October 5, 2024 • 34 mins
Today’s episode of the Anthems podcast explores the national anthem of Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, titled "The Three Principles." The story behind this anthem is intertwined with significant historical events, including the Xinhai Revolution and the complex relationships between key revolutionary figures. Patrick navigates through the colonial past of Taiwan and how its anthem reflects the ideals of nationalism, democracy, and the welfare of the people as envisioned by Sun Yat-sen. The episode delves into the anthem's creation, its musical composition, and its cultural significance, offering insights into how it embodies the spirit of governance and the unique narrative of Taiwan within the broader context of Chinese history. Join us as we uncover the rich tapestry of history and music that defines this powerful national symbol.
My Sources:
- https://www.taiwan.gov.tw/content_3.php
- https://english.president.gov.tw/Page/97
- Guy, Nancy (Winter 2002). ""Republic of China National Anthem" on Taiwan: One Anthem, One Performance, Multiple Realities". Ethnomusicology. 6 (1): 96–119. doi:10.2307/852809. JSTOR 852809
- https://web.archive.org/web/20110722145311/http://news.chinatimes.com/mainland/11050506/112011071900180.html
- Oosterhoff, J.L. (1985). "Zeelandia, a Dutch colonial city on Formosa (1624–1662)". In Ross, Robert; Telkamp, Gerard J. (eds.). Colonial Cities: Essays on Urbanism in a Colonial Context. Springer. pp. 51–62. ISBN 978-90-247-2635-6.
- Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of China. Land. Executive Yuan. 2022-12-14 [ 2023-03-29 ] . ( Archived from the original on 2022-03-04)
- Paine, S.C.M (2003). The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81714-1.
- Zhang, Yufa (1998), Zhonghua Minguo shigao 中華民國史稿, Taipei, Taiwan: Lian jing (聯經), ISBN 957-08-1826-3.
- https://www.chinatimes.com/newspapers/20171010000484-260309?chdtv
- http://www.xhgmw.com/html/xiezhen/jishi/2014/0716/3945.html
- Huo Xiuyong. A New Study on the 1911 Revolution in the Hubei and Hubei Regions. National University of Defense Technology Press. 2008. ISBN 9787810995504 .
- https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=dVzLG1aqlNkC&pg=PA373&dq=Modern+China+Liao+Zhong+Kai+workers&hl=zh-TW&sa=X&ei=w47dULvxBsnImQXomoGQAg&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Modern%20China%20Liao%20Zhong%20Kai%20workers&f=false
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Hello and welcome to theAnthems podcast. I'm Patrick and
I'm here to tell you the story of
a song that helps to tell the story
of a nation. Today we are going to
be traveling 9857 miles across the
planet, or 15,863 km across the globe.
But in order to get there as quickly
aspossible, we have to travel somewhere
else first. The fastest trip I could
find involves flying first to Toronto
and then onto this island nation
thatis easily as hotly contested a piece
of land as our last nation. But surprisingly
enough, this extra stop over in my
own country's northern neighbor adds
essentially nothing to the distance
thatwe're traveling. What is officially
theRepublic of China. Ive always heard
it referred to as Taiwan. I might
have mentioned that I have a map
onmy fireplace that I stick a pin in
every time we cover an anthem on
the show. This time the nation and
the anthem were discussing is an
attempt at making my map a little
bitmore symmetric. Ill admit its not
aparticularly funny or coincidental
reason tobe covering a song, but it still
landed us on a country with a very
interesting story. As a for instance,
I'll note that like many island countries,
Taiwan does have a colonial past,
butit figures into this story only as
far as this sentence gets us. That's
not really that odd, though. What
isactually kind of strange about this
episode is that literally none of
the story of the national anthem
ofthe Republic of China, also known
bythe incipit the three principles,
takesplace in the country. None of it
takes place in Taiwan at all. Definitely
afirst. I might not need to tell you
that I had a distorted perspective
onTaiwan since I grew up in and continue
to live in the United States. To
be honest, before getting into the
reading for this episode, I didn't
even know why the mainland, which
isthe People's Republic of China. I
didn't even know why they were making
claims to it. Writing this podcast
hasdone a lot to be knocked down, ignorant
positions about the world that I've
had in my head. And I'm only in the
21st episode, so learning completely
newstuff all the time has got to be
an objectively good thing, right?
Sowithout further ado, I will present
youwith about 1 minute and 10 seconds
ofsomething that you might never have
heard before. So enjoy. Jenna yeah,
initial reaction for me is slightly
mixed. This version that I played
foryou is pretty good, and having a
children's choir gives an element
ofnovelty that I enjoy, but the music
is tougher to showcase with it. With
this anthem, we have more creativity
andprowess exhibited in the musical
composition. But the story is very
much bound up in the way that the
lyrics came about. There is, as they
say, a lot in a name sometimes, and
the three principles certainly adds
to the data, showing that even the
modern name of the country has layers
and layers of meaning, with the word
evolving from a named coastal sandbar
that served as the first permanent
settled spot on the main island.
Butstop it. You're not tricking me into
getting lost into the surprisingly
complicated etymology of place names
in Asia. We need to figure out where
in the world we are. And then I need
to talk about how this song came
about. Taiwan is a series of 168
islands with a main island known
historically by the name Formosa,
makingup all but 400 of the countries just
under 36,200 km². If you know where
China is and you have some knowledge
ofwhere the provinces are in China,
thenit's easy to find Taiwan. It's about
120 miles off the coast of Fujian
province. It's also basically the
point where the East China Sea, the
South China Sea and the Philippine
Seacome together, a location that might
help explain some of the region's
history with its actual closest neighbor,
Japan. Despite their mainlands being
about a thousand miles away from
each other, there is a japanese island
named Yonaguni that's like 70 miles,
or 110 km away from Taiwan. The other
closest non China neighbor is the
Philippines. And here you need to
go about 270 miles north from mainland
to mainland to get to Taiwan. But
the two closest islands are only
about a third of that distance from
each other. So I thought there was
going to be another non geology term
for this episode, because islands
arevolcanic, and there's only so much
Ican say about that. But I discovered
thatTaiwan's main island is something
calleda tilted fault block. And that's
aninteresting thing that I didn't know
existed. Now, imagine that you have
two sheets of paper lying flat on
a table, and you slide them together
andkeep pushing. In some places, the
sheets will slide over or under each
other, and in other places, they
will butt up and begin to fold and
buckle. When this happens with tectonic
plates, you sometimes get gigantic
chunks of rock that jut up out of
the ocean, making islands. Imagine
whatkind of force is involved with something
like that. Actually incredible. But
we're talking historical timeline
andnot geological timeline. We have
another kind of an odd duck here,
because now that we've placed Taiwan
on the map and got to the point where
the story begins, we're not going
togo back there. Everything in this
story happens in mainland China,
andin fact, during the entirety of the
song's story, the territory that
will become Taiwan is a colonial
property of Japan. Interesting stuff
all around. It's an easy place for
me to find an entry point, though.
