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A musical connection formed in 1985 continues through a new generation of Chinese and American students_我的网站

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    The Yale Whiffenpoofs perform at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing on August 12, 2026. Photo: Li Hao/GTThe concert appeared to be over. Yet neither the singers nor the audience seemed ready to let the night end.
On the evening of August 12 at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, the Yale Whiffenpoofs finished their scheduled program before returning to the stage for an encore featuring three Chinese songs: the traditional folk tune "Jasmine Flower," the popular hit "The Brightest Star in the Night Sky" and "Let the World Be Filled with Love."
The singers' carefully rehearsed Chinese was soon joined by voices from the auditorium, turning the encore into a chorus shared across the hall.
The moment brought a longer journey into focus. More than four decades after the Whiffenpoofs first toured China in 1985, the current ensemble spent 15 days traveling to nine destinations across the country in March and April before returning to Beijing in August.
Founded in 1909, the Whiffenpoofs are the oldest collegiate a cappella group in the US. Each year, 14 Yale students are selected for the student-run ensemble, which performs more than 200 concerts across six continents.
Over its 117-year history, the group has counted among its members songwriter and composer Cole Porter, former US senator Prescott Bush and actor Ron Livingston.
Most of the current members are not music majors. They study subjects ranging from history and global affairs to chemistry, biomedical engineering, neuroscience and economics, but set aside a year to place music at the center of their lives.
Across concert halls, university campuses and villages, the young singers encountered people and places that could not be reduced to distant headlines or images on a screen.
Their journey was not simply about mastering unfamiliar lyrics. It was also about what could begin once the singing stopped and conversation began.
    The Yale Whiffenpoofs perform at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing on August 12, 2026. Photo: Li Hao/GTShared voices
For Zhang Yixiao, a 22-year-old Beijing native and the group's assistant musical director, one of those melodies carried a particularly personal memory. 
Long before he left for Yale University, Zhang sang with the renowned Beijing Philharmonic Choir, founded by conductor Yang Hongnian. He also performed on the same stage during the annual August Chorus Festival. 
"The Brightest Star in the Night Sky" was also a song he had grown up with - one that used to play over the loudspeakers while he and his classmates ran laps in middle school. Years later, he taught it to his American teammates and listened as a Beijing audience sang it back to them.
During the China tour, Zhang, who studies global affairs and economics at Yale, also helped his fellow singers cross a less familiar musical boundary. He selected the Chinese songs, explained their meanings and helped the group with pronunciation. The pieces were arranged by members of the ensemble.
He chose songs from different ends of China's musical landscape: "The Brightest Star in the Night Sky" represented a contemporary memory shared by many young Chinese people; "Jasmine Flower" introduced the group to one of the country's most recognizable traditional melodies.
    The Yale Whiffenpoofs perform at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing on August 12, 2026. Photo: Li Hao/GT
The work was shared by Eunice Oh, the first woman to serve as musical director in the Whiffenpoofs' history. Together, Oh and Zhang led the group through the process of learning the Chinese repertoire. 
Hearing the Beijing audience join in gave that work an immediate payoff. "I really loved being able to sing with the audience," Oh told the Global Times. "It was very heartwarming."
Getting there required some work. "I think it's a little bit difficult, just because it's so different from the sounds we make in English," Oh said. Zhang taught the group not only how to pronounce the words but also what the lyrics meant. The process was nevertheless enjoyable, and "definitely worth the effort we put in," she said.
The response was often immediate. At performances across China, those in the audience who knew the words sang along.
"That was when we could feel the power of music transcending language divides," Zhang said. "No matter where we come from, or whether an ocean lies between us, we share a love of music and a love of life."
Other songs opened different conversations. After the group performed "Midnight Train to Georgia," a few people in the audience approached the singers to ask about a dance sequence in the number. The answer led to discussions of Hollywood and American popular culture. Chinese students, in turn, introduced Peking Opera and traditional instruments including the pipa, suona and guzheng.
The songs gave the two groups something concrete to ask each other about.
Echoes across time
The Whiffenpoofs' China tour this year was built around a piece of the group's own history. 
In 1985, at the invitation of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the Whiffenpoofs made their first trip to China, performing in Beijing, Nanjing and Guangzhou. Parts of the journey were later preserved in the short documentary Perfect Harmony: The Whiffenpoofs in China.
They arrived in a country still in the early years of reform and opening-up, when even Coca-Cola was a novelty for many Chinese people, and so was the sight of a group of young American visitors.
The "Whiffs" climbed the Great Wall, spoke with Chinese university students, stopped to watch elderly residents practice tai chi, and sang in the open air at the Temple of Heaven.
    The Yale Whiffenpoofs perform in China during their 1985 tour. Photo: Screenshot from the documentary Perfect Harmony: The Whiffenpoofs in ChinaFour decades later, the Temple of Heaven offered the clearest point of return. The singers stood where their predecessors had performed and sang the same song. 
"Just as they had sung at the Temple of Heaven, we sang the same song again in the same place," Zhang said. 
The reprise linked the two tours, while the rest of the itinerary showed how much more geographically varied the 2026 journey had become.
The new route extended well beyond major cities. In Zhaoxing Dong Village, Southwest China's Guizhou Province, the group performed with local choirs and listened to the Grand song of the Dong ethnic group, a polyphonic tradition performed without a conductor or instrumental accompaniment. The encounter brought together two distinct a cappella traditions.
Passed down orally within Dong communities, the tradition includes imitative songs that reproduce sounds from the natural world, particularly animal calls. It was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.
    Members of the Yale Whiffenpoofs perform with local singers in Zhaoxing Dong Village, Southwest China's Guizhou Province, on March 23, 2026. Photo: ICMembers also learned to play the Dong pipa, tried batik dyeing and joined residents in pounding glutinous rice, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Zhang said stops such as Zhaoxing and Zhangjiajie gave his fellow singers a view of "a more diverse and different China."
The contrast between major cities and smaller villages became one of Oh's strongest impressions. "Being able to see the diversity that China has to offer, from these big cities to smaller villages, was incredible," Oh said. "I think it is a place unlike any other place I've been in my life and in my travels," she said.
Beyond the stage
Exchanges with Chinese students ran through both visits. During the March tour and the group's return to Beijing in August, the Whiffenpoofs visited universities, performed with student choirs and talked with peers close to their own age.
"Although we grew up in very different countries, the fact that we can all stand together and sing a song really brought us together," Oh said. "Music is a way to connect people."
Yet the connection did not end with the performance. Conversations with Chinese students gave the visitors access to the ordinary details of lives that rarely appear in international headlines.
"It's a very cool way to understand how people similar to our age have been experiencing their lives, and to share that with one another, and just learn about their culture and traditions and background in a way that is very different from just looking on social media or looking in a history textbook," Oh said.
Chinese students described the exchange in similarly concrete terms. Pan Lutong, a Nankai University student who performed with the Whiffenpoofs, said it was her first opportunity to work closely with a choir from an overseas university. 
Outside rehearsals, the students also visited Tianjin's Ancient Culture Street together.
"This kind of exchange between students gave us a valuable friendship," Pan said.
The encounters continued in Beijing. On August 10, shortly after arriving in the city, the Whiffenpoofs rehearsed "The Brightest Star in the Night Sky" with the Beijing Wuzi University Riparian Choir.
"Through music, students from China and the US formed friendships and gained new cultural perspectives and musical experiences," a representative of the Riparian Choir told the Global Times.
The August 12 concert was the final performance of the group's year together. Two weeks later, Zhang said, the members would return to Yale, resume their studies and leave the road to another generation of Whiffenpoofs.
That work may continue after the tour. "This experience has shown me the importance and meaning of cultural exchange and face-to-face interaction," Zhang said. "I hope to continue working in this field in the future."
    The Yale Whiffenpoofs perform at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing on August 12, 2026. Photo: Li Hao/GT
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B |     AI摘要      近期，印尼、马来西亚等东盟及多国重申一中原则，支持中国统一。国际社会反对“台独”成共识，赖清德当局“国际空间”持续收窄。         近日，中国印尼全面战略对话机制首次会议期间，印尼外长苏吉约诺明确表示，印尼坚定奉行一个中国政策，支持中国的统一大业。

