Talk:March of the Volunteers

"The War"

"Although even popular among Nationalists during the war". Which war? The Chinese Civil War? The last one that drove the KMT to Taiwan? --Menchi 23:25 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Second Sino-Japanese War-WW2 --Jiang 23:36 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Link

I've added a link to "The March of the Volunteers". I've found it on one Chinese music portal. It was very hard for me, because my Chinese is really poor. May be you that reading this topic are Chinese and can offer a better link, may be even official source? Cmapm 03:02, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Transcription

Xie3

The correct pronounciation for "xie3" is indeed "xie3" and not "xue4". This is not an oversight as the lyrics were meant to be colloquial and therefore accessible to the masses; "xie3" is preferred pronounciation used in Mandarin nowadays, while "xue4" is employed (usually) as a component of a highly-specific, polysyllabic unit. --Taoster 17:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

That was not at all helpful. Next time, give the character you're talking about. — LlywelynII 04:31, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Transcription of 血肉

Xie3rou4 (or xue4rou4) seems to be transcribed in the text as "xie4rou4". Is this an intentional attempt to mix the two pronunciations, or could it be a small slip-up? Rōnin 17:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

xie4 is absolutely wrong. xie3 is used in colloquial form and xue4 is used in literal words. Being a literal term here it should be xue4. -✉ Hello World! 05:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

And also of 的

In the recording, "的" also sounds more like "di" than "de". Is it convention to transcribe it as "de" anyway, or is it sung as "de" today? The pronunciation "di" nonetheless seems to occur in other recordings as well, such as in a copy I have of the song "Woniu yu huangliniao". Rōnin 17:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It is sang as "di" as is taught in schools to Chinese children in the 1990s. But the official pronunciation of the character is "de".-- A Chinese college student.

As this guy said, di is a common alt pronunciation that is usually used to make this song more "folksy" but it's formally transcribed as de. — LlywelynII 04:51, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

And 筑

zhu2 or zhu4? Rōnin 22:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm changing #1 and #3 temporarily. Feel free to correct them if you have other suggestions. Rōnin 22:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

zhu4.-- A Chinese college student.

zhu4 is from PRC, zhu2 is from Taiwan. --✉ Hello World! 05:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Typesetting issue

The pinyin is not correct. The breves need to be replaced with carons like they are in the older version.

Heh, Paul Robeson sang this

in his 1949 tour to Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. In Chinese AND English. Very cool. I've only listened to a partial sample, does anyone have a full recording? -- 我♥中國 07:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

When written

I removed this statement from the opening paragraph: written in the midst of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) - later text of the article clearly states it was written in 1934 and was used in a 1935 film, so it could not be written during a war that, according to the dates given, didn't start until 2 years after the film's release! --Canuckguy 18:57, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Some people consider the war to have begun in 1931 with Japan's invasion and occupation of Manchuria. The dates were possibly added in a later edit? -- Миборовский 19:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Altered lyrics (1978-1982) is not March of the Volunteers

Altered lyrics (1978-1982) is not March of the Volunteers. It may be national anthem at that time. But it is not the idea of March of the Volunteers which call for people not willing to become slavery to wake up to fight for free. If you want to put the Altered lyrics (1978-1982) at a place, maybe you can create an article national anthem of PRC, and it can be listed as one of national anthems. But it's not March of the Volunteers itself. March of the Volunteers does not equal national anthem of PRC, and national anthem of PRC does not equal March of the Volunteers. Only when March of the Volunteers is legally adopted as national anthem, then it is national anthem. -建港 (talk) 19:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

That is part of the history of the anthem titled March of the Volunteers. Its lyrics are different, but it should be included in this article. The title of the section, "Altered lyrics", specifically said it's not March of the Volunteers. --24.63.227.223 (talk) 19:14, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Translation

Zhong Hua Min Zu

'Zhong Hua Min Zu" clearly refers to "The Chinese Race/Ethnicity", not the Chinese Nation. 75.11.163.127 00:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Zhonghua Minzu does precisely refer to the Chinese nation and very pointedly not to the Chinese ethnicity, which are the completely separate Hanzu. You're confusing nation with nation-state, which (to be fair) is very common problem when dealing with modern China. — LlywelynII 04:31, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Official translation

I know that there is an official English translation in PRC. Can anyone find it?

