and music better. Finally, I will conclude with reflections on the potential impact of
current projects overseeing the documentation and canonisation of xinyao repertoire and alongside
how The Girl in Pinafores nostalgic gaze on xinyao relates to the theories discussed in the literature
review and to Singapores current historical moment.

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2. Music and Nostalgia
Nostalgia, often loosely defined as a bittersweet yearning for the past, is affectionately
considered the bte noire of academia though it has attracted much attending to in multiple fields,
including ethnomusicology, media and cultural studies, sociology, literature, history and pyschology.
Since its alleged origin as a medical condition in the 17th century suffered by Swiss soldiers yearning
for their homeland, it is almost exclusively the domain of humanities today.10 Unsurprisingly, it is a
word entangled in many conceptual battles, multiple connotations and complicated meaning making
processes which invariably involve ideas of cultural memory and intimacy as well. It is beyond the
scope of this paper to consider all the nuances these contesting meanings and narratives of nostalgia
and consequentially, how they might relate to music. In this section, I will first examine various
influential theories of nostalgia, then their relationship to cultural memory and intimacy, followed by
their intersection with ethnomusicology and finally how nostalgia possibly can speak through music.
In The Future of Nostalgia, Boym argues that nostalgia is essentially ambivalent and is not
just a sentimental yearning backward glance to the past.11 For her, it is at once a longing for a home
that never existed, resulting in a sentiment of loss and displacement, and also a romance with that
fantasy of loss, a utopian phantom because that ideal never existed previously. The sense of longing
is not just for the past, but for an imagined better future that was lost as events in the past took shape
in ways undesired by the individual or community. Nostalgia coexists with modernity and seems to be
exacerbated by progress as people start to seek more frantically for a sense of collective memory that
can suggest a semblance of a community especially in todays increasingly fragmented society. Boym
also draws a distinction between restorative and reflective nostalgia while admitting that they are
fluid categories. Restorative nostalgia is focused on recreating the past and engages the past as though
it is an absolute truth. Reflective nostalgia however is more accepting of multiple narratives in the

10

Michael Pickering and Emily Keightley, The Modalities of Nostalgia, Current Sociology, 54(6), (November
2006), 919941.
11
Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia, (USA, 2001)

7
past, engages them with a sense of skepticism and relishes in the sensation of longing rather than
wanting to remake the past.
Similarly, Grainge in Monochrome Memories: Nostalgia and Style in 1990s America also
seeks to legitimise nostalgia by suggesting that it is not a mere sentimental look at the past.12 Other
than that, his stance is vastly different from Boyms as he deviates from her central assumption that
nostalgia inherently has some relationship to a sense of longing. Grainge argues for an understanding
of nostalgia as a cultural style and an aestheticised mode, and therefore an eventual sanitization of
the past. He surveyed modern theories on nostalgia and concluded that they veer towards conceptual
poles of mood and mode. Mood being a feeling anchored by the concept of absence and longing,
(which is where Grainge would probably categorise Boyms argument) and mode being a consumable
style defined by the loss of temporality within history, where nostalgia ruthlessly uses the past as a
source of creative inspiration for capitalistic gains. Like Boym, he emphasized that his two categories
of nostalgia have a dynamic relationship, not necessarily one of causality.
These two contrasting views are just a mere glimpse of the complexity of theorising nostalgia
as theories come from various perspectives of different disciplines, therefore encompassing within
them differing assumptions and interests.13 Boym comes from an East European perspective and is
shaped by a sensitivity to spatial nostalgias and is more interested in exploring the nuances of the
sense of yearning, whereas Grainge situates himself within postmodernism, film and cultural studies
and is more concerned about explaining how films in America mediate between nostalgic modes and
moods. They occupy two different poles of thinking about the relationship of yearning with nostalgia,
though both agree on nostalgias essentially multifaceted nature.
From these similarities and differences, I would like to put forth aspects of their definitions I
will use as I consider nostalgias relationship to music. Like them, I do not agree that nostalgia is a
simplistic sentimental backward glance. Boyms distinction between restorative and reflective

12

Paul Grainge, Monochrome Memories: Nostalgia and Style in 1990s America, (Nottingham, 2002).
Christine Sprengler, Screening nostalgia : populuxe props and technicolor aesthetics in contemporary
American film, (New York, 2011).
13

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nostalgia is useful because it allows us to examine various participants and contributors of nostalgia
and what impact that might have. Her definition of a restorative nostalgia is possibly how Grainges
view of nostalgia as an aestheticised mode can be reconciled. In attempts to recreate the past, perhaps
there can possibly exist indiscriminate plundering of the past to create a utopian version of it. While
Grainges nostalgia mode has no sense of yearning within, I am more inclined towards Boyms view of
nostalgias ambivalence and yearning.
To understand nostalgia more fully, a brief discussion on concepts of cultural memory and
intimacy is necessary as to examine what that supposed yearning, or aestheticisation is based on, and
projected towards. Cultural memory and intimacy are also very complex fields of knowledge, so I will
focus on Sturkens and Berlants definitions for the sake of brevity. These authors have been influential
in many ethnomusicologists works, suggesting a shared common ground to start with.14
Sturken argues that memory is not as a database where replicas of experiences can be
retrieved accurately but rather, is a social practice which integrates elements of remembrance, fantasy
and invention. For her, cultural memory then is a field of negotiation where individual memories vie
for a place in history. It is inherently unstable and produced through technologies of memory, such as
photographs and material culture. In themselves, they do not contain memories but represent,
embody and generate memories.15 This volatility is fundamentally compatible with nostalgia and also
forms the cornerstone of nostalgias imaginary utopia.
Berlants work on intimate publics helps to explain nostalgia as an aestheticized mode. While
the core of public intimacies is an idealistic imagination of what real life should be, they are driven a
commodity culture especially in domains of pleasure such as literature and media, therefore relating
to Grainges focus on consumerism. Participants are promised a sense of belonging and personal
experiences are generalised to create a place for recognition and emotional contact between
strangers. It foregrounds emotional attachment and nurtures fantasies that operate imprecisely

14

This is seen especially in Stokes, Yanos and Sharps works.

