Nanyin and the Singaporean culture: The creation of intangible cultural heritage in Singapore and intergenerational contrasts

Nanyin is a form of musical performing arts recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2009. Besides being performed in the Fujian Province of China, where it was created and developed, today it is also widely performed in Hong Kong, the Guandong Province of China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. In Singapore, nanyin has a history of over 120 years. Having maintained popularity among migrants from China throughout the first half of the twentieth-century, its popularity started to decline in the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, nanyin was reinvented by Teng Mah Seng, chairman of the nanyin Siong Leng Musical Association via his creations of musical pieces and his curation of a liyuanxi (liyuan opera theatre) for the International Nanyin Symposium and Concert that took place in 1977.