I have searched "March of the Volunteers site:.gov.cn" through Google. By adding some keywords the following ones seem "official" but different:

1. http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/ljzg/zgjk/3579/t17846.htm
2. http://www.gov.cn/english/2005-08/16/content_23523.htm

Based on s:Template:PD-CN, the official translation is probably in public domain.--Jusjih 06:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The first link is dead. They apparently redid their site. The new version of the page is here. This is a separate page, although its content is precisely identical to your second link. — LlywelynII 04:51, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

English translation - hope you accept

I hope you consider and accept my translation of the original (and current) Chinese anthem. This translation (in my opinion) better captures the feel of the song without deviating too far from it as in the previous translation of the fourth line.--141.213.198.142 02:23, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[COPYRIGHT PROBLEM REMOVED]

No matter which version better captures the feel of the song, the 'previous translation' would still be the official translation provided in the government 's website. Thus we need to stick to it. (Note that the subheading reads "Official lyrics")Jerch 16:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The "official" translation is not as correct as the user translation. It is also not as dramatic and sounds silly at times. Just because it's "official" does not mean it should be used. Afterall, it seems like the translation is based on a 1930s movie featuring the song (Songs and Daughters in a Time of Storm), which is outdated. If you compare the movie translation with the "official" version, you'll notice the similarities (a link given in the External links section). Therefore, I recommend the user translation. You can remove the link to the official translation, or just leave it alone. --24.62.238.122 16:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

True enough. In that case, I believe that it would be better to include the user translation in a separate category. The current version is nothing but misleading, claiming a user's version to be 'official'. I might as well translate it into French, and say that my version is the 'official lyrics', French translation.Jerch 03:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I moved the reference link to the characters side of the table.--24.62.238.122 13:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Worth pointing out that the guy who gave us the "official version" gave two links to two "official" versions. — LlywelynII 04:51, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Should the Paul Robeson lyrics be listed?

A user removed it. What does the community think? It was moved to the main box with the official lyrics. I agree it doesn't belong there. But I think it does merit inclusion within the article, just in a different section.

[COPYRIGHT PROBLEM REMOVED]

--Gary123 (talk) 03:27, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Updating the transcripts above with corrections according to my listening of Robeson’s Chee Lai on YouTube:

[COPYRIGHT PROBLEM REMOVED]

Majiaerhao (talk) 21:40, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Someone keeps removing the Robeson lyrics, without providing an explanation on the talk page. In fact those lyrics should be regarded as a semi-official translation. Robeson did NOT write those lyrics but is simply the most famous singer of it. They were written by a Chinese Communist and included in a Chinese folksong book in english. The book Tales from Camp Wo-Chi-Ca goes into more details about it and can be used as a source. --Gary123 (talk) 06:40, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

It should be included. It should, however, not be treated as semi-official, demi-official, semi-demi-official, or anything else with anything similar to "official" anywhere near it. Edit: Seems to have been made by Liu with some feedback from Tian. So... kinda official. — LlywelynII 04:51, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit: If we can find room for it. Right now, the page is kind of falling off the right side, so alt lyrics would need to go in a footnote or just settle for a link. Maybe if we can introduce more line breaks... — LlywelynII 17:59, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

More alt lyrics

Here's another unofficial version: [COPYRIGHT PROBLEM REMOVED] From Rob Chi's linked article. — LlywelynII 09:09, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

And another, with the best punctuation yet for the fourth line:

[COPYRIGHT PROBLEM REMOVED]

From Ch. 2 of Israel Epstein's History Should Not Be Forgotten. (Wuzhou Publishing (Beijing), 2005. ISBN 7508506944.) — LlywelynII 06:46, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

[COPYRIGHT PROBLEM REMOVED]

From the soundtrack albums on Spotify. Dragon Seed 16:40, 28 April 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.224.77.66 (talk)