Marita Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, The AIDS epidemic and the politics of remembering,
(Berkeley, LA and London, 1997)
15

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especially in the everyday.16 This seems to be a motivation for nostalgic modes as both are anchored
and targeted at consumers. Intimate publics can be created through the selling of nostalgic modes to
create a shared sense of history. The sanitization of the past can easily create feel-good vibes
amongst its desired audience.
Within the field of ethnomusicology, interest in nostalgia and cultural intimacy in recent years
has been varied and spread over many geographical areas including Brazil, Iceland, Portugal, Turkey,
Indonesia, Hongkong and Japan.17 This suggests that nostalgia expressed in or alongside music can be
considered a fairly global condition and is also inexorably constructed based on specific localities and
moments in time. Music relates to nostalgia as it is a consumable cultural product typically understood
to express emotions, and therefore drives a sense of cultural intimacy.18 It also provides a space where
alternative voices for or against nostalgia can be expressed.19 Two monographs directly linking music
and nostalgia have been published- Sharps Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse: Popular Music and
the Staging of Brazil and Yanos Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular
Song.
Sharp considers nostalgia a complex coexistence of personal longing and collective emotion
with historical and political dimensions. 20 It is fraught with ideologies of resistance and multiple
contesting strategic interests in the so called past. Restorative and reflective nostalgias coexist with
within nostalgic modes. He also acknowledges that this nostalgic is also an aestheticised mode, as
argued by Grainge, due to the entangled interests, such as tourism and entertainment, in Samba de
Coco. Musicians are aware of this nostalgic projection on them and make use of it either as a tool of
resistance or to play it up for commercial interests. Traditionalists usurp the idealised image of samba

16

Lauren Berlant,The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture,
(Durham and London, 2008).
17
Refer to bibliography.
18
Bjorn Vilhjalmsson, Coming in from the Cold: Icelandic Punk Rock and Sites of Cultural Memory, Resounding
Pasts: Essays in Literature, Popular music and cultural memory edited by Drago Momcilovic(Newcastle, 2011).
19
Zhu Wei De, Guang Hui Sui Yue, (Hong Kong, 2012).
20
Daniel B. Sharp, Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse: Popular Music and the Staging of Brazil, (Middletown,
2014).

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de coco and even include visual reconstructions of its supposed origins during their performances
while mutationists push against the prevailing nostalgic discourse by incorporating heavy metal
sounds into their music. He uses Boyms distinction of restorative and reflective to explain these
differences and adds that these group are catering to different fan bases while still focusing on their
relation to samba de coco as a specific locality. In this case, the traditionalists restorative nostalgia
reaasures, while mutationists reflective nostalgia is bittersweet. As fans seek the origins of the type
of samba de coco they love, they discover the other type of samba de coco and therefore the
performed nostalgias nourish each other. Participating musicians are clearly self-conscious of
nostalgia within samba de coco, though the audience, especially middle class Brazilians, view the
festivities of traditional samba de coco as an ideal naturalised version of the genre without its
inherently challenging exposure of racial and class divides.
Yanos nostalgia in Enka (popular Japanese ballads that originated in the 20th century) is one
that is based on exoticising the past and delineating boundaries against the West to define Japanness.21 It sings of a nostalgically framed Japan and is also constructed based on this nostalgic image.
Through the affects of various kinds of sentimentality, a collective community based on the image of
an exoticised Japan is built. Within itself, Enka invokes the memory of pain (such as failed romances)
and prolongs it into a state of aestheticized yearning. Each Enka song is also a commodity, selling
memories and an idealised collective community. The songs thematic content draw from a range of
topics including idyllic representations of Japan in the past, the glorification of duty and honour to
ones nation, failed romances and the yearning for ones childhood and mother. Enka singers are
taught by record companies to act in a certain manner, usually one that plays up historically assumed
gender differences- feminine shy glances for women and assertive poses for men. Applying Boyms
schema to Yanos work, a strong sense of restorative nostalgia appears to be at work as the singers
try to recreate certain idealised images. Yet, because the content of the songs are largely based on a
sense of yearning that cannot be fulfilled, it seems like reflective nostalgia is also at play here.

21

Christine R. Yano, Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song, (Harvard, 2002).

11
In both cases, the types of nostalgia, according to Boyms definitions of restorative and
reflective, seem to coexist in shared spaces and are enacted by different players. They are not
straightforward classifications as some scholars have tried to suggest.22 The striking use of nostalgic
modes in both places suggest attempts to advance an intimate public, possibly for political gains,
whether masterminded by the musicians or not.
Boyms and Grainges work read alongside with Sturkens and Berlants theories reveal a gap
in explicitly attending whose agency is at work in nostalgia. On one end, nostalgia is frequently used
in a rather Adornian way to spur consumerism through in that process, creating intimate publics, on
the other, it is also a way of reflecting about the past and is the grounded by the flux and ebb of
cultural memory. There is an inherent tension between these two functions that is revealed by
examining whose nostalgia is at work. This tension is picked up by Sharps and Yanos research as they
attend to the various types of nostalgia at work and importantly, which groups of people are creating
or manipulating these nostalgias. This is a line of questioning Xinyao is well placed to continue because
groups of people and their relationship to Xinyao are distinct given its short life span, therefore
allowing us to scrutinize each group on why and how nostalgia is being utilised and related to.

22

Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou, European Civil War Films: Memory, Conflict and Nostalgia, (New York and
London, 2013).

