The People’s Singing Society also known as ‘Mingzhong geyonghui’ was founded in February 1935 in response to the Japanese Invasion of the north eastern region of Manchuria. Liu Liangmu, a well-known member of the society is noted in saying “we are singing for the sake of national liberation”. Liu is known for collecting many well-known choral songs from the period and publishing them in the popular book ‘Collected Songs of Youth’ also known as Qingnian geji. Group Choral music is known to have especially grown in popularity toward the end of the 1930s following the official declaration of war between Japan and China in July 1937. By August 1937 13 choral groups were recorded touring China spreading nationalistic singing traditions.