Source: NYT (9/10/23)
Chinese Singer Denounced Over Video at Bombed-Out Ukrainian Theater
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The singer Wang Fang drew criticism after she performed “Katyusha,” a Soviet-era patriotic song, at the ruins of a theater in Mariupol.
By Javier C. Hernández

The shell of the destroyed Drama Theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, in December 2022. Credit…Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA, via Shutterstock
The Chinese singer stands on a balcony inside a bombed-out theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the site of a deadly attack last year by Russian forces. Looking at the camera, she sings an excerpt from the Soviet-era patriotic song “Katyusha” and lifts her arms triumphantly into the air.
The video of the singer, Wang Fang, a 38-year-old performer of patriotic songs and Chinese opera, has circulated widely online in recent days, fueling outrage in Ukraine and abroad. She appeared in Mariupol last week as part of a visit by a small group of Chinese media and cultural figures.
The exiled mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, said the theater, which was hit by a Russian air attack while civilians sheltered there, was a “symbol of tragedy, a symbol of Russia’s war crimes” that should not be used for entertainment.
“People died there, among them children,” he said in a statement. “To turn the theater into a tourist destination and to sing on the bones of the dead is incredible cynicism and disrespect for the memory of the dead civilians.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called the performance “an example of complete moral degradation” and said that Ms. Wang and the other Chinese visitors had entered the city illegally. Continue reading