Since the Treaty of Shimonoseki was
signed to bring an end to the first
sino japanese war, the treaty recognized
the independence of Korea and ceded
land from China to Japan in perpetuity,
including Taiwan. This loss was one
of the rallying cries of the chinese
nationalists that were responsible
for theXinhai revolution that defines where
we're going to enter the timeline.
Theevent that historians generally consider
to have kicked off the revolution
is theWujiang uprising, which happened
inWujiang, of all places, on October
10in 1911. Like most military uprisings,
theone that led to the end of imperialism
inChina did not develop in a vacuum,
andit took place at a local maximum
ofdemocratic minded thinking among
avaried and contentious revolutionary
landscape. We are going to start
earlier on, and by talking about
someof the parts of the very complicated
revolution through the lens of four
different men's politically intertwined
lives, we're also going to start
thestory even further away from Taiwan
than mainland China. Because Lao
Chong Kaidenhe was born in San Francisco,
California, Lau was one of 24 children,
and he lived with his parents until
his father was transferred back to
Hong Kong by the british bank that
he worked for. This move had him
byage 20, graduating from Queens College
in Hong Kong, married to fellow revolutionary
He Zhengjing. I've got to apologize
forthe pronunciations going forward.
Laucontinued his education at Waseda
University in Japan, and that is
where he joined Sun Yat sen's Revolutionary
alliance as the director of the financial
bureau before completing his studies
ineconomics and political science at
Chow University, which is also in
Japan. In early political struggles,
heended up getting arrested, but his
party, the KMT, the Kuomintang, they
came out on top, and he ended up
becoming the minister of finance
of thesouthern government after the reforming
of the party in 1924, he resolutely
believed in the revolutionary ideas
espoused by party leader Sun Yat
sen, and after their death from cancer,
Laos sought to continue the effort
tounite the country under a democratic
republic. But he never got the chance
because he was riddled with bullets
byfive gunmen outside of a party meeting
in August of 1925. Probably for thinking
that China should maintain close
tiesto Soviet Russia. And the next guy
I'm going to talk about was actually
accused of being responsible for
this man's death, but historians
generallythink that that was not the case.
Thenext piece of the puzzle is filled
with hunmen. He's a man who was born
on December 9 of 1879 in the southern
coastal province of Guangdong, China.
His early life seemed not super easy,
with both of his parents passing
by thetime he was 15 and his brother and
him being in pretty dire financial
straits. But Hu was a very smart
kidand he was a diligent student, and
he was able to qualify fairly well
in the imperial civil service exam.
In 1901, he became a sort of government
ghostwriter. The colloquial term
atthe time was a hired gun. In 1905,
when the revolutionary alliance was
formed in Japan by Sun Yat sen, he
was there and he joined up as a newspaper
editor. He participated in the failed
second revolution, and he fled to
Japan, where he started the Republic
magazine in 1914. After returning
toGuangdong, he worked for Sun Yat
sen and eventually managed to become
the governor through some real complicated
political maneuvering that I'm gonna
skip entirely, he was present at
the pivotal first National Congress
ofthe Kuomintang in 1924, where the
party began cooperating with the
communists and used Lenin's support
toestablish, amongst other things,
theWampoa Military Academy. I will talk
more about that in a moment. After
Sun's death in 1925, Hu was one of
the three most powerful people in
the party, and he helped consolidate
partycontrol in China over the next eleven
years before his death from a cerebral
hemorrhage during a game of chess
onMay 12 of 1936. This guy is one of
those incredibly interesting people
that I read way too much stuff about
when I've got a whole show to write.
And there is a lot about Hugh Hanman
that I wanted to include, like the
fact that he is considered one of
the four great masters of traditional
chinese calligraphy. But I will have
to settle for encouraging you to
read more on your own. The third
ofthe men I have tried very hard not
to think of as some variation of
the four horsemen of the Xinhai revolution
is Xiao you Zhang. He was born in
1890 in Xinjiang province, and I
found pretty much nothing regarding
hisparents or early life, but he seems
like he was a pretty smart kid. The
historical record picks him up when
he passed the imperial examination
when hewas 13, and he was admitted into
China's first western style university
at16 years old, he also joined Sun
Yat sen's revolutionary league. Then,
in 1909, he was identified as a high
performer and made into a tribute
student to the imperial Academy,
andthat equipped him to pass another
examined and become a chief district
court judge at 20 years old, which
strikes me as kind of crazy. In 1911,
he went to Japan for more study.
Hemet the revolutionary leader and
hejoined him for the failed second
revolution and fled back to Japan
with Sun and Hu. As the Kuomintang
consolidated power, Shao rose through
the ranks and he ended up on the
executive committee soon after the
inaugural 1924 congress. That thing
that keeps coming up here and there
in this show. In 1927, he managed
toget appointed as the mayor of Hangzhou,
where he got some really ambitious
andprogressive reforms going. But he
had to step down because they caught
him embezzling a bunch of money.
Overthe next decade, he made smarter
political decisions in the party,
andin 1930 he was part of the executive
committee and was shot while trying
toescape from the fighting in the Xi'an
incident, which is another thing
yougot to read about on your own. Sorry,
time is limited. A couple of days
later, he died of his injuries in
the hospital. He was 47 years old.
