Getai Culture Analysis

Getai, or “song-stage” is often seen as an unique feature of Singapore’s local Chinese culture because of its association to the Chinese’s Hungry Ghost festival. Not many people know that getai did not begin as a local ‘Chinese’ entertainment in the 1940s. This ‘Chinese’ culture is only gradually formed after absorbing the Chinese influence brought by the influx of Shanghai gewutuan (song-and dance troupe) members during the 1950s. As current scholarship about Singapore getai culture has little analysis about this 1950s Chinese influence on the getai culture and its audience, this paper aims to explore how the influence of the Chinese artistes changes the nature of getai culture from a leisure enjoyment for all races to a Chinese-oriented entertainment

The Japanese colonizers’ aim in establishing this new entertainment was to create a “zone of escapism” for the locals who were under much oppression from the Japanese rule. The getai programmes during the Japanese Occupation were mainly music and song performances. Although performing English songs were disallowed in getai shows then, the Japanese rulers had less restriction on the music genres and cultural influences of the song performances in getai. For instance, the getai band of Happy Garden Café was a westernized band that had pianist, saxophonist, violinist, trumpet player and clarinet player. In addition, the songs performed included Japanese music, Mandarin pop songs from Chinese movies and sometimes, Malay music. The getai performers and band members consisted of locals from Singapore and people from other nationalities, such as Hungarians and Filipinos. In short, getai performances in the 40s were dominated by song performances, but there was a diversity of cultural influences incorporated in the

The sinicization effect by the influx of Chinese performers in the 50s transformed the nature of getai culture and affected the local audience who enjoyed the shows. The new programmes not only set basic requirements of Chinese language proficiency for its audience, but their contents were also incorporated with Chinese cultural elements that were not favoured by non-Chinese audience. The sinicization of getai culture during the 1950s was so successful that from then onwards, getai is often seen as a part of ‘Chinese culture’ in