Red, Red Sun | The East is Red | Transformation of a Love Song

"The East is Red," written in the early 1940s, started out as an old folk song popular among the farmers of Shanxi, near the wartime Communist base at Yan'an. It originally went:

Sesame oil, cabbage hearts,
Wanna eat string beans, break off the tips,
Get really lovesick if I don't see you for 3 days
Hu-er-hai-yo,
Oh dear, Third Brother mine.

In 1938, the old tune was put to new words in order to mobilize people in the fight against the Japanese invaders.

Riding a white horse, carrying a rifle,
Third brother is with the Eighth Route Army.
Wanna go home to see my girl,
Hu-er-hai-yo,
But fighting the Japs I don't have the time.

After the rise of Mao as the undisputed leader of the Communist Party in the early 1940s, this love song was reworked once more by a primary school teacher and became a feature of Yan'an life.

The East is red, the sun has risen.
Mao Zedong has appeared in China.
He is devoted to the peoples welfare,
Hu-er-hai-yo,
He is the people's great savior.

[See "Songs of the Cultural Revolution," by He Shu, China News Digest, Vol. 235, Oct. 18, 2000.]

Satellite of Love

As the song rose to prominence, "The East is Red" even took on cosmic qualities: when China's first satellite orbited the earth in 1970, it chimed the tune of "The East is Red" to the whole world.

[Satellite MOVIE]