The headmaster of a kindergarten school in Shanghai issued a public apology last Thursday for his use of a Japanese wartime march song in a children's musical performance after video of the show was posted online, quickly becoming viral and sparking much public outrage.
Composed by Tokichi Setoguchi in 1897, the song Warship March, was the official military march song of the Imperial Japanese Navy and is still used as by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force today. The song's popularity withstood into post-war Japan and has been commonly used as background music for video and arcade pachinko games in Japan. After Warship March had been used by the Aurora Foreign Language Kindergarten private school to accompany young graduating students during a June 27thceremony, parents posted the controversial video online leading to an investigation by the Shanghai Zhabei district's education bureau.
After much public condemnation, the education department stated via its Weibo microblog that the kindergarten be ordered to issue "profound self-criticism and apologize to the public". In a statement made last Thursday, Kindergarten headmaster Xia Miao apologized for the choice of song explaining that he had found the song online and chosen the tune for the performance thinking it was an ordinary marching theme.
"From our investigation, the music was found by the homeroom teacher of the class on the Baidu Music App. According to her, the music had no lyrics or other identification about the content and source of the original song," said Xia.
"For that, I am sincerely sorry, I feel guilty, and I want to apologize to the community. I would like to take full responsibility for the incident, and this situation has given me a memorable lesson. We will take this opportunity to reinforce school rules and regulations to prevent any similar issues," Xia added.
The Zhabei education department held emergency meetings and ordered the standardization of music and videos usage, as well as political awareness of teachers and staff in all local schools in order to ensure proper Chinese nationalist education, according to South China Morning Post. Despite the headmaster's apology, the school has suspended Xia and other responsible directors.