C | 就在此前不久，马来西亚总理安瓦尔在接受半岛电视台专访时不仅直言“台湾是中国的一部分，毋庸置疑”，还罕见地表态不反对中国以武力实现统一。    印尼与马来西亚支持中国统一大业的表态，绝非孤立事件。台湾前外事官员徐勉生观察到，在外事层面，自今年3月以来连续6个月，每月至少有一件对赖清德当局极为不利的事件。这绝非巧合，而是国际格局深刻演变的必然结果，台湾地区所谓“国际空间”正以肉眼可见的速度收窄。    放眼整个东盟，坚持一个中国原则的立场越来越清晰。

D | 今年4月，越南重申坚定奉行一中政策、坚决反对任何形式的“台独”分裂活动；6月，缅甸表态支持中国为实现国家统一所做的一切努力，持续反对任何形式的“台独”；7月，泰国总理阿努廷访华，中泰联合声明直接载明“泰方坚定支持中国和平统一大业，不支持任何形式的‘台独’”；8月，菲律宾总统马科斯明确表示，菲律宾奉行一中政策，无意成为区域内的交战国。新加坡总理黄循财自上任以来多次重申反对“台独”，始终坚持一中原则。2025年2月，文莱苏丹出访中国，重申文莱支持中国统一。

E |     东盟在台湾问题上的立场空前一致且十分坚定，赖清德当局力推的所谓“新南向”政策全面破功，“台独”被全面围剿。    这股声浪远不止于东南亚。今年以来，喀麦隆在WTO会议证件上将台湾标注为“中国的一个省”；马达加斯加、毛里求斯、塞舌尔三国不约而同拒绝赖清德专机“过境”；南非不仅要求台北“驻处”迁离该国首都，更在电子签证系统中将台湾明确标注为“中国台湾”。

F | 摩洛哥、肯尼亚、乌干达、巴布亚新几内亚等国，类似表态持续跟进。

G |     这股反对“台独”、支持中国统一事业的国际声浪，无疑是甩了赖清德一个响亮的耳光。连岛内的外事专家都承认，“两岸同属一个中国”是当前国际主流意见与国际共识，不可阻挡。    今年5月，特朗普访华结束后，公开明确地表态美国不当“台独”靠山，美军不会跨越9500英里来台海打一仗。连美国都不愿为“台独”火中取栗，其他国家更不可能在台湾问题上玩火，不会拿自己的国家利益去赌。    目前世界上已有183个国家与中国建交，一个中国原则是国际关系基本准则，为联合国大会第2758号决议所确认，是不可逆转的历史大势。    如果不正视“两岸同属一个中国”的事实，不接受“九二共识”，那么民进党当局宣称的所谓“踏实外交”，注定只会“步步踏空”，台湾地区所谓“国际空间”只会越来越窄。（记者 吴生林）。

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Published on:09:01:47