Copyright

Is it in public domain? Tian Han was dead in 1968, Nie Er in 1935. Considering that this song was created as a theme song for a film, it should be copyrighted by the authors or some company. The lyrics will go to public domain in 1968+50=2018.--刻意(Kèyì) 09:49, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

umm... It's PD. see 1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.117.233.162 (talk) 02:35, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

NO, your page says the other way around.--刻意(Kèyì) 21:17, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

You're right, he's wrong, and it's wrong: it still thinks the anthem is unofficial (it's not). See the Wikisource entry. — LlywelynII 12:59, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Name

"Volunteers"

I do not understand why the English translation of Chinese National Anthem is "March of the Volunteers". Verbatim it should be "March of the troops of the righteous and brave". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.60.37.226 (talk) 21:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Righteous and Brave Troops are volunteer troops, as opposed to conscripts. That said, most of the actual fighting was done by conscripts. Apparently both terms describe people fighting the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in the mid-'30s and the English translation "volunteers" was published by the film company's in-house magazine at the exact same time as the original Chinese title. — LlywelynII 04:31, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

"The"

Is the "the" necessary? How is it normally translated? "The" does not appear in the Chinese language. --Jiang

moved for the same reason [United States] is not at [The United States]. --Jiang 23:34, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The United States is not the name of a piece of music. Bands, albums, movies, magazines, and songs all do include the definite article in their title.

Yes, this song should have its "the" in the title, just like "The East Is Red" is not at "East Is Red" or "Eastern Redness". See WP:THE. Jiang moved it to the wrong place.

That said, the Chinese government's official organs seem to leave it off (albeit amid several typos including italicizing or not marking the name) and our own treatment of song titles is confused on the point: the French anthem is in the right place, "The Stars and Stripes Forever" is in the right place, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is in the right place, as is "The Star-Spangled Banner", but the Spanish and Turkish national anthems both aren't. It would take a few hours' work and potentially several move battles to get everything in the right place. — LlywelynII 04:31, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Which dialect?

I think it bears mentioning what dialect specifically is the anthem sung in? If I'd hazard a guess it would be Mandarin - I don't know Chinese but I'm well aware there are several, vastly different dialects of it. If that is the case is there also a Cantonese version? --TheHande (talk) 07:25, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Standard Mandarin, albeit with some "folksy" elements. — LlywelynII 04:51, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Lead sentence

1) Regardless of whether the definite article is included in the page name (although it eventually should be), the name of the song should be correctly formatted in the lead sentence: as a the title of a song, it needs its quote marks and, inside or outside the quotes, it needs its article as a point of grammar.
2) It is also officially known as the National Anthem of the People's Republic of China. In that use, it is a proper name and not a song title: that use should not include quote marks. If it were to become the name of the page, that use should not include the definite article.
3) I know it's common, but {{zh}} remains a badly-done template that should be avoided where possible. Simplified and traditional Chinese are not separate languages; pinyin certainly isn't.
4) More to the point, per WP:MOS-ZH, we should not include the Chinese in the lead sentence at all. It's given in the infobox immediately to the right and it's glossed thoroughly in the Chinese infobox below that. There is no good at all in cluttering the lead with a third (badly-formatted) repetition.
5) I'll fix this, but the Wade is badly done. The tone numbers aren't essential—people did generally leave them out—but there's no such word as iyungchün. It always included the dashes between the separate characters. — LlywelynII 05:14, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Formatting

We can't just have the lyrics' columns set to the pixel and let everything textwrap at different places. That defeats the entire point of parallel translation. I've fixed that but I've done it by forcing the current columns, which means it's going to involve some potentially ugly/annoying scrolling for some readers. Solutions:

• Cut the traditional characters. This is a PRC-related page and (while nice) it's not essential.
• Turn the traditional characters into scroll-over text on the simplified characters.
• Turn the pinyin into scroll-over text on both sets of Chinese characters.
• Introduce natural line breaks: There are only a few very long lines and they can be naturally broken at their caesuras.

The last one is my preferred answer, though I don't know how important the current line breaks are to the Chinese. Is this considered poetry at the level where introducing new line breaks is "getting it wrong"? or is it fine when there are space considerations?