The last guy we are gonna talk about
is Dai Jatou. He was born on January
6of 18, 1891 in Guang, Sichuan, and
the record is basically silent on
most of this man's early life. He
was like the other people I'm talking
about, a really bright kid. And in
1905 found his way to study at the
normal school in Japan, where he
met prominent revolutionary Chiang
Kaishek. Despite that place and time
being a hotbed of pre revolutionary
chineseactivity, he did not join up at that
point, although he did become lifelong
friends with his eventual colleague
Zhang. Instead, Dai went on to study
law at Nihan University in 1907 before
returning to China to teach from
1909 to 1911. That year he joined
therevolutionary League and began openly
criticizing the Qing dynasty in newspaper
articles and participated in the
Shanghai uprising portion of the
Shinhai Revolution. After that, he
became sung yat sons secretary and
remained tied to him from then on
because he was fluent in Japanese
andChinese and he was able to act as
a trusted interpreter. After ten
years in that world, he took a job
with the non Political Securities
Commission and had a failed suicide
attempt. In 1922. He jumped off a
bridge and a fisherman rescued him.
You might have guessed that Dai was
also present at the first national
Kuomintang Conference and was involved
in the Wampoa military department
as amember of the executive board and
the director of the political department
respectively. After Sun Yatzuns death
in 1905, he became very deeply involved
in leadership roles in the party
andhe wrote five influential political
philosophy and historical works,
aswell as many, many, many essays.
Hedied at the age of 58 in February
of1949, and it's widely accepted that
he committed suicide by ingesting
some 60sleeping pills after the communists
wonthe civil war. But there is some
controversy that still surrounds
hisdeath. So why am I talking about
fourfairly random, if fairly prominent
members of the party that ended up
losing the civil war in China? Also,
to be clear, I have no idea what
theentirety of the war was like and
who was in the right, although I
suspect both sides were not great.
Maybe more of that will come clear
when I start reading for the anthem
for the People's Republic of China
someday, because we're going to get
more of this history. When we do
that, it's all intertwined. Anyway.
Ihope that I was at least completely
obvious that these guys are involved
inthe anthem story because of course
they are. My foreshadowing is not
subtle here. They were also intimately
involved in shaping some pretty large
parts of chinese and taiwanese society.
People are complicated literally
all ofthe time, and these men had motivations
andsympathies that were all over the
map, just like you and me. They drew
on them to topple an unpopular imperial
regime and initiated a 40 year power
struggle that resulted in the government
of the Republic of China being driven
out by the communists and decamping
tothe islands of Taiwan. This was possible
because Japan lost that island in
the terms of their September 2, 1945
treaty. That was part of the end
ofWorld War Two. And it might be the
only time that I ever mentioned Japan's
surrender on the show. I don't know.
What I also don't know, or didn't
know, rather, was that Japan made
areal effort at trying to take over
mainland China that's been lost in
every bit of the war's history that
I've ever learned about. That's us
history education for you. Though,
Isuppose the point here is. I do have
a point, is that China got Taiwan
backfrom Japan and the remaining KMT
members, a few hundred thousand nationalist
troops and about 2 million refugees
fledto the island and brought their anthem
with them. But how did we get the
song that you heard earlier? The
four men's lives were all intertwined
withthe creation of the republic, and
all four were physically together
forthe opening of the Wampoa military
academy here, Sun Yat sen gave a
speech. And despite a little historical
hullabaloo, it is generally taught
bythought, by historians, that it was
written mostly by Huhanam with assistance
from Daijatou, Lao Zhengkai, and
Xiao Yo Zhang. It was very popular
speech, and after the successful
reunification of China through something
that I've read nothing about, called
the Northern Expedition, dai Ja Tao
proposed using the speech as the
party anthem of the KMT. Clearly,
therest of the needed parties signed
on,and a public contest was sent out
with a prize of 500 silver yuan.
Andthose are currently trading on eBay.
From anywhere from a penny to, like
$12,000. I have no idea what they're
worth. Now, there were 139 entries
inthat contest, and telling you about
the guy that won will require that
we do a little bit of a time jump,
because Cheng Moyan was born on August
25 of 1900 in Zhengji province into
a family of officials. I can't find
out much more than that, because,
again,a lot of these people are just regular
people like us, and they've done
just like one or two things that
gotthem onto my show. So there's nothing
about him until he heads to Japan
in1916 to study music. Heading to Japan
for study is a theme with the people
involved in this show, this episode.
Butunlike the authors, he stayed there
at the conservatory, and he studied
forten years. Upon returning to China
in1926, he got a job teaching music
ata middle school and got married to
his first wife. In 1928, he was hired
on as an associate professor at Nanjing
University, and during his time there
he won the national anthem contest.
Cheng ended up leaving his first
wifeand marrying Zheng Yongzhen after
they met during a 1939 tour to promote
the chinese effort in the Second
SinoJapanese War. His last position before
his death was as a music professor
inShanghai, and he opted not to flee
to Taiwan with the KMT. Cheng died
of a cerebral hemorrhage in Nanjing
in1957, not long after Cheng's music
was added. The three principles was
implemented as the party anthem on
January 10 of 1929 because the lyrics
were patriotic and the music was
peaceful. Then, in February of 1930,
somebody at a school floated the
idea of using the KMT party anthem
asthe national anthem, and a mid march
committee determined that it would
bea suitable placeholder while a permanent
song was found. So on March 24 of
1930, order number 165 was issued,
andthe three principles replaced the
national anthem in every place that
you generally find the national anthem
of a country. The party did initially
dothis with the understanding that
itwas a temporary move, and in May
ofthe same year issued an international
callfor possible compositions. By June
of 1936, more than 700 people had
submitted more than 2000 possible
songs,but the committee accepted none of
them. After failing to pick a song,
the committee again formed to research
and establish an anthem for the republic.
Again the party made a call for submissions
and at the end of the next year had
received an additional nearly 3000.
And again, the committee still recommended
using the Wampoa Military Academy
mottoas the national anthem on the grounds
that it fully embodied the spirit
ofthe revolution and was not only in
line with the history and culture
ofthe nation, but also represented
thefounding spirit of the republic.