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3. The Girl in Pinafores nostalgia
The Girl in Pinafore, directed by Mr. Yee-Wei Chai premiered in Singapore box offices on 1 August
2013. It framed itself unabashedly as nostalgic teenage love story set in the xinyao era of 1992-1993.
I remember catching it with a group of Singaporean friends I met in London on National Days eve in
Iluma, a futuristic looking shopping mall with a state of the art cinema, and overheard someone
comment sarcastically, Oh, the filmmaker is so sincere, using National Day to hype up his movie. My
friends and I had enjoyed the movie very much, lauding it for its accurate and sensitive portrayal of a
typical Singaporean teenagers experiences. Having been away from Singapore for a year, we were
glad to be home and identified wistfully with the movies consolidation of our teenage experiences,
even though we were barely toddlers during the years which the movie was set in. The diverse
reactions to the same innocent film sparked my interest in the complexity of nostalgia. In this
section, I will first examine how and whose nostalgia is created and portrayed in the movie, then what
its reception reveals the workings of nostalgia in different social groups who relate to the film
differently.
As mentioned in the introduction, there have been many attempts to keep xinyao alive since its
supposed demise by the 90s. A quick survey of English and Mandarin newspapers from the 90s to
today reveal that there would be feature articles about xinyao and its culture bearers, such as Liang
Wern Fook and Eric Moo, at least once every few years. 23 If there are seasons (a musical) was
commissioned in 2007, using xinyao songs as the bulk of its material. It has become a staple in the
mandarin music theatre circuit. 24 The Girl in Pinafore therefore falls within this general trend of
cultural products using xinyao as an inspiration, though it is the first film to be made about xinyao. Its
success in igniting interest about xinyao seems to be more successful compared to the rest of the
attempts, maybe partially because films are more affordable and accessible to the general public. Box

23

See for example- newspaper articles.

Zhou Wen Long, Tian Heng-Hua Yu Ju Chang Hui Lai Le?,Lian He Zao Bao, 4 Sep 2007, Microfilm NL28523,
accessed at National Library Singapore on 21 June 2014.
24

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office sales were about SGD$500000 after 2 weeks of screening.25 Compared to other Singaporean
films, it had a promising reception.26
Its plot is as it promised- a teenage love story sparked off by a common interest in music making,
with all its melodrama and struggles. The male lead, Jiaming, meets the female lead, May and
accidentally leaves his file of xinyao songs behind. Fate has it that he and his group of friends meet
her and her group of friends again at a xinyao competition. The boys end up accompanying the girls
for their audition because their backing cassette stopped working at the most inopportune time. This
sets the ground of the budding friendship, and eventually romantic relationship between the two
friendship groups. Building on their musical chemistry, the two groups decide to collaborate for the
xinyao competition and start playing gigs together. As a band, they take up the project of reviving
Meng Chuan (Dream boat), a failing folk music restaurant set up by Jiamings parents, to great
success.27
Eventually, Mays mum finds out of her relationship with Jiaming, disapproves of it and decides
unilaterally to send her to America for university. The teenagers are devastated as they are powerless
to change this impending separation. May leaves for America, not without resistance, and Jiaming
visits her a year later after the youths pool together all their savings to afford a flight to America. They
maintain contact through the years. During one conversation, May cryptically tells Jiaming that she
has a surprise for him and that she will be returning to Singapore for good soon. However, the twist
comes as the next scene jumps to Mays funeral as she passed away in America. There is an 18 year
time skip and a middle aged Jiaming meets young Asian American teenager, Rachel, in the
columbarium paying respects to May. After speaking to her, he realised that she was their daughter
and that May must have gotten pregnant when he visited and died giving birth because of her weak

25

Personal Interview with Yee-Wei Chai (film director) held on 24 November 2014.
Boon Chan, Where is the audience? The Straits Times, 11 Sep 2013, accessed on
http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/case-you-missed-it/story/where-the-audience-20130914?page=2
14 April 2014.
27
This is a name play with Mu Chuan (Wooden boat), a very popular xinyao open-mic restaurant in the 80s-90s.
26

14
heart. Rachel invites Jiaming and his group of friends to her gig and the movie comes full circle with
her dedicating an iconic xinyao song to them.
Much of the movies intention as a nostalgic gaze on xinyao was revealed by the trailer and
marketing strategies.28 The official trailer intersperses provocative questions on a white screen with
sepia toned fragments from the film. For example, Who didnt have dreams when they were young?
was followed snippets of the band jamming together and Who hasnt fallen in love before? was
followed by snippets of May and Jiaming developing a romantic relationship. How much of your
emotions in the past do you remember? is followed scenes of the cast displaying a whole spectrum
of emotions in different situations. Finally, the trailer ends with a white screen stating the date of the
movies premiere and a call to reminisce collectively. By posing such questions to the viewer, they
are invited them to participate in the nostalgia the film is indulging in. For those who have individual
memories of the xinyao movement, they are encouraged to relate the film to their own experiences
and to indulge their personal nostalgias.
For those who have not experienced that time period, they are encouraged to indulge in their
nostalgias for an imagined past using the film as a springboard. The last statement assures them that
what they will see is the collective memory of the previous era. Combined with the strategic release
of the movie in national day week, it suggests this collective memory of xinyao is part of the national
cultural memory, which they can appropriate for themselves. National Day is significant because
Singapore is very self-conscious of its youth as a nation and actively tries to draw an overarching
narrative to create an identity.29 There is a big hyped up parade with an unusual show of patriotism
during that period.30 This movie was marketed as the directors love letter to Singapore, therefore

28

Hotcider films, Youtube, That Girl in Pinafore 720p Official Trailer Opens 1st August 2013 Singapore,
uploaded 19 June 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1XBIQjTLOw retrieved on 14 April 2014.
29
Chua Beng Huat, Culture, multiracilism and national identity in Singapore, Trajectories: InterAsia Cultural
Studies, ed. Kuan-Hsieng Chen, (Singapore, 1998), 166-183.
30
Lily Kong, Brenda S.A. Yeoh, The construction of national identity through the production of ritual and
spectacle: An analysis of National Day parades in Singapore, Political Geography, 16(3), (March 1997), 213239.

