Clara Xieyi 
Songs of Yesterday 

This is a novel based on a true story about the seven great singing stars in old Shanghai, such as Zhou Xuan and Bai Guang, etc. It is also a panoramic genre painting to showcase the golden age of the entertainment industry of old Shanghai. The character prototype and inspiration come from a true story in the history: in the old Shanghai of 1934, the Xinhua Radio Station and the Evening News jointly sponsored the "Three Big Broadcasting Singing Stars Competition". During 18 days of the competition, all listeners of the radio station voted for their favorite singing stars. All the participants were famous singing stars in Shanghai, and finally Bai Hong won the championship, and Zhou Xuan was the runner-up. This was the first, unprecedented singing star competition in the history of China”s popular music. In popular words, this competition was "beautiful girsl tearing each other" in front of the general public. The novel develops through the separate but also interconnected stories of the three great singing stars: Huang Ying, Qi Jier and Miao Miao. The first volume focuses on the "Great Singing Stars Competition" before the fall of Shanghai. The three beautiful singing stars with different backgrounds and characters, both friends and enemies, were competing for the Great Singing Star title. In the second volume, the three great singing stars choose different roads and also face different destiny in the period of "Lonely Island". In those stories, there are conspiracies, love, class struggle, music, and also beautiful clothes. But the theme of the book is about "choice". The three characters, Miao Miao, Huang Ying and Qi Jier represent the truthfulness, kindness and beauty of women. Their destinies are determined by their choices, and their choices are also connected with their backgrounds. This novel also elegantly showcased the life of different classes in Shanghai. It also depicts traditional Chinese poetry, traditional drama and popular music of old Shanghai. Reading this book makes you feel you are taking a time machine to travel back to old Shanghai, where ladies and gentlemen drank wines, listened to the song titled the Night of Shanghai, and enjoyed luxurious brands and elegant life. But you can also see that, when the war storm was gathering over the city, those gorgeous lights went off, those beautiful music stopped, the people in Shanghai would not hesitate to give up their blood and lives to protect and defend their beloved homeland.