So onJune 3 of 1937, at the 45th meeting
ofthe Standing Committee of the fifth
Central Executive Committee of the
KMT, the resolution to use the Wampoa
Military Academy motto as the national
anthem was passed. And now we have
the anthem and we can discuss the
song itself. Musically, it is easy
to hear the ability of Cheng, and
we have got another ridiculously
well suitedand crafted composition. The melody
isdirect with a clear and stately progression,
and there is a symmetry to the four
bar structure that is consistent.
Further,it sits nicely on top of the lyrics,
and it makes that easier to sing,
asdoes the duple meter. That's a new
music word for me. Yay. It's two
four or four four. And the slowish,
measured tempo make it easier to
sing too. As many anthems are, this
song is composed in a major key.
Ithink this one is c, but, you know,
Idon't know for sure. The anthem is
a non militaristic anthem, and it
focuses more on the message of the
lyrics. So it's not unusual to find
really sparse instrumentation or
even just people singing lyrically
andpoetically. This is a pretty interesting
piece of writing, and it forced me
to learn a bunch of stuff about traditional
chinese poetry. What I'll be reading
ina few is the official translation
intoEnglish, but it was written in classical
literary Chinese, a very formal version
of the language. This piece adheres
closely to the form called lushi,
orregulated verse, where the verses
arefive to seven characters long and
it helps create a sense of balance
andsymmetry in them. The writing also
has the same emphasis on parallelism
thattraditional chinese poetry is full
of. Lucy especially uses this coupled
phrases to exhibit parallels of ideas,
syntax, and sound. For my western
listeners. Somebody that writes in
that style is Walt Whitman. Almost
everything that he wrote leans very
heavily on parallels. One more thing
to note before getting into the lyrical
content is that again, this is the
official translation to English from
the government in Taiwan. So my assumption
is that they think it sufficiently
gets themeaning of the thing across however,
this poem is written in traditional
Chineseoriginally, and that is a far more
tonal language than English. And
how stuff said super duper matters
in away it does not in the language that
I am speaking. Unfortunately, it's
something you got to read more on
your own about because I can't mention
more for purposes of time. Now on
to the lyrics of the anthem. San
min chuai our aim shall be to found
afree land, world peace be our stand.
Lead on comrades, vanguards ye are,
hold fast your aim by sun and star
be earnest and brave your country
tosave one heart, one soul, one mind,
one goal. We're now presented with
an incredibly long piece of writing,
andthat makes sense because Sanmin Chuai
was originally the opening of a speech
and it was fit to a very specific
traditional style. The original placement
of the writing coupled with the traditional
style are kind of a historical bridge
because the themes of patriotism,
nationalunity, and collective effort are
common and present in modern and
classical poetry in China and a whole
bunch of other countries, too. The
poem is essentially a distillation
of SunYat son's philosophy, starting with
nationalism, democracy, and the livelihood
of the people, which some sources
callwelfarism. Those are the three principles
that we're talking about here. It
is the core of what the KMT meant
tothe founder. The whole song isn't
just about the three principles,
but theyare central to what Taiwan is all
about. So we're going to start with
a little discussion of them specifically
andwhat they inspire in the poem. I
will note that there are people that
criticize the use of a party anthem
touting these principles as the national
anthem of a country that was under
martial law for a long time after
thedefeat of the KMT by the communists.
But weonly get to hear about that on the
show if they pick another anthem
someday. So nationalism, that's a
word that's got some authoritarian
connotations in the 21st century,
andit's also a word that we traffick
in allthe time on the Anthems podcast,
becausenational anthems are a super nationalistic
thing, and the intent of the term
here falls in line with an anthem's
intent in general. Sun was interested
first in having the country united
asone and to be free of foreign dominion
with the chinese people deciding
theirown fate. And the anthem opens by
evoking national pride and independence.
Sun's second principle is democracy,
because what good is having sovereignty
unless the government brought forth
is representative of the people that
actually want to decide their own
fate? This ideal is reflected in
the writing, with the stately balanced
phrasing trying to reflect orderly
governance and civic responsibility.
Finally,we get to potentially the only confusing
principle because people's livelihood
refers to all manner of well being
and not just income, which possibly
explains why some people just call
it welfarism, making things possibly
less clear. But anyway, the big aims
from the KMT were originally land
reform and economic modernization,
and we getthat as a hopeful tone in the writing.
But despite this being a distillation
of aspecific political philosophy, it's
actually an incredibly chinese piece
of writing. The three principles
waswritten in traditional Chinese in
a form that very closely matches
traditional luxi, but what makes
itan anthem is the way that it embodies
the chinese people. It's weird not
to say taiwanese people, but when
written, that country didn't actually
exist. This was written for China.
Most forwardly, we hear this in the
explicit embodiment of confucian
ideals,with lines like be earnest and be
brave, emphasizing the core confucian
values of loyalty, faithfulness,
anddiligence. The poem also emphasizes
thevalue of collective effort and heroism
in the pursuit of a cause. We should
recall that this is a training speech
for a military academy. The poem
even has some imagery in it, too,
but in the three principles this
issymbolic imagery and not metaphorical.
Alltold, San Min Chu I it stands as
asolemn, dignified national anthem
thatreflects the founding principles
of theRepublic of China as envisioned by
Sun Yat sen. Its straightforward
melody,harmony, and rhythm make it an accessible
song, while its lyrics and historical
context imbue it with deep political
andcultural significance. For Taiwan,
theanthem is not only a symbol of governance
and ideology, but also a reminder
of theunique position that Taiwan holds
inthe larger narrative of chinese history.
Hopefully you've learned something.
I suredid. On to the credits. The writing,
recording, and production for the
show are done by me. I wrote and
played the theme music. The music
wasused with my permission. Unless otherwise
noted, the anthems I play are public
domain or some equivalently free
toplay license or something, and this
time the audio comes from the official
media channel of the Office of the
President of the Republic of China.
