"Save, Save, Save China"

For the first time in a thousand years, great masses of people in China are singing together. The lusty, patriotic songs they sing sound much like those of the Western world. Dr. Sun Yatsen, who founded the Chinese Republic in 1912, stirred up many enthusiasms but not mass music. China did not get a national anthem until 1924, and that one never caught on. But the Chinese did pick up a Western round--Frere Jacques--to which they sang such sentiments as Down with the militarists, Down with the war lords, Down with oppression, etc.

The man who largely coaxed the Chinese into mass song is now in the U.S. A small, lean-faced Y.M.C.A. man named Liu Liang-mo, he is studying at the University of Pennsylvania and Crozer Theological Seminary. At the University of Shanghai, cheerleading at basketball games convinced him that mass singing was a morale build er. In 1935 Mr. Liu, by then a Y.M.C.A. secretary, formed a chorus of 60 poor Chinese, taught them to sing Save, Save, Save China to the tune of another round, Row, Row, Row Your Boat. The Y.M.C.A. sent Mr. Liu throughout China, and finally the Government adopted his program. "My greatest thrill," says he, "was leading 10,000 soldiers in mass patriotic singing."

Today China sings not only for pleasure but for many purposes--to combat illiteracy, to improve sanitation. Soldiers are taught to sing drill terms, Army regulations, and, once taught, they learn to read the words. Other popular songs : You must help the soldiers, Flies spread bacteria.

Western scales and harmonies do not seem to alarm the Chinese now. Their most popular song is March of the Volunteers, whose spare, vigorous melody was lately sung to Mme. Chiang Kai-shek by a group of children who had wandered 10,000 miles seeking refuge:

Arise! ye who refuse to be bond slaves!

With our very flesh and blood let us build our new Great Wall.

China's masses have met the day of danger,

Indignation fills the heart of all of our countrymen.

Arise! Arise! Arise!

Many hearts with one mind brave the enemy's gunfire.

March on! Brave the enemy's gunfire.

March on! March on! On!

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