15
enhancing the connection, that to relate to this movie would be to relate to part of Singapores
identity.
Familiar xinyao songs and themes are weaved through the entire fabric of the movie. Together
with the visuals, they create, and are part of the nostalgia which permeates the movie, similar to
Yanos assessment of how Enka in Japan works to perform collective nostalgia. The eight songs used
in the movie are mostly classic xinyao repertoire that would be recognisable to many people, having
been very popular when were first released in the 80s.31 In terms of retrospective popularity, three
out of the eight songs were chosen as the top 10 representative xinyao songs in a public poll done by
Lian He Zao Bao in 2003, implying a possibly canonic status and therefore having made their way into
some form of collective cultural memory.32
At the heart of the movie lies an extended song and dance sequence of Di Tanjong Katong
and a group date for the two friendship groups at East Coast Park. After the band plays a successful
gig at Dreamboat, the boys page and call their love interests separately and arrange for a group date.
The scene at East Coast Park begins with Liyanas voice reciting the lyrics of Di Tanjong Katong as the
group echoes after her. We then see them cycling down and the scene cuts to them sitting around a
barbeque grill and singing and swaying to Di Tanjong Katong together. It is a song about romantic
yearning also set at the beach. The lyrics echo the scene directly, as the young lovers alternate
between gazing and shying away from each other playfully.
Di Tanjong Katong is a Malay folk song that all students in Singapore learn in their music
lessons.33 Most Singaporeans would know how to sing it and would be surprised to hear it in a movie
about xinyao because it is definitely not a xinyao song to them. It is a classic folk tune that crosses
racial lines and is part of Singapores cultural DNA. The melody is iconic and many arrangements for a

31

Liang Wern Fook, Xin Yao: Wo Men De Ge Zai Zhe Li, (Singapore, 2004).
Huang Jing Jing, Liang Wen Fu Zui Neng Dai Biao Xin Yao, Lian Zao Zao Bao, 24 October 2003, accessed on
microfilm in National Library Singapore 27 August 2014.
33
Ministry of Education, 2008 General Music Programme Syllabus (Primary/ Secondary)
http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/syllabuses/aesthetics-health-and-moral-education/files/general-musicprogramme.pdf accessed on 14 April 2014. While not stated explicitly in the syllabus- Di Tanjong Katong is part
of the repertoire of National Education songs.
32

16
huge variety of ensembles have been made. For many generations, hearing it would bring back
memories of choral classroom singing and playing the recorder to this melody.34 In the movie, it is
arranged in a typical xinyao style with one guitar strumming the harmony and the other playing
melodic fillers, anchoring it firmly in the xinyao sound as competent listeners would recognise. More
subtly, the first verse and chorus is sung by a solo female voice, then repeated by a chorus of mixed
voices. For the sensitive listener, this would bring back memories of their music lessons in school as
the solo female voice metaphorically functions as the teacher and the chorus response as the
students. By strategically combining the imaginative baggage that Di Tanjong Katong brings along with
a stylised xinyao arrangement, the extramusical meaning then informs the viewers experience of the
song and is able to tease a personal connection to the film more easily by drawing into the realm of
Singaporeans collective memory.35
Cycling and having barbeques at East Coast Park is a rite of passage for many teenagers in
Singapore. The seafront and palm trees are lining the cycling path are immediately recognisable for
people who have been there before. The naturalistic filming, with surprised children staring at the
actors in the background belays an approachability to the film. Children are surprised because people
cycle in East Coast Park all the time, and presence of a filming crew is a novelty. By being self-conscious
of the filming process, the director manages confronts the viewer with the conflict between film and
reality, thus offering an alternative space for viewers to relate this scene to their personal memories
of having done the same thing before.36
As the scene goes on, it becomes more whimsical and fantastical as it suddenly seems to take
a time skip back in time to pre-urban kampong Singapore.37 The cast is suddenly dressed in sarongs
and the scene is heavily edited to show skips and white noise, transporting the viewers back in time,

34

Learning the recorder used to be compulsory in music lessons, and instruction would often involve playing
such folk songs as a class.
35
Ian Inglis, The Act youve known for all these years: Telling the tale of the Beatles, Popular Music and Film
ed. Ian Inglis (London and New York, 2003), 77-90.
36
Andr Bazin, What is cinema?, Essays selected and translated by Hugh Gray, Volume 2 (Berkeley, 1974)
37
See appendix for movie stills.

17
as though they were watching a movie in the 50s. It alternates between that and the present, which
shows the cast still sitting around the barbeque pit and singing Di Tanjong Katong. These multiple time
frames are confusing and leaves the viewer bewildered. Images from different time periods are
appropriated and combined in non-linear ways, creating a light hearted, anachronic sequence where
the viewer instead focuses on the emotions of these moments. 38 The song sequence becomes an
expression imagined idyllic past, pointing clearly to Grainges nostalgic mode.39 It is ambi-diegetic,
inviting the viewer to alternate between being an audience of the movie to an audience in the movie.40
For viewers whose experiences that resonate historically with this scene, they are invited to be swept
along with the characters nostalgia for an even younger Singapore. For the youths, their imagined
past is catalysed by the familiarity of Di Tanjong Katong and the accompanying visuals.
The use of Ma Que Xian Zhu Zhi in the beginning of the movie to set the context complicates
how the movie uses music to create a nostalgic setting due to the prominent backstory of the original
release. Written by Liang Wern Fook, it was very popular in 1990 when first released, but was banned
on radio because of its combination of Mandarin and Cantonese lyrics.41 This ensured that it did not
become canonized as xinyao repertoire. Therefore, it would definitely be fresh to the younger
audience and invoking nostalgia would be through a different process of communicating the songs
own sense of nostalgia, rather than inviting the audience to reminiscence about their experiences as
Di Tanjong Katong did. In the movie, the song, which can be translated literally to Sparrows carrying
twigs, is set in a scene where one of the boys call into a late night radio station and requests to sing
this song for his friends as they are preparing for GCE O level exams the next day. As it is being sung,
matching whimsical illustrations of the Singapore being described in the song pop up at the bottom of