This media is provided for free for
distribution as long as I let you
know that it was provided for me
by the office of the President of
the Republic of China. My sources
andthe specifics items that I mentioned
onthe show are contained in the show
notes, and the most direct way to
get to those show notes is@anthemspodcast.com
dotalso this show is can credentialed,
whichmeans you can report incidences of
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can even go there and volunteer your
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kind ofdifferent. For now, I try to get
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platform I can with the hashtag hash
anthemspod. Assuming hashtags Mather
on that platform, it'd be cool if
you hashtag the post or shared it
with whatever new social media stuff
kids are doing now. And it might
alsocreate a wormhole that makes this
very episode be the first coherent
interstellar transmission that we
get on earth. It could happen, I
think. As always, you can email me
corrections, comments, concerns,
suggestions, ideas, instructions
on how todo awesome things and even ask me
questions@anthemspodmail.com. i have
again made it possible to call me
or text at 1203-759-8375 or better
yet, leave me a review wherever you
can so that I can find out what you
think and give me a rating on your
podcast app because ratings and reviews
matter. More people hear me and you
get more episodes. Maybe you'll be
in a canal on the Gulf coast of Florida
fishing for jacks. Walleye jacks.
Goodfish. And you happen to be playing
myshow on a PA system that you have
onyour boat. But even if all you do
is download one more for the road,
you're the reason I'm talking right
now. So have a great month, folks.
Hello and welcome to theAnthems podcast. I'm Patrick and
I'm here to tell you the story of
a song that helps to tell the story
of a nation. Today we are going to
be traveling 9857 miles across the
planet, or 15,863 km across the globe.
But in order to get there as quickly
aspossible, we have to travel somewhere
else first. The fastest trip I could
find involves flying first to Toronto
and then onto this island nation
thatis easily as hotly contested a piece
of land as our last nation. But surprisingly
enough, this extra stop over in my
own country's northern neighbor adds
essentially nothing to the distance
thatwe're traveling. What is officially
theRepublic of China. Ive always heard
it referred to as Taiwan. I might
have mentioned that I have a map
onmy fireplace that I stick a pin in
every time we cover an anthem on
the show. This time the nation and
the anthem were discussing is an
attempt at making my map a little
bitmore symmetric. Ill admit its not
aparticularly funny or coincidental
reason tobe covering a song, but it still
landed us on a country with a very
interesting story. As a for instance,
I'll note that like many island countries,
Taiwan does have a colonial past,
butit figures into this story only as
far as this sentence gets us. That's
not really that odd, though. What
isactually kind of strange about this
episode is that literally none of
the story of the national anthem
ofthe Republic of China, also known
bythe incipit the three principles,
takesplace in the country. None of it
takes place in Taiwan at all. Definitely
afirst. I might not need to tell you
that I had a distorted perspective
onTaiwan since I grew up in and continue
to live in the United States. To
be honest, before getting into the
reading for this episode, I didn't
even know why the mainland, which
isthe People's Republic of China. I
didn't even know why they were making
claims to it. Writing this podcast
hasdone a lot to be knocked down, ignorant
positions about the world that I've
had in my head. And I'm only in the
21st episode, so learning completely
newstuff all the time has got to be
an objectively good thing, right?
Sowithout further ado, I will present
youwith about 1 minute and 10 seconds
ofsomething that you might never have
heard before. So enjoy. Jenna yeah,
initial reaction for me is slightly
mixed. This version that I played
foryou is pretty good, and having a
children's choir gives an element
ofnovelty that I enjoy, but the music
is tougher to showcase with it. With
this anthem, we have more creativity
andprowess exhibited in the musical
composition. But the story is very
much bound up in the way that the
lyrics came about. There is, as they
say, a lot in a name sometimes, and
the three principles certainly adds
to the data, showing that even the
modern name of the country has layers
and layers of meaning, with the word
evolving from a named coastal sandbar
that served as the first permanent
settled spot on the main island.
Butstop it. You're not tricking me into
getting lost into the surprisingly
complicated etymology of place names
in Asia. We need to figure out where
in the world we are. And then I need
to talk about how this song came
about. Taiwan is a series of 168
islands with a main island known
historically by the name Formosa,
makingup all but 400 of the countries just
under 36,200 km². If you know where
China is and you have some knowledge
ofwhere the provinces are in China,
thenit's easy to find Taiwan. It's about
120 miles off the coast of Fujian
province. It's also basically the
point where the East China Sea, the
South China Sea and the Philippine
Seacome together, a location that might
help explain some of the region's
history with its actual closest neighbor,
Japan. Despite their mainlands being
about a thousand miles away from
each other, there is a japanese island
named Yonaguni that's like 70 miles,
or 110 km away from Taiwan. The other
closest non China neighbor is the
Philippines. And here you need to
go about 270 miles north from mainland
to mainland to get to Taiwan. But
the two closest islands are only
about a third of that distance from
each other. So I thought there was
going to be another non geology term
for this episode, because islands
arevolcanic, and there's only so much
Ican say about that. But I discovered
thatTaiwan's main island is something
calleda tilted fault block. And that's
aninteresting thing that I didn't know
existed. Now, imagine that you have
two sheets of paper lying flat on
a table, and you slide them together
andkeep pushing. In some places, the
sheets will slide over or under each
other, and in other places, they
will butt up and begin to fold and
buckle. When this happens with tectonic
plates, you sometimes get gigantic
chunks of rock that jut up out of
the ocean, making islands. Imagine
whatkind of force is involved with something
like that. Actually incredible. But
we're talking historical timeline
andnot geological timeline. We have
another kind of an odd duck here,
because now that we've placed Taiwan
on the map and got to the point where
the story begins, we're not going
togo back there. Everything in this
story happens in mainland China,
andin fact, during the entirety of the
song's story, the territory that
will become Taiwan is a colonial
property of Japan. Interesting stuff
all around. It's an easy place for
me to find an entry point, though.
Since the Treaty of Shimonoseki was
signed to bring an end to the first
sino japanese war, the treaty recognized
the independence of Korea and ceded
land from China to Japan in perpetuity,
including Taiwan. This loss was one
of the rallying cries of the chinese
nationalists that were responsible
for theXinhai revolution that defines where
we're going to enter the timeline.