Once that's fixed and the lines are shorter, the formatting will automatically get much tighter. That will be a different kind of ugly. The solution isn't pixel-by-pixel width formatting (which is terrible for this) or even forced % of the page (which is better), but simply using some right and left margin padding to give the text a little room. — LlywelynII 17:52, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Dubious sources

Removed the non-working HK source claiming the image of the song's lyrics was from "the Canton Gazette": it was "the Diantong Bimonthly" or "Pictorial", the in-house publication of the guys who made the film. Also removing Laikwan Pang's Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932–1937 as a non-RS. It seems like it would be good place to look for sourcing and expansion but the cited page (3) had nothing relevant on it at all and, if the author can't even "The March of the Youth" (青年進行曲) separate from the song that became China's national anthem (as here), it becomes questionable if he knows what he's talking about at all. — LlywelynII 22:01, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

This article by China Radio International has some excellent anecdotes and probably isn't responsible for most of them being demonstrably false, but we can't actually use it: one "renowned professor" says he heard Robeson sing it in 1939, which the article blandly reports along with the "fact" that Robeson was taught the song in 1941. (Both are wrong.) The VP of China's Society for People's Friendship Studies may have heard him perform it in Madison Square Garden at some point in the '40s; he may have performed it at some point in Moscow as well; but the VP also goes on to say that he performed it in Moscow for Pushkin's 150th Anniversary... which occurred 11 years after Robeson's death. Let's not use it. — LlywelynII 04:57, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, that's my bad math. His concerts at Stalingrad on June 13th and Moscow on the 14th, 1949, were part of the 150th anniversary of Pushkin's birth. Here's the (much-later discovered) recording of his Moscow performance of "Chee Lai!" — LlywelynII 19:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

This article by China Today (dead but hosted at the Internet Archive) was also being used for Robeson's section. Liu Liangmo, who taught him the song and attended the 1940 concert, didn't note an encore to "stormy applause". It wasn't translated by the time of the concert, so it's impossible people leaving the concert were singing March on! "boisterously" or in any other fashion. He didn't record it in 1941 as "March On" but as "Chee Lai!" and even the English gloss is "Arise!", not "March On". (Cursory Googling suggest he never called it by that name afterwards either.) Neither this nor the other source supported the claim that Robeson's lyrics were changed to address "African-American" issues. — LlywelynII 05:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Not fully dispositive but worth noting that, although Liu (2010) doesn't credit the Christian Liu Liangmo nearly as much as period sources did for the beginning of the mass singing movement in Shanghai, his party line inclusion of Nie Er as among the group's founders in May 1935 (p. 172) can't be taken at face value: Nie had fled to Japan at the time (as noted on p. 154). — LlywelynII 06:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Notes on CMN's edits

First, sorry for the wholesale revert: I'd already done several paragraphs and edits through the whole page. It was just easier to go back and restore yours. Some of them, however, were questionable: The current anthem may not be the only Republican anthem but it was the Republican anthem then and now and changing it to "Nationalist" is silly/borderline POV pushing. (The other historic anthems are linked.) Similarly, the infelicitous phrasing when we have an entire article about the Internationale’s status with the CCP. Rolling paper is linked for anyone now unfamiliar with what it is, but it is the common English name of the product and there's no reason to overstate it. You have a defensible point about some linking for common terms such as lyrics, although it seems appropriate for me to appear once at the top given the importance of the division of labor in the songwriting process here. There's much less of a reason for removing links to countries or POV use of terms such as Zhou's discussion of imperialism, which should be linked through for context. Just like rolling paper doesn't need to be overstated but should be linked, vinyl albums are odd enough now to need a link-through: not everyone would understand what discs were intended or that an "album" would include more than one but the middle of this article is the wrong place to go into a lengthy explanation of that. — LlywelynII 01:07, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about my edits, LlywelynII—I thought I was being helpful! But it sometimes is helpful to get a fresh eye. As to the links, I'm certainly willing to defer to you on many of them because you have turned this article into something special and deserve deference. I would suggest that you look through WP:OVERLINK. The section "What Should Not Be Linked," includes "everyday words understood by most readers in context; the names of major geographic features and locations; languages; religions; common occupations..." Among the links which are covered by this are "Japan, "Russia," "New York City," "Shanghai," "Portuguese" and the second links for "Hong Kong" etc.

