Chinese Music, Language and Literature
Taken in: AY18/19 Sem 2
Expected Grade: B+
Actual Grade: B+
Like GEH1073, this is a module offered under the Chinese Studies Department. But before you dismiss it (as a chinese studies mod), it is taught in English and is actually really interesting if you want to figure out a thing or two about how Chinese popular culture evolved over the years and how the different cultures of the Chinese majority populations e.g. China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong interacted with each other. The main theme surrounding this module is Chinese popular music and how it has influenced Chinese popular culture and vice versa. So I would recommend to consider this module if you are interested in Chinese culture and would like to learn about it through pop music (yes, Jay Chou songs were featured!) which is something different.
Lectures for this module was well planned and had a very good structure and very interesting information bits in them. The only problem was that the lecturer would always be so excited to share all the information that she runs out of time and ends up not finishing what was planned. As mentioned above, lectures centered around Chinese pop music and the different dialects that were also popular e.g. Cantonese pop and Taiwanese Hokkien pop. It was mostly about how these music were being used to channel different feelings and emotions and they in turn influenced other musical movements. In instance, (I just have to share) we learnt about how 新谣 (xin yao) came about due to influences from student movements in Taiwan where students in Taiwan were making songs to express their feelings towards the political situation of the time. This later influenced students in Singapore to do the same, which is how xin yao came to be! So, more simply put what was displayed in lectures is the flow of culture among the Chinese population. This is what made the lectures very interesting for me!
For tutorials, there are discussion questions that has to be discussed along with presentations from groups. Presentation topics were Chinese Poetry and xin yao songs which are definitely manageable if you listen in lectures and do some googling here and there. Discussion wise, you just have to state your opinion and add to discussions! The discussion questions are usually quite interesting and there will be something to say. But, the only downside was that class participation was marked very overtly i.e. the tutor literally takes down your name every time you speak so it was very stressful and a lot of people were clamoring to speak. So on that part, you really have to be brave and speak up! Other than that, tutorials were mostly fun, I really loved my tutor!
Assessment-wise, this is a REAL continual assessment module, i.e. there aren’t any final quizzes or midterm quizzes or whatever which is what most mods have even though they say they have no finals. The biggest weightage in this module goes to your term paper at a 40%! I can’t really recall the rest of the weightages though. But to be honest, the term paper was tough for a level 1000 module in my opinion because you really have to consult a lot of sources if you want to write a coherent in-depth essay, making it that you really need to invest time to get a good grade for the paper. If you enjoy research, you will have fun doing the paper! If you don’t, it will be tough. That being said, the silver lining of this module is that lectures can be skipped if you simply do not have the time to attend them. That is because everything is in the lecture slides and lecture attendance is more of going for the interest of gaining some new knowledge since there are no quizzes or finals. So timetabling wise, this is a good module to put in.
Overall, this module was very fun for me (for when I attended lectures) albeit I could not commit to it 100% because of other module and CCA commitments. But I did like the flexibility it gave me in my timetable planning. I really loved all of the things that I have learnt in this module and I now consider music in a slightly different perspective instead of listening just for the entertainment. And I would totally recommend if you are into Chinese pop music and singers!
NOTE: Dr Chan did mention that she was a guest lecturer here at NUS teaching this module and I remember her saying that she would be lecturing at SMU next so I’m not very sure if she would be continuing with this mod as well. She had also changed the syllabus of this mod when she taught it this sem, where previous lecturers focused more on musicology of Chinese music instead of how music influenced the culture. So there might be changes to this module but keep an open mind and read the course description!
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