Theevent that historians generally consider
to have kicked off the revolution
is theWujiang uprising, which happened
inWujiang, of all places, on October
10in 1911. Like most military uprisings,
theone that led to the end of imperialism
inChina did not develop in a vacuum,
andit took place at a local maximum
ofdemocratic minded thinking among
avaried and contentious revolutionary
landscape. We are going to start
earlier on, and by talking about
someof the parts of the very complicated
revolution through the lens of four
different men's politically intertwined
lives, we're also going to start
thestory even further away from Taiwan
than mainland China. Because Lao
Chong Kaidenhe was born in San Francisco,
California, Lau was one of 24 children,
and he lived with his parents until
his father was transferred back to
Hong Kong by the british bank that
he worked for. This move had him
byage 20, graduating from Queens College
in Hong Kong, married to fellow revolutionary
He Zhengjing. I've got to apologize
forthe pronunciations going forward.
Laucontinued his education at Waseda
University in Japan, and that is
where he joined Sun Yat sen's Revolutionary
alliance as the director of the financial
bureau before completing his studies
ineconomics and political science at
Chow University, which is also in
Japan. In early political struggles,
heended up getting arrested, but his
party, the KMT, the Kuomintang, they
came out on top, and he ended up
becoming the minister of finance
of thesouthern government after the reforming
of the party in 1924, he resolutely
believed in the revolutionary ideas
espoused by party leader Sun Yat
sen, and after their death from cancer,
Laos sought to continue the effort
tounite the country under a democratic
republic. But he never got the chance
because he was riddled with bullets
byfive gunmen outside of a party meeting
in August of 1925. Probably for thinking
that China should maintain close
tiesto Soviet Russia. And the next guy
I'm going to talk about was actually
accused of being responsible for
this man's death, but historians
generallythink that that was not the case.
Thenext piece of the puzzle is filled
with hunmen. He's a man who was born
on December 9 of 1879 in the southern
coastal province of Guangdong, China.
His early life seemed not super easy,
with both of his parents passing
by thetime he was 15 and his brother and
him being in pretty dire financial
straits. But Hu was a very smart
kidand he was a diligent student, and
he was able to qualify fairly well
in the imperial civil service exam.
In 1901, he became a sort of government
ghostwriter. The colloquial term
atthe time was a hired gun. In 1905,
when the revolutionary alliance was
formed in Japan by Sun Yat sen, he
was there and he joined up as a newspaper
editor. He participated in the failed
second revolution, and he fled to
Japan, where he started the Republic
magazine in 1914. After returning
toGuangdong, he worked for Sun Yat
sen and eventually managed to become
the governor through some real complicated
political maneuvering that I'm gonna
skip entirely, he was present at
the pivotal first National Congress
ofthe Kuomintang in 1924, where the
party began cooperating with the
communists and used Lenin's support
toestablish, amongst other things,
theWampoa Military Academy. I will talk
more about that in a moment. After
Sun's death in 1925, Hu was one of
the three most powerful people in
the party, and he helped consolidate
partycontrol in China over the next eleven
years before his death from a cerebral
hemorrhage during a game of chess
onMay 12 of 1936. This guy is one of
those incredibly interesting people
that I read way too much stuff about
when I've got a whole show to write.
And there is a lot about Hugh Hanman
that I wanted to include, like the
fact that he is considered one of
the four great masters of traditional
chinese calligraphy. But I will have
to settle for encouraging you to
read more on your own. The third
ofthe men I have tried very hard not
to think of as some variation of
the four horsemen of the Xinhai revolution
is Xiao you Zhang. He was born in
1890 in Xinjiang province, and I
found pretty much nothing regarding
hisparents or early life, but he seems
like he was a pretty smart kid. The
historical record picks him up when
he passed the imperial examination
when hewas 13, and he was admitted into
China's first western style university
at16 years old, he also joined Sun
Yat sen's revolutionary league. Then,
in 1909, he was identified as a high
performer and made into a tribute
student to the imperial Academy,
andthat equipped him to pass another
examined and become a chief district
court judge at 20 years old, which
strikes me as kind of crazy. In 1911,
he went to Japan for more study.
Hemet the revolutionary leader and
hejoined him for the failed second
revolution and fled back to Japan
with Sun and Hu. As the Kuomintang
consolidated power, Shao rose through
the ranks and he ended up on the
executive committee soon after the
inaugural 1924 congress. That thing
that keeps coming up here and there
in this show. In 1927, he managed
toget appointed as the mayor of Hangzhou,
where he got some really ambitious
andprogressive reforms going. But he
had to step down because they caught
him embezzling a bunch of money.
Overthe next decade, he made smarter
political decisions in the party,
andin 1930 he was part of the executive
committee and was shot while trying
toescape from the fighting in the Xi'an
incident, which is another thing
yougot to read about on your own. Sorry,
time is limited. A couple of days
later, he died of his injuries in
the hospital. He was 47 years old.
The last guy we are gonna talk about
is Dai Jatou. He was born on January
6of 18, 1891 in Guang, Sichuan, and
the record is basically silent on
most of this man's early life. He
was like the other people I'm talking
about, a really bright kid. And in
1905 found his way to study at the
normal school in Japan, where he
met prominent revolutionary Chiang
Kaishek. Despite that place and time
being a hotbed of pre revolutionary
chineseactivity, he did not join up at that
point, although he did become lifelong
friends with his eventual colleague
Zhang. Instead, Dai went on to study
law at Nihan University in 1907 before
returning to China to teach from
1909 to 1911. That year he joined
therevolutionary League and began openly
criticizing the Qing dynasty in newspaper
articles and participated in the
Shanghai uprising portion of the
Shinhai Revolution. After that, he
became sung yat sons secretary and
remained tied to him from then on
because he was fluent in Japanese
andChinese and he was able to act as
a trusted interpreter. After ten
years in that world, he took a job
with the non Political Securities
Commission and had a failed suicide
attempt. In 1922. He jumped off a
bridge and a fisherman rescued him.
You might have guessed that Dai was
also present at the first national
Kuomintang Conference and was involved
in the Wampoa military department
as amember of the executive board and
the director of the political department
respectively. After Sun Yatzuns death
in 1905, he became very deeply involved
in leadership roles in the party
andhe wrote five influential political
philosophy and historical works,
aswell as many, many, many essays.
