Lanterns and drums: changing representations of Chinese songs in Australian school music

Abstract

Contemporary Australia is an evolving nation of diverse cultures, but in the past various understandings of national identity were held, first as part of the British empire, then as part of an assimilationist monocultural British society and subsequently as a nation where integration allowed different cultures to be celebrated but within the established social patterns. Since its introduction in the 1970s, Australia has announced itself to be multicultural. This has been confirmed in a recent multicultural policy that interestingly contains no mention of specific ethnicities or geographic locations. Education, school curricula and particularly music have the opportunity to introduce students to music of diverse cultures. One way to do this might be to follow the path taken in this discussion that explores the changing representations of one Asian culture, China, in the songs we present to Australian school children. China has been selected for its regional proximity but traditional cultural distance from Australia. Over time there has been a gradual shift to the present position where we hope to understand ‘other’ musics as being of equal merit to be taught as authentically as possible. Chinese songs presented to school children provide an exemplar of the inclusion of another music and by examining the cultural content of school songs we gain an insight into what cultural understandings educational authorities and teachers hope to inculcate in their charges. The changing faces of China that are presented reveal much about how we want Australian children to understand the culture and identity of their Asian neighbours.

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