ABSTRACT
This chapter zeroes in on moments in which songs prompt explicit re-engagements with past experiences through memory talk among strangers, be it in instances of public address or small talk. Moving away from an approach centered on the re-presentation of the past as a nostalgic critique of the present, I ask how the casualness of park gatherings shapes these engagements with the past. China’s recent history here is conjured up through and as feelings – the cheerful mood of the performance, a theatrical nostalgia, the pleasures of intragenerational sociability. While issues of responsibility remain unaddressed, open-endedness and undecidability opens up a space for sociable relationships to be preserved in the aftermath of the historical events.
