The East is Red

The East is Red, A Song-and-Dance Epic — The East is Red became the underlying theme (and title) of a song-and-dance epic produced in 1964 that plays a key role in Morning Sun. Here you can watch the entire production, divided into scenes with the original Chinese songs and English translations. This stage production presented a creation myth, an historical vision, a belief system, and a moral landscape in which the generation of the Cultural Revolution came of age.

Transformation of a Love Song — The East is Red started out as a peasant love song, and here you can follow its progress to becoming a call to arms in the Anti-Japanese War, and a paean extolling Chairman Mao, the savior of the Chinese people.

Launching a Satellite — When China launched its first satellite in 1970, once more it was the song The East is Red that rang out through the heavens; here you can see documentary footage of the launching of the satellite, precursor to the October 2003 manned space-flight of Yang Liwei.