WP:OBVIOUS suggests that things be spelled out. What seems obvious when you've been working on a topic or an article may not in fact be obvious to fresh readers, especially those who are not familiar with the general topic (if they were familiar with the topic they wouldn't be consulting Wikipedia). "Rolling paper" may be British or something, but when I saw it I thought it meant "toilet paper." "Vinyl discs" is probably incorrect, as they were certainly not LP records, made of vinyl, but 78s, made of shellac. [1].

Some of the other links present problems of WP:LINKCLARITY. For instance, it is hard for new readers to understand why there are links for "dramatic poem," "poet," "playwright," and others. When they get to the article on the history of Chinese poetry, for instance, there's nothing specific to this article.

But the most important observation is that someone coming fresh to the article will have no way of knowing that "Republican" does not refer to the "Republcan Party" or Republican in the sense of not monarchical. How would they know what "Republican" means here? This must be spelled out, and not say that San Min Zhuyi was the "national anthem" for the whole 1912-1949 period. I'm not even sure off-hand when it became the anthem of even the GMD. Likewise, "Communist" Internationale should be explained quickly because it links to CCP.

Again, many thanks for the good work on this article! ch (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

LATER: I should have done my homework! The article National Anthem of the Republic of China says that Sanmin Zhuyi did not become the National Anthem until 1943. Before that, according to Historical Chinese anthems, there were several national anthems. So it is not correct to say "Republican national anthem" with a link to 1912-1949." But I leave it to you to fix it to something acceptable to you.ch (talk) 07:20, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Having taken a new look at WP:OVERLINK, I'll stand by most of the choices made. You're obviously well-meaning, but attempts to invoke it to as a general rule-hammer for editors' preference against "ugly" bluelinks are usually better addressed by their changing their own display preference settings. The entire point of a linkable encyclopedia are the links and generally policies can run up against WP:IAR where invoking them makes the article less helpful for general readers. Links from common words like lyrics don't generally help: the link doesn't add information or context. Here, you're right we don't need two sets but the article is precisely topical in the sentence discussing Tian Han's involvement and not including it falls under WP:UNDERLINK. Similarly, we don't want every mention of every term or name to always be linked, but—especially given the unfamiliarity of Chinese names and people to most readers—I'd argue that figures like Tian Han (not Mao Zedong or Zhou Enlai) should be linked at least once every few paragraphs to avoid forcing people to scroll up every time they want to look for more. Similarly, the WP:SPECIFICLINKs to Chinese film, poetry, and drama do provide helpful context about the tradition and contemporaries of the people in this article, as opposed to the traditions more familiar to Wikipedia's general readership. (Another editor's recent repairs to more direct pages and more specific treatment, however, were obviously helpful. Making links, e.g., to Wikipedia's treatment of Shanghai in the 1930s might be similarly helpful or might fall under WP:EASTEREGG, depending on the situation.)

"Rolling paper" is a common English term whose use falls under WP:OBVIOUS's "no need to go overboard" provision. Its potential unfamiliarity with modern less-smoky readers is precisely addressed by its link. Your unfamiliarity notwithstanding (and already corrected by the link), it never means "roll of toilet paper" (note the lack of disambiguation in its page name and lack of alternate definitions at Wiktionary); is much less often called "cigarette rolling papers"; and only needs to be where there's the possibility for confusion with some other use. The only other use noted by the OED is for joints (marijuana cigarettes)—which is precisely the same product simply being used in another fashion—and for freight trucks' documents (only US and now rare), which doesn't require dabbing here. We should eventually have a section detailing the musical qualities of the song but, when we do, we should describe "The March of the Volunteers" as "a march" and not "a musical march" (which in context again falls under the no-need-to-go-overboard provision: note how no one has even created that dab yet), let alone "The term 'march' in the name refers to a musical march as opposed to the month of March or march, applied to various borderlands."