Hedied at the age of 58 in February
of1949, and it's widely accepted that
he committed suicide by ingesting
some 60sleeping pills after the communists
wonthe civil war. But there is some
controversy that still surrounds
hisdeath. So why am I talking about
fourfairly random, if fairly prominent
members of the party that ended up
losing the civil war in China? Also,
to be clear, I have no idea what
theentirety of the war was like and
who was in the right, although I
suspect both sides were not great.
Maybe more of that will come clear
when I start reading for the anthem
for the People's Republic of China
someday, because we're going to get
more of this history. When we do
that, it's all intertwined. Anyway.
Ihope that I was at least completely
obvious that these guys are involved
inthe anthem story because of course
they are. My foreshadowing is not
subtle here. They were also intimately
involved in shaping some pretty large
parts of chinese and taiwanese society.
People are complicated literally
all ofthe time, and these men had motivations
andsympathies that were all over the
map, just like you and me. They drew
on them to topple an unpopular imperial
regime and initiated a 40 year power
struggle that resulted in the government
of the Republic of China being driven
out by the communists and decamping
tothe islands of Taiwan. This was possible
because Japan lost that island in
the terms of their September 2, 1945
treaty. That was part of the end
ofWorld War Two. And it might be the
only time that I ever mentioned Japan's
surrender on the show. I don't know.
What I also don't know, or didn't
know, rather, was that Japan made
areal effort at trying to take over
mainland China that's been lost in
every bit of the war's history that
I've ever learned about. That's us
history education for you. Though,
Isuppose the point here is. I do have
a point, is that China got Taiwan
backfrom Japan and the remaining KMT
members, a few hundred thousand nationalist
troops and about 2 million refugees
fledto the island and brought their anthem
with them. But how did we get the
song that you heard earlier? The
four men's lives were all intertwined
withthe creation of the republic, and
all four were physically together
forthe opening of the Wampoa military
academy here, Sun Yat sen gave a
speech. And despite a little historical
hullabaloo, it is generally taught
bythought, by historians, that it was
written mostly by Huhanam with assistance
from Daijatou, Lao Zhengkai, and
Xiao Yo Zhang. It was very popular
speech, and after the successful
reunification of China through something
that I've read nothing about, called
the Northern Expedition, dai Ja Tao
proposed using the speech as the
party anthem of the KMT. Clearly,
therest of the needed parties signed
on,and a public contest was sent out
with a prize of 500 silver yuan.
Andthose are currently trading on eBay.
From anywhere from a penny to, like
$12,000. I have no idea what they're
worth. Now, there were 139 entries
inthat contest, and telling you about
the guy that won will require that
we do a little bit of a time jump,
because Cheng Moyan was born on August
25 of 1900 in Zhengji province into
a family of officials. I can't find
out much more than that, because,
again,a lot of these people are just regular
people like us, and they've done
just like one or two things that
gotthem onto my show. So there's nothing
about him until he heads to Japan
in1916 to study music. Heading to Japan
for study is a theme with the people
involved in this show, this episode.
Butunlike the authors, he stayed there
at the conservatory, and he studied
forten years. Upon returning to China
in1926, he got a job teaching music
ata middle school and got married to
his first wife. In 1928, he was hired
on as an associate professor at Nanjing
University, and during his time there
he won the national anthem contest.
Cheng ended up leaving his first
wifeand marrying Zheng Yongzhen after
they met during a 1939 tour to promote
the chinese effort in the Second
SinoJapanese War. His last position before
his death was as a music professor
inShanghai, and he opted not to flee
to Taiwan with the KMT. Cheng died
of a cerebral hemorrhage in Nanjing
in1957, not long after Cheng's music
was added. The three principles was
implemented as the party anthem on
January 10 of 1929 because the lyrics
were patriotic and the music was
peaceful. Then, in February of 1930,
somebody at a school floated the
idea of using the KMT party anthem
asthe national anthem, and a mid march
committee determined that it would
bea suitable placeholder while a permanent
song was found. So on March 24 of
1930, order number 165 was issued,
andthe three principles replaced the
national anthem in every place that
you generally find the national anthem
of a country. The party did initially
dothis with the understanding that
itwas a temporary move, and in May
ofthe same year issued an international
callfor possible compositions. By June
of 1936, more than 700 people had
submitted more than 2000 possible
songs,but the committee accepted none of
them. After failing to pick a song,
the committee again formed to research
and establish an anthem for the republic.
Again the party made a call for submissions
and at the end of the next year had
received an additional nearly 3000.
And again, the committee still recommended
using the Wampoa Military Academy
mottoas the national anthem on the grounds
that it fully embodied the spirit
ofthe revolution and was not only in
line with the history and culture
ofthe nation, but also represented
thefounding spirit of the republic.
So onJune 3 of 1937, at the 45th meeting
ofthe Standing Committee of the fifth
Central Executive Committee of the
KMT, the resolution to use the Wampoa
Military Academy motto as the national
anthem was passed. And now we have
the anthem and we can discuss the
song itself. Musically, it is easy
to hear the ability of Cheng, and
we have got another ridiculously
well suitedand crafted composition. The melody
isdirect with a clear and stately progression,
and there is a symmetry to the four
bar structure that is consistent.
Further,it sits nicely on top of the lyrics,
and it makes that easier to sing,
asdoes the duple meter. That's a new
music word for me. Yay. It's two
four or four four. And the slowish,
measured tempo make it easier to
sing too. As many anthems are, this
song is composed in a major key.
