1957 Nanjing, China

Yumei Chen

1941

Nanjing, China

Interviewed on February 21, 2021

by Lucy Zhu

I was sixteen years old when I watched my first movie. I was attending middle school in Nanjing in 1957 when a friend asked me to go see one with her. She was from Anhui. I agreed because I’d never seen a movie before. At the time, there were movies in China, but they were only screened in big cities. I was from a small village that didn’t have a theater – none of the villages did. If it wasn’t for my friend, I wouldn’t have known what a movie was or where to watch one.

We walked to the theater together – it wasn’t a very long walk from our school. When we got there, I was completely blown away by how luxurious it looked. It was huge! I don’t remember what the theater was called anymore, but I’d never seen anything like it. There were three floors filled with seats for moviegoers like us. A huge screen hung at the front of the theater. Everything about the place looked and felt rich and extravagant. For someone who grew up in a village and didn’t start school until she was ten years old, you can imagine how stunned I was!

The movie we watched was called Street Angel. It was a really popular film at the time even though it had been released in 1937. Zhou Xuan, a famous actress and singer, played the leading role. The movie was about two sisters struggling to survive in the slums of Shanghai. They have no money, so the older sister turns to prostitution as a source of income. The younger one was good at singing, so she was hired to sing for a tea house.

I don’t remember exactly how it ended, but I think they both died. I don’t remember if I had cried. They had been mistreated by everyone, used and abused. I felt so bad for them as I watched the movie. Their struggles showed a very dark period in Chinese history when women had no status and was therefore bullied and disrespected wherever they went. People only wanted to take their money, and the movie represented this backwards society in its storyline.

The reason why I distinctly remember this movie is that I really liked the theme song, called “The Wandering Songstress.” It was sung by Zhou Xuan, the lead actress who played the younger sister, and she had a beautiful voice. I still remember that song, and I still sing it to this day. This was also the first song that I had ever heard. Back then, we didn’t have phones that play music on demand, like you do today. We also didn’t have radio, especially not in the village where I grew up. Because of this, it made the movie even more memorable to me and the experience all the more thrilling.

Do you want to hear the song? I can sing it for you!