A similar issue of context subsumes your objections to the term "Republican". Obviously, in American contexts, you're talking about the right-wing party; just as obviously, when you're talking about Civil War-era China without an American in sight, you're not. The Republic of China is non-monarchal China, is the only sense (notwithstanding FOX News rhetoric) in which "Republican" properly stands in opposition to "Communist", and was clarified by a link for the confused. We're talking about the Republican anthem in 1949 and not before and we're talking about the Republic in 1949 and not after (when it became confined to Taiwan). None of that was misleading, wrongly-linked, or -done. Now, that said, while it's important to mention that continued use of the Republic's anthem (written by Sun Yat-sen) was rejected; while it's important to mention its status as the then- and current anthem of the Republic of China (not "the Nationalists", which just refers to the KMT); it is true that the link to the article on the Republic during that era isn't the main purpose of that sentence. I find it helpful and it is necessary to somehow clarify which Republic we're talking about without making every third word "China": YMMV but I find "It was adopted as the PRC's provisional anthem in 1949 in place of "The Three Principles", the national anthem of the Republic of China, and instead of "The Internationale", the unofficial anthem of the Chinese Communist Party" to be much more awkward than what we have now. You may be right that the separate link is distracting though: we can just include the adjectives as part of the main song link (WP:LINKCLARITY) and people can follow those links to the ROC and CCP pages if they like.

I don't quite understand your objection to the album link, given the one that I used directed to a treatment of gramophone records since the 1880s and not to LP record (which it obviously wasn't), but I've changed to the longer but more exact article name for you. If you can find the exact format that Pathé Orient Keynote was using in 1935 1941 and make the link still more exact, though, by all means do so. — LlywelynII 08:32, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit: I finally understood your objection to the (1912-1949) article. You're confused. This article is only talking about the Republic's anthem during 1949; that anthem was "The Three Principles". This article is only talking about the Republic of China during and immediately preceding 1949; Wikipedia's article for the Republic during that period is titled Republic of China (1912-1949). That's the WP:TERSEst way to say China between the official termination of the Great Qing Empire and the proclamation of the People's Republic or the Republic of China from its beginning to the proclamation of the People's Republic, during which period it generally controlled mainland China as well as Taiwan, and it's necessary to link to that article because that ROC is (de facto) very sharply distinguished from its existence in exile on Taiwan. You're quite right that other anthems were used at earlier points in the Republic's history, but no one's saying they weren't and it's beside the point. — LlywelynII 11:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the source on the music! — LlywelynII 16:25, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm ploughing ahead on the Liu Liangmo draft and found Howard's piece, which is part of his larger project. Thanks back at you for developing this article!ch (talk) 17:09, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I usually feel that a stub is better than nothing and just develop it in the mainspace. If you're building something big enough, remember to put it up on WP:DYK and, if I don't contribute much apart from sources, I can run it through the review process for you. — LlywelynII 06:37, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks. Will do, though not today. I'm working to touch up a photo; filling in some important details, such as where he died, his family, etc., which I think I can fill in from Baidu, though I'm not sure they're RS. ch (talk) 16:40, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Dating

I think I've nailed down Nie's contributions, the orchestral adaptation, and the movie's premiere. Still not quite sure about Tian's lyrics. Liang Luo is alone in saying that the poem was composed in January 1935 rather than in 1934: a) that's quite specific to just be a mistake and b) she has pretty thorough treatment and sourcing generally. Perhaps Tian Han began work on it or finished the first drafts in 1934 and his last work was done in January of '35. (That still wouldn't be the final version of the lyrics, though, since another source has Nie Er slightly modifying the lyrics to fit his tune.)