Ithink this one is c, but, you know,
Idon't know for sure. The anthem is
a non militaristic anthem, and it
focuses more on the message of the
lyrics. So it's not unusual to find
really sparse instrumentation or
even just people singing lyrically
andpoetically. This is a pretty interesting
piece of writing, and it forced me
to learn a bunch of stuff about traditional
chinese poetry. What I'll be reading
ina few is the official translation
intoEnglish, but it was written in classical
literary Chinese, a very formal version
of the language. This piece adheres
closely to the form called lushi,
orregulated verse, where the verses
arefive to seven characters long and
it helps create a sense of balance
andsymmetry in them. The writing also
has the same emphasis on parallelism
thattraditional chinese poetry is full
of. Lucy especially uses this coupled
phrases to exhibit parallels of ideas,
syntax, and sound. For my western
listeners. Somebody that writes in
that style is Walt Whitman. Almost
everything that he wrote leans very
heavily on parallels. One more thing
to note before getting into the lyrical
content is that again, this is the
official translation to English from
the government in Taiwan. So my assumption
is that they think it sufficiently
gets themeaning of the thing across however,
this poem is written in traditional
Chineseoriginally, and that is a far more
tonal language than English. And
how stuff said super duper matters
in away it does not in the language that
I am speaking. Unfortunately, it's
something you got to read more on
your own about because I can't mention
more for purposes of time. Now on
to the lyrics of the anthem. San
min chuai our aim shall be to found
afree land, world peace be our stand.
Lead on comrades, vanguards ye are,
hold fast your aim by sun and star
be earnest and brave your country
tosave one heart, one soul, one mind,
one goal. We're now presented with
an incredibly long piece of writing,
andthat makes sense because Sanmin Chuai
was originally the opening of a speech
and it was fit to a very specific
traditional style. The original placement
of the writing coupled with the traditional
style are kind of a historical bridge
because the themes of patriotism,
nationalunity, and collective effort are
common and present in modern and
classical poetry in China and a whole
bunch of other countries, too. The
poem is essentially a distillation
of SunYat son's philosophy, starting with
nationalism, democracy, and the livelihood
of the people, which some sources
callwelfarism. Those are the three principles
that we're talking about here. It
is the core of what the KMT meant
tothe founder. The whole song isn't
just about the three principles,
but theyare central to what Taiwan is all
about. So we're going to start with
a little discussion of them specifically
andwhat they inspire in the poem. I
will note that there are people that
criticize the use of a party anthem
touting these principles as the national
anthem of a country that was under
martial law for a long time after
thedefeat of the KMT by the communists.
But weonly get to hear about that on the
show if they pick another anthem
someday. So nationalism, that's a
word that's got some authoritarian
connotations in the 21st century,
andit's also a word that we traffick
in allthe time on the Anthems podcast,
becausenational anthems are a super nationalistic
thing, and the intent of the term
here falls in line with an anthem's
intent in general. Sun was interested
first in having the country united
asone and to be free of foreign dominion
with the chinese people deciding
theirown fate. And the anthem opens by
evoking national pride and independence.
Sun's second principle is democracy,
because what good is having sovereignty
unless the government brought forth
is representative of the people that
actually want to decide their own
fate? This ideal is reflected in
the writing, with the stately balanced
phrasing trying to reflect orderly
governance and civic responsibility.
Finally,we get to potentially the only confusing
principle because people's livelihood
refers to all manner of well being
and not just income, which possibly
explains why some people just call
it welfarism, making things possibly
less clear. But anyway, the big aims
from the KMT were originally land
reform and economic modernization,
and we getthat as a hopeful tone in the writing.
But despite this being a distillation
of aspecific political philosophy, it's
actually an incredibly chinese piece
of writing. The three principles
waswritten in traditional Chinese in
a form that very closely matches
traditional luxi, but what makes
itan anthem is the way that it embodies
the chinese people. It's weird not
to say taiwanese people, but when
written, that country didn't actually
exist. This was written for China.
Most forwardly, we hear this in the
explicit embodiment of confucian
ideals,with lines like be earnest and be
brave, emphasizing the core confucian
values of loyalty, faithfulness,
anddiligence. The poem also emphasizes
thevalue of collective effort and heroism
in the pursuit of a cause. We should
recall that this is a training speech
for a military academy. The poem
even has some imagery in it, too,
but in the three principles this
issymbolic imagery and not metaphorical.
Alltold, San Min Chu I it stands as
asolemn, dignified national anthem
thatreflects the founding principles
of theRepublic of China as envisioned by
Sun Yat sen. Its straightforward
melody,harmony, and rhythm make it an accessible
song, while its lyrics and historical
context imbue it with deep political
andcultural significance. For Taiwan,
theanthem is not only a symbol of governance
and ideology, but also a reminder
of theunique position that Taiwan holds
inthe larger narrative of chinese history.
Hopefully you've learned something.
I suredid. On to the credits. The writing,
recording, and production for the
show are done by me. I wrote and
played the theme music. The music
wasused with my permission. Unless otherwise
noted, the anthems I play are public
domain or some equivalently free
toplay license or something, and this
time the audio comes from the official
media channel of the Office of the
President of the Republic of China.
This media is provided for free for
distribution as long as I let you
know that it was provided for me
by the office of the President of
the Republic of China. My sources
andthe specifics items that I mentioned
onthe show are contained in the show
notes, and the most direct way to
get to those show notes is@anthemspodcast.com
dotalso this show is can credentialed,
whichmeans you can report incidences of
harassment or other harm on their
hotline at 617-24-9255 or on the
website@creatoraccountability.org you
can even go there and volunteer your
time or join up as another creator.
Ican be found on Facebook and WhatsApp
asthe Anthems podcast. You should follow
me on Facebook when I do post. It's
a post about the show and an on topic
page on social media is something
kind ofdifferent. For now, I try to get
the episodes shared onto whatever
platform I can with the hashtag hash
anthemspod. Assuming hashtags Mather
on that platform, it'd be cool if
you hashtag the post or shared it
with whatever new social media stuff
kids are doing now. And it might
alsocreate a wormhole that makes this
very episode be the first coherent
interstellar transmission that we
get on earth. It could happen, I
think. As always, you can email me
corrections, comments, concerns,
suggestions, ideas, instructions
on how todo awesome things and even ask me
questions@anthemspodmail.com. i have
again made it possible to call me
or text at 1203-759-8375 or better
yet, leave me a review wherever you
can so that I can find out what you
think and give me a rating on your
podcast app because ratings and reviews
matter. More people hear me and you
get more episodes. Maybe you'll be
in a canal on the Gulf coast of Florida
fishing for jacks. Walleye jacks.
Goodfish. And you happen to be playing
myshow on a PA system that you have
onyour boat. But even if all you do
is download one more for the road,
you're the reason I'm talking right
now. So have a great month, folks.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com