38

David Bordwell, Film Art: An Introduction, 9th edition (New York, 2010).
Neepa Majumdar, The Embodied Voice: Song sequences and stardom in popular hindi cinema, Soundtracks
available ed. Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight (Durham and London, 2001), 161-184.
40
Morris B. Holbrook, The Ambi-Diegesis of My Funny Valentine, Pop fiction: The song in cinema ed. Steven
Lannin and Matthew Caley, (Bristol and Portland, 2005), 47-63.
41
The use of Chinese dialects were discouraged since the Speak Chinese Campaign first started in 1979. See
Speak Mandarin Campaign, http://mandarin.org.sg/en/about/milestones accessed on 14 April 2014.
39

18
the screen, while images of the boys are in sepia or black and white, creating a sense of historicity for
the viewers.
The song sets the movie squarely in Singapore with its detailed lyrics about the environment
from the 60s onwards. Liang Wern Fooks personal narrative seems to be intertwined with Singapores
narrative as he weaves details of his personal life together with historical events in Singapore. The
song starts off with an autobiographical description of where his grandfather stayed, followed by how
it was bombed in world war II (a historical detail), and then to where his mother gave birth to him,
followed by description of the modes of transport she used to work (historical detail). For listeners
familiar with these modes of transport (unlicensed taxis and bicycles), it would set the songs context
clearly in the 70s-80s, coinciding with Liang Wern Fooks childhood, therefore making the
autobiographical aspect more believable. Its arrangement is similar to Di Tanjong Katong, using mostly
acoustic guitar accompaniment and clean vocal harmonies, fulfilling what younger audience would
assume xinyao to be. This stylised representation of history fixes the movie in time, providing an
opportunity for the film to articulate its supposedly coherent narrative between visuals and music.
For listeners familiar with the original version, this song communicates Liang Wern Fooks
forward looking nostalgia to build a home in a Singapore that was rapidly being transformed from
third world to first. The original arrangement echoes a sizhu ensemble with the dizi, erhu and pipa
doubling the melody line in a heterophonic manner and woodblocks forming the rhythmic backbone.
The use of these instruments drive the songs implicit nostalgic expressions. While the use of
traditional Chinese instruments in Mandopop was not uncommon even in the 90s, they reveals a
diasporic yearning towards the China, where his ancestors origins are. Especially when Singapore in
the 60s-80s was still marked largely by its identity as a migrant nation, listeners would have picked up
these instrumental references and understood the implicit longing for China, the real home.
However, this is complicated by the pianos significant role. The piano provides harmony with a
quaver-semiquaver-semiquaver, quaver-quaver rhythm with the bass on each down beat, sounding
almost intrusive due to its unchanging close voicing of chords, and also doubles the vocal line and fills

19
in with pentatonic figurations. Piano accompaniment was fairly common in xinyao songs, though
usually simpler. As the song incorporates western and chinese influences, it can be read as Liangs
forward looking nostalgia as he builds on the old ( traditional Chinese instruments) to anticipate the
new ( complex piano parts). Combined with the lyrics staking his and the listeners collective claim on
Singapore, his object of yearning becomes clear- a home in Singapore rather than China. This is a
forward looking nostalgia that grapples with issues of belonging in a young nation marked by the fact
that it is made of migrants.42
This reading is confirmed as Liang Wern Fook shared his reflections on Lian He Zao Bao in
2013, after the ban on Ma Que Xian Zhu Zhi was revoked and the DJs in all Mandarin radio stations
broadcasted it in full for the first time in 23 years. He explained that the song was a way for him to
reconcile memories of his parents, and their memories of a home in China with his desire to a home
in Singapore, and how the collective broadcasting is a metaphor that the sparrow in the song finally
has a home (Singapore) to return to. 43 As this was published while the movie was still screening and
was highly discussed over radio, it solidified the impression that Ma Que Xian Zhu Zhi sings of Liangs
autobiographical yearning for a home in Singapore. His forward looking nostalgia in the song overflows
its time as it gets translated into the audiences backwards glance to Singapores history. Combined
with the illustrations in the movie, a vibrant picture of Singapores past is created for the viewers, who
might not have been familiar with its back story, to imagine themselves in this continued line of
building a collective community in Singapore by using the described past as fodder.44 While the new
arrangement seems to flatten out the implied significance of instrumentation in the song, its simplified
portrayal of xinyao allows the youth to glean a stronger musical impression through the film, and thus
foster their nostalgia for a specific sound, assumed as representative of xinyao.

42

Similar ideas, though through the analysis of theatre and literary works are also expressed in
Sy Ren Quah, Performing Chineseness in multicultural Singapore: a discussion on selected literary and cultural
texts, Asian Ethnicity, 10:3, 2009, 225-238.
43
Liang Wern Fook, Xiao Zhuang@ Ke Zhan Xin Qing (His blog which complies his writings
http://1555001.weebly.com/ ), accessed on 14 Apr 2014.
44
Refer to figure 1 in appendix.