Also not sure which edition of Denton Pictorial (《電通半月畫報》) the ad with the lyrics showed up in. I've seen sources claiming both. Is there a digitized copy of them up on the Chinese internet somewhere? (Also, according to Liang Luo, there was apparently a full-page ad in the Shanghai Shenbao in May. It seems to have been a different ad but I'm not sure.) — LlywelynII 07:01, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

The eternal defiance

This anthem is historic and should be respected, but people don't analyze history but senses. Eternal defiance is moronic. We should modernize our anthem because we may get that permanent defiance. Can defiance be a permanent national value? And if so are you certain that you will enjoy that defiance when it will come? You can study philosophy to understand that transient urge if standardized might cause future havoc.
"Everybody must roar defiance." Ok, but for how long? Are you certain that people aren't emotional? Most people are emotional and not analytical historians. Then it will be so late... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4105:DB00:C8DD:F971:F636:AB2F (talk) 03:48, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Copyright status

There is a discussion at Talk:Hong Kong#edit request July 8 discussing the copyright status of the US Navy Band recording used in this article. This has come up because Hong Kong is currently a featured article candidate. To page watchers, please comment there if you have anything to add. Thanks, Jc86035 (talk) 07:07, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

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• March of the Volunteers vocal.ogg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:22, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Lyrics

About the lyrics that has been tagged with potential copyvio, I don't understand why. According to PRC's website, only the audio and musical score that are copyrighted, and the lyrics itself should be in public domain. FarhanSyafiqF (talk) 00:22, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Please see WP:URAA and c:COM:Licensing: works first published in China (PRC) (or ROC) are still copyrighted in the US since 1 January 1996 (or 1 January 2002), even when such work is in the public domain in China (or Taiwan). Furthermore, the lyrics were still copyrighted in China and/or Taiwan at the time of URAA restoration in either country or both countries. --George Ho (talk) 00:29, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Furthermore, the servers of WMF's projects, including Wikipedia, are located/hosted in Virginia, U.S., making the projects subject to US copyright laws. --George Ho (talk) 00:31, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Almost forgot: to make more sense, the lyrics' Chinese copyright lasted fifty years after Tian Han's lifetime. At time of restoration, the lyrics were still copyrighted in either 1996 (PRC) or 2002 (ROC), and the Chinese copyright expired in 2019. But the URAA restored the US copyright. George Ho (talk) 00:40, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

@George Ho, from the reasons discussed here on the bottom of the page, according to PRC copyright law effective in 1990 the lyrics should have been in the public domain in 1996 on the URAA restoration date applicable to the PRC. This is because of the exemption in Article 5(1) for: "laws; regulations; resolutions, decisions and orders of state organs; other documents of a legislative, administrative or judicial nature; and their official translations".

Therefore URAA would not have affected the public domain status of the lyrics, at least as it relates to the PRC. However, I'm unclear on its status in the context of ROC copyright law and URAA. For instance, in Article 106-1: "Except as otherwise provided under in this Chapter, this Act shall apply to works that were completed prior to the date on which the World Trade Organization Agreement took effect in the territory under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China..."

Whether "territory under the jurisdiction..." refers to the current territory or the territory at the time of creation of the work of the ROC isn't explicitly spelled out. Fiwec81618 (talk) 22:13, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

The national anthem is neither one of those things listed as exemptions under the law. It's not a decision or a document by one of those natures. How can the anthem be one of those things? Furthermore, the lyricist has been identified, so it's not an exemption under the law. George Ho (talk) 22:33, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. That sounds reasonable to me, though I'm not sure what the lyricist being identified has to do with it. However, the reasoning I described above does apply to the lyrics of the 1978 version, because (unlike the lyrics of the modern version, as far as I can tell) they appear in the text of a pre-1996 legislative document, this one from the 1978 PRC People's Congress (I suppose if needed we could locate an official source for the text of this document). Fiwec81618 (talk) 05:02, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Why does being in an official source of a document text matter, and why would it make a difference? It's still a musical or artistic work. Being in a document still doesn't make the song exempt from the law, does it? George Ho (talk) 06:35, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

As I understand it, appearing in "documents of a legislative, administrative or judicial nature" does seem to exempt something from being covered by copyright law in the PRC, based on the 1990 law quoted above. Do you have a different understanding of that law? Fiwec81618 (talk) 03:44, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

