Angry mobile phone and landline users from Sichuan have accused the authorities of acting as if the Cultural Revolution never ended by ordering tens of million of users to change their phones' musical themes to one of five officially sanctioned earthquake memorial songs.
The five musical themes, which will be heard by callers from this week when calling any Sichuan mobile or telephone number, are Because of You, I Wish, Sichuan Welcomes You, A Thankful Heart and Sichuan Still Beautiful.
Sichuan propaganda authorities said the five musical themes would be rotated every 10 days and the musical themes of all China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom users in the province would be automatically changed to the songs until September 10. About 80 million people living in the province will be affected.
Zhang Zhiyue , deputy director of Sichuan's propaganda authorities, said they would produce more officially sanctioned earthquake memorial songs and broadcast them on all local television channels and major Sichuan news portals.
State media reported that education, culture and other departments had also been ordered to organise singing contests of earthquake memorial songs. The move is aimed at expressing Sichuan's gratitude for national support following the devastating magnitude 8 quake that struck the province in May 2008, killing more than 80,000 people.
'Just like singing the Red songs [during the Mao Zedong era], the provincial government is trying to express its gratitude to volunteers and workers who helped to rebuild Sichuan through the campaign as many of them will leave the province in October,' The Southern Metropolis News quoted an official as saying.