20
Xing Kong Xia, which means, Beneath the starry night was used as the boys audition song
for the xinyao competition. The way it entered the film, as the boys jamming together in Jiamings
bedroom casually, immediately brings to mind how the setting fulfils the folk music ideal in Friths
discourses. The music was introduced diegetically, with the group of friends collectively and
spontaneously improvising together. After Jiaming asked his friends how Guns and Roses and Nirvana
would play xinyao, one of them started playing a riff on his guitar. All four of them show their approval
and Jiaming begins to improvising a drum groove beneath it. The scene then cuts to them in the xinyao
competition performing the piece. However, it is a surprisingly tamed version of what they had
jammed in the previous scene. The guitar riff is gentler and the tempo is slightly slower and Jiaming is
using the conga instead of the drum set. This cleaner acoustic version seems to be a nod again to the
generalisation of xinyao as a genre marked by simple acoustic accompaniment. It is however, in stark
contrast to the original released by Eric Moo in 1985, which is replete with dramatic timpani accents
and distorted electric guitar interludes. He sings more heroically and the arrangement with more
backing harmonies, is denser sounding.
By reinventing the song as an acoustic version and placing it strategically as the boys entry
for the xinyao competition, the film makers situate the actual events in xinyaos history in the movie
and cement a certain musical style as representative of the xinyao genre. This is especially for viewers
who have not lived through the movement in the 80s, as the film sells a seemingly authentic version
of xinyao as they would have understood through popular generalisation. This particular moment is
based on a nostalgia which erases nuances to ascertain collective ideals, despite the telling accents in
the movie that betray its sense of false historicity. Singers in the 80s-90s adopted a standard Chinese
accent while singing, while the cast sang with a more English influenced Chinese accent, rounding their
x to s sound and z to j sound, as more commonly heard today.45 The distinction is very clear
to someone who speaks Mandarin. Ultimately, a clever blend of misc-en-scene and music based on a

45

Marc L. Moskowitz, Cries of Joy, Songs of Sorrow: Chinese Pop Music and Its Cultural Connotations, (USA,
2010).

21
popular definition of xinyao drive this scene to imply certain biographical accuracy in the movie,
affirming its proclaimed adherence to represent xinyao, despite small clues which reveal that it is an
attempt to recreate an imagined past from todays backwards gaze.
While these examples so far may insinuate that the film typifies xinyao through a sanitized
nostalgia gaze, the variety of songs chosen and the diversity in arrangement actually pay a convincing
tribute to the stylistic differences within xinyao. During an interview with the Yee-Wei Chai, he
expressed his belief that xinyao is not limited to a particular style of music, but rather should be a
more broadly conceived notion of songs made by Singaporeans, as he explained why he chose to use
Di Tanjong Katong and My One and Only (an English song), even though they were not typically
considered xinyao.46 This can be read as an attempt to present xinyao more realistically as it is not
new in trying to incorporate Singapores racial diversity within its presentation of xinyao. As early as
the 80s, there have been xinyao concerts with multi-ethnic ensembles and songs being written or
translated into different languages.47
Furthermore, because so many songs were used in the movie, there is a wide variety of
musical styles, encompassing the diversity of the xinyao movement in the 80s. Yi Bu Yi Bu Lai, which
means One step at a time was remixed in a rock style with sharp rhythmic riffs played by the electric
guitar supported by straight 4/4 rock drum rhythm and a heavy bassline. In the movie, the characters
are seen performing this song at Bras Basah complex, the symbolic birth place of xinyao.48 To boldly
associate the two together reflects the film makers boldness to present a complicated picture of
xinyao, despite potential criticisms from xinyao purists who tend towards thinking of xinyao as a
specific musical style marked by acoustic folk like arrangements.
The film makers reflective nostalgia towards xinyao can be perceived through their
willingness to not only portray xinyaos dominant narrative or style. By presenting the inconsistencies
with xinyaos assumed meaning, they inevitable broaden what xinyao can come to mean. In the words

46

This similar belief has been echoed by Liang Wern Fook in Wo Men De Ge.
Xin Yao Xin Feng Ge, Si Zhong Yu Yan Chang Gei Ni Ting, Lian He Zao Bao 17 July 1991.
48
Tan Wei Ping, Xinyao (Singapore ballads) and the construction of Singaporean identities (Singapore, 2003).
47

22
of the music arrangers, they want to give xinyao a new lease of life in the movie, recognizing that it
is not a movement that can be recreated, and that it is necessary to recognise the historical distance
between todays making of the movie and the movement in the 80s.49 Even within the nostalgic mode
presented by the Di Tanjong Katong sequence, the naturalistic filming which betrays the films selfconsciousness, acknowledging that this bucolic image presented is not real and therefore, makes their
indulgent yearning even more poignant and forever unattainable.
As Jiaming narrates how the friends gradually distanced themselves after Mays death and
stopped making music together, it is strikingly parallel to how the xinyao sound supposedly lost its
momentum in the 90s and gradually faded to the background.50 The time skip is akin to situating the
movie in the audiences historical moment. For the characters in the movie, their retrospective
contemplation of the past and acknowledgement that it is truly beyond their reach forever parallel
what the film makers think of xinyao- that is it truly gone and all that remains is a yearning that satisfies
itself. In this way, the movie then serves as the ultimate form of the film makers personal reflections
on xinyao as it is unstable, presents various narratives and above all, expresses a sense of unfulfilled
longing despite efforts to recreate the past. Restorative nostalgia and nostalgic modes are used to
create appeal to serve their reflections on xinyao, in an endeavour to consolidate its position in
Singapores cultural memory today.
This complicated blend of nostagias manifested in the film through various moments plays
out differently on its audience, regardless of whether they have personal memories of the 80s xinyao
movement or not. Personal reflections, especially by those who had participated in the xinyao
phenomena in the 80s-90s proliferated in blogosphere. Many read the movies ending as a metaphor
of xinyaos fate.51 Some used the movie as a springboard for them to share their personal memories

49

Hotciderfilms, The Making of the Girl in Pinafore, uploaded on 26 Aug 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llYDQggA9IA accessed on 14 Apr 2015.
50
Cai Yi Ren, interviewed by Chua Ee Gein, 19 Jan 2011, Performing Arts in Singapore, National Archives of
Singapore.
51
Kua Hiong Poh, That Girl in Pinafore- Analysing the films secret message, insert Coin and press START
button, posted on 4 Aug 2014, https://insertcoinandpressstartbutton.wordpress.com/2013/08/04/that-girl-inpinafore-analyzing-the-films-hidden-message/ accessed on 15 April 2015.