The sheet music is still a derivative of an existing song still possibly copyrighted. It was originally made as neither a legislative work nor a judicial work nor an administrative work. It's not a law or anything like that. In other words, even appearing as part of a government document still doesn't make the song or the sheet music exempt from law, regardless of how it was published. If you still disagree with me, you may wanna ask at WP:MCQ. --George Ho (talk) 04:04, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks; I was referring mainly to the lyrics because I cannot tell for sure from the page I linked whether the sheet music was part of the original text of the law (though if the sheet music is, then my opinion is the same law would apply to that as well). I admit I don't see the basis in the PRC law for your position that "even appearing as part of a government document still doesn't make the song or the sheet music exempt from law", because the 1978 document I linked is a legislative document which established at that time the national anthem of the PRC, and legislative documents are explicitly exempted by Article 5(1) of the 1990 (and current) Chinese copyright law. So it sounds like a good idea to ask at WP:MCQ and I will post a question there. Fiwec81618 (talk) 04:34, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

That link you provided was a Wikisource page. To me, the 1978 version is an anonymous work, and being possibly a government work still doesn't make the version exempt from law or an "other document" defined by law. But we'll see what MER-C or another party thinks. George Ho (talk) 05:03, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• March of the Volunteers.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. MER-C 14:44, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@MER-C, what do you think about the copyright status of the 1978 lyrics (discussed above at Talk:March of the Volunteers#Lyrics)? It appears to me that they should be in the public domain in both the PRC and the US, because they appear in the text of this 1978 PRC law, and according to the 1990 PRC law on copyright as well as the current PRC copyright law, legislative documents are exempt from coverage by PRC copyright law. Therefore, the text should have been in the public domain in the PRC since at least 1990, and therefore is not covered by the US copyright restorations under WP:URAA, since by the restoration date in 1996 the work was already not in copyright in its home country. Fiwec81618 (talk) 04:00, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I scrubbed them to be safe. MER-C 12:10, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Another set of related discussions: c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Appendix 1 (Revised version of National Anthem) of Macau Law 1 of 2019.pdf. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 08:08, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

There's also c:Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:March of the Volunteers. In particular, this part in the first response is relevant:

It's well known that the song's copyrights were owned by Pathe Records, not by its authors, and the PRC acquired the copyrights from Pathe when it decided to make it China's national anthem. Since the copyrights were not owned by individuals, its authors' dates of death are not relevant and the work enters public domain 50 years after publication per Chinese law, which is long past.

I can't speak to the veracity of this, but as long as it's true I believe the lyrics could be safely restored. Similar problems (i.e. lyrics being removed) have come in the past to my knowledge, but I'm not sure where you could find discussions about them (assuming they were discussed). It seems that similarly, and less ambiguously, the 1978 lyrics would be free albeit as a government document rather than a collective work. Duonaut ^{(talk | contribs)} 06:06, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

RFC: Revert MER-C's unfair cclean removal

So as the Duonaut provided, despite some Commons discussions are still ongoing, it looks like we do have fair reasons not to remove lyrics, aren't we? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:35, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree; there appear to be significant reasons in favor of keeping the lyrics that MER-C has not addressed, to my knowledge. Fiwec81618 (talk) 03:53, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Given this and the tag for the clip:

"This work is in the public domain in the United States because it meets three requirements:

it was first published outside the United States (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days),

it was first published before 1 March 1989 without copyright notice or before 1964 without copyright renewal or before the source country established copyright relations with the United States,

it was in the public domain in its home country (China) on the URAA date (1 January 1996)."

I think I will restore the lyrics for the time being. If this happens to be found invalid or something, of course, feel free to revert. Duonaut ^{(talk | contribs)} 00:26, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

"Purged to death"

Is the phrase "purged to death" sensical in the sentence "When Tian Han was purged to death during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the song was briefly and unofficially replaced by "The East Is Red", and then reinstated but played without lyrics". It is not only confusing, but in combination with the lead of the linked article on purges, it gives the false impression that Tian was executed.

I would suggest a rewrite along the lines "In the 1960s, when Tian Han was denounced and imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution, the song was briefly ..." 2A0A:A546:70AB:0:27EE:D659:3B38:3EAA (talk) 14:12, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Done. ch (talk) 05:03, 26 May 2022 (UTC)