More than battle cries: a look back at Hong Kong during Japanese occupation days reveals a city resounding with music

During the Japanese reign, all radios had to be registered and official permits for their use were issued. Anyone listening to an unregistered radio would be penalised and the radio confiscated.

The music during occupation did not seem different from pre-war programming. Airtime was set aside for Cantonese songs and operatic excerpts as well as for Western symphonic works. Music from Japan and India was also aired in evening fare. The variety of music was clearly designed to heed the official call for ‘prosperity in greater East Asia’ as summoned by the new Japanese empire. Along with movies, music performance was one way to convey the vibrant culture Japan had ushered in to replace colonial rule.

The biggest musical fanfare on air was probably a broadcast in 1942 of a new marching song by renowned Shanghai composer Chen Gexin, who was most famous for composing popular hit songs such as “Rose, Rose, I Love You”. The new work, “March of East Asia in Ethnic Unity”, was aired in the city on November 25 and repeated four times a week for the populace to learn. The work later brought serious trouble for Chen, who was branded a rightist during the nation-wide campaign in 1957 and exiled to Anhui province where he died.

Radio music aside, the most conspicuous musical show of the new sovereign took place in the summer of 1942.