23
of xinyao.52 Significantly, they mourned the loss of an art form because they feel like xinyao would
never be able to take roots today given very different socio-linguistic conditions from the 80s. They
also appreciated the efforts taken to present a complicated picture of xinyao. Some also complained
that there was not enough xinyao and wished that there was more focus on the xinyaos germination
in schools rather than the love stories between various characters.53 Very often, these bloggers are
just ordinary Singaporean Chinese people expressing their views and in their blogs, but tied together
by a common interest in the cultural life of Singapore.
Conversations with people who were active in the xinyao scene in the 80s-90s (those who
were singing xinyao songs with friends, buying xinyao albums and attending concerts) revealed their
nostalgia with an evocative phrase -It is different when asked about how they felt about The Girl in
the Pinafores portrayal of xinyao.54 They emphasized how the Jing Shen, or zeitgeist, of xinyao was
definitive to xinyao. That Jing Shen was empowering because of xinyaos roots in student life, and
more importantly, they disagree on whether Jing Shen still exists today. While Liang Wern Fook
believes that it is present by virtue of any Singaporean making music, though many, including shop
owners at Bras Basah who lived through the xinyao craze, felt that it no longer exists and what remains
is a beautiful memory.55 For many, there is an underlying aura of melancholic resignation- that a movie
cannot portray the full richness of their lived experiences.
On the other hand, there were also those who were inspired by watching the movie and came
together again to sing and celebrate xinyao once more. Youtuber Earth88tone uploaded a video made
collaboratively with her friend stating that they were inspired by the girl in pinafore to make a

52

Li Guo Liang, That Girl in Pinafore, From Dusk to Dawn, uploaded 16 August 2013,
http://navalants.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/that-girl-in-pinafore.html accessed on 14 April 2015.
53
Li Yi Jun, Wo De Peng You- Bao Zhe Xin Yao Tang Yi De Xiao Yuan Pian, Lian He Zao Bao, 1 August 2013,
accessed on http://www.zaobao.com.sg/culture/entertainment/cinema/story20130801-235418 14 April 2015.
54
For example, Personal Interview with Fung Chee Kong, (who was an active xinyao participant in his student
life), conducted 6 March 2015.
55
Personal Interview with Theresa Lim (shopkeeper of an iconic book and music store at Bras Basah, and was
also involved with xinyao in the past), conducted 27 November 2014.

24
recording and relive the passing of time since they first met.56 The song uploaded, Lan Yu Hong, which
means blue and red was written by Liang Wern Fook and they sang it accompanied with a solo guitar,
fulfilling a nostalgic stylistic of xinyao.
Feedback from the younger audience was mostly gathered through videos of film screenings
in schools. For the younger audience, many appreciated how relatable the characters and their
experiences were. Through that, xinyao seemed less foreign and they were able to call it part of their
history. Some even wished that they were born in that time to experience the seemingly vivid
expression of youth in the 80s.57 Understandably, this is probably not the dominant view held by many
who have not encountered xinyao before. My conversations with friends (from mostly English
speaking families) revealed that many of them did not even know about the movie at all. There was
also a small proliferation of covers of the xinyao songs used in the movie, identified as the soundtrack
of The Girl in Pinafore. Youtuber Elizabeth Saw uploaded a saxophone duet of Xie Hou, which roughly
translates to Encounters, a love duet sang by Jiaming and May in the movie, following exactly the
nuances, such as rubato and phrasing, of their singing in her video.58 Comments were largely positive,
with many expressing how wonderful her performance was, having the ability to bring them back to
the 80s. Their interpretation of Xie Hou hints at how the movies narrative of xinyao has made a mark
on their impressions of xinyao, such that they would copy exactly how it was presented in the movie,
almost like a musical tribute to it.

56

Earthtone88, Lan Yu Hong- Reminiscing our Past, uploaded on Youtube on 12 August 2013, accessed on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbY7Jrmw8U 14 April 2015.
57
Hotciderfilm, What do MJC Students think of That Girl in Pinafore?, uploaded on Youtube on 8 August 2013,
accessed on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLzMAhMiZGU 14 April 2015.
Elizabeth Saw, Wu Qi Xian-Xie Hou, That Girl in Pinafore- Sax & Piano Cover by Jeremy & Elizabeth, uploaded
on Youtube on 20 Aug 2013, accessed on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvARefFvxbM 14 April 2015.
58

25
4. Conclusion
The Girl in Pinafore phenomenon is a case of multiple nostalgias dependent on agency- whose
nostalgia is at work and what is their relationship to the object of nostalgia, presentation- how
personal nostalgia can be presented in many different ways and reception- how perceived nostalgia
can have very different outcomes on different groups of people, and even on the same group of
people.59 The film makers nostalgia for xinyao is expressed in different ways in the film, from drawing
on collective memories, partially sanitising xinyaos musical characteristics yet complicating its cultural
value to redefining what xinyao can mean through the narrative created in the movie. Films can be
particularly definitive in shaping popular memory as they might be the only representation of history
available.60While this is not the case in xinyao, The Girl in the Pinafore has undoubtedly been influential
to provoke such a wide array of responses. It draws different nostalgic, though not necessarily so,
reactions from its viewers, according to their personal experiences. Its nostalgias is complicated by
the fact that xinyao as a musical practice is self-consciously nostalgic, whether when it first started in
the 80s, as shown by Ma Que Xian Zhu Zhi, or today as people look upon it as a genre. Its multiple
nostalgias for xinyao is also supported by Boyms and Grainges understanding that they are many
ways of drawing distinctions within the term nostalgia.
While I have considered how multiple nostalgias live through xinyao in this dissertation, there
are still many facets of xinyao that warrant more academic attention. There exists no critical
documentation of these yearly Reunion concerts. Some singers, such as Liang Wern Fook are
consecrated as the pioneer generations of xinyao, establishments that still market themselves as
folk music restaurants go under the radar of most Singaporeans and students who attend schools
related to the xinyao movement in the 80s still learn and sing xinyao songs.61 Furthermore, there is a
documentary about xinyao that in the making by Eva Tang. Documentaries are very powerful in

59

Andrew Higson, Nostalgia is not what it used to be: heritage films, nostalgia websites and contemporary
consumers, Consumption Markets & Culture, 17:2, (2014), 120-142.
60
Ian Inglis, The Act you have known for years: Telling the tale of the Beatles
61
Friends from Hwa Chong Junior College (Liang Wern Fooks alma mater), have shared that they have singing
assemblies in which they still sing these timeless songs.

26
shaping discourses and the impact of that is yet to be seen, though Washabaugh has warned against
them becoming they might crowd out the space for alternative representations of history. 62
Singapores Ministry of Education is also leveraging on xinyaos potential to create a national identity
and has included xinyao songs as part of their new programme- Teaching Living Legends, which was
rolled out in 2014.63 The effects of that on the canonisation of some xinyao songs, officiating certain
narratives is yet to be observed and how that would affect the perception of xinyao is yet to be seen.
Finally, within the context of Singapore, this nostalgic gaze on xinyao as shown in The Girl in
Pinafore is part of a larger phenomenon of a search for our shared cultural past, especially amongst
internet saavy Singaporeans. There is a proliferation of articles online combining old pictures of
Singapore with nostalgic reminiscences of the authors real, or imagined experience with such a
Singapore.64 The SG50 memory project has also seen more valuing of personal memory, and a building
of a collective archive of memories based on that. It is part of the celebration around Singapores 50th
year of independence this year and hints at moving away from the survival narratives of postindependence Singapore.65 As there is more reflection on how we established our economy ruthlessly
in the past, and how economic progress as an ideal seems no longer viable, there seems to be a greater
search for collective memories, other than the survival narrative, that Singaporeans can identify with.
Nostalgia with all its ambiguity, in the object which it is nostalgic for, whose yearning it is, for what
purpose is the yearning and how there might not even be a yearning for anything at all, seems to have
become the preferred response of Singaporeans to deal with radically changing societal mindsets.
Fundamentally, the relationship between nostalgia and music is complicated as it is affected
by both circumstances that shape music and the broader context in which this relationship is situated

62

William Washabaugh, Flamenco Music and National Identity in Spain (Surrey and Burlington, 2012).
Singapore Teacher Academy of the aRTs, Transforming Perspectives- Teaching Living Legends Milestone
workshop, STAR POST (Music), (2014, August), accessed on
http://www.star.moe.edu.sg/star/slot/u3049/STARPost-2014-07-August.pdf 14 April 2015.
64
Jonathan Lim, 16 pictures from 90s Singapore to make you curl up and cry, Mothership, posted on 11
August 2014, accessed on http://mothership.sg/2014/08/16-pictures-from-90s-singapore-to-make-you-curlup-and-cry/ 14 April 2015.
65
Iremembersg, accessed on http://www.iremember.sg/ 14 April 2015.
63

27
in and multiple meanings of nostalgia. Psychological studies have corroborated the hypothesis that
listening to music can cause nostalgic expressions especially if the listener relates autobiographically
to the music.66 However, as explored in this dissertation, it is not simply a matter of causation, nor is
it always the same definition of nostalgia. Both are ambiguous and porous, flowing into each other,
ensuing a heady brew that cannot be filtered easily. Therefore, perhaps considering it through the
nuances of people, place and memory will allow us to have a grip on the complexities of music and
nostalgia.

66

Petr Janata et al, Music-Evoked Nostalgia: Affect, Memory, and Personality, Emotion 10:3 (2010), 390403.

28
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on

26

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Interviews

33
Cai Yi Ren, interviewed by Chua Ee Gein, 19 Jan 2011, Performing Arts in Singapore, National Archives
of Singapore
Personal Interview with Theresa Lim (shopkeeper of an iconic book and music store at Bras Basah, and
was also involved with xinyao in the past), conducted 27 November 2014.
Personal Interview with Fung Chee Kong, (who was an active xinyao participant in his student life),
conducted 6 March 2015.
Personal Interview with Yee-Wei Chai (director of The Girl in the Pinafore), conducted 24 November
2014.
Personal interview with Eva Tang (director of an upcoming documentary about xinyao The Songs We
Sang), conducted 24 November 2014.
Personal interviews with Jensen Tan, Wong Xue Zheng, Joy Tan, Michelle Fung, Chan Guan Hao, Ong
JieQi (youths who have not experienced the xinyao phenomena in the 80s but were familiar with
xinyao), conducted over November 2014-April 2015.
Personal interviews with Chia Shijin, Michelle Hoh, Rachel Lim (youths who had not experienced
xinyao and did not watch The Girl in the Pinafore), conducted over November 2014- April 2015.

34
Appendix

Figure 1: Movie still during Ma Que Xian Zhu Zhi (pg 16)

Figure 2: Movie still during the whimsical Di Tanjong Katong sequence

described on page 15

Figure 3: Movie still from the xinyao competition scene page 19