Editor’s Note: This article is produced in collaboration with the Chongqing Institute of Foreign Studies, as part of a series of ongoing reports exploring the city’s abundant resources in intangible cultural heritages.
“The sunshine is so blinding that I cannot work outside and the moonlight is so bright that I cannot sleep at night. My love’s words are haunting in my mind for the whole night.” A man sings across the river, hearing this, the woman he loves smiles at home. The song that conveys his sincerity and concern, is one of the folk songs of the Tujia in southeast Chongqing.
The Tujia ethnic people mainly inhabit around Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, Pengshui, Wulong, and Shizhu in southeast Chongqing, where has been surrounded by mountains and mist since ancient times. Mountains of various sizes and heights scattered here and there, and amidst which the stream is endless. Youyang is the representative of these areas, decorated by a vast range of mountains and hills, crisscrossed with ravines and gullies. In the west, Wujiang River keeps roaring down directly to the Yangtze River while the beautiful gentle Youshui River in the east slowly flows down into Dongting Lake through “Cradle of the Tujia” in the harsh mountains. In this rugged and tough environment, traffic is inconvenient and information is blocked. Under the situation of the barrier caused by mountains and rivers, it has become a new way for people in southeast Chongqing to express their feelings and communicate through shouting and singing folk songs.
Beautiful mountains and rivers are in harmony with extensive grounds and fields. The special geographical environment creates different customs and historical cultures. Inheriting the characteristics of Sichuan and Chongqing people, Tujia people are intrepid and unconstrained. In this closed land, though people here are far apart from each other in different mountains, the folk songs shorten their distance. As the old saying goes, “We set up a singing hall no matter it’s wedding or funeral; we sing songs no matter we feel joyful, angry or sorrow.” People here may sing a song when they are hunting, working, eating, drinking, or even when they have nothing to do at leisure.
Thus, the folk songs of the Tujia family in southeast Chongqing are rich in themes, including Love Song that praises true love, Bitterness Song that pours out daily bitterness, Hunting Song that people sing when hunting in the mountains, Sighing Song that people sing with loneliness and isolation, Pan Song that people sing for the competition of wisdom, Crying Song that mothers sing before the wedding ceremonies of their daughters, Beginning Song and Toasting Song that people sing during the meals after weddings and funerals, Spring’s Song that people sing in the first month of the lunar year, Blessing Song and House-building Song people sing for house construction and repairing, Coffin Song that plays when people dance around the coffins of the departed and Mourning Song, and so on. The most famous songs are Weeding Song, accompanied by a set of gongs and drums that inspires people to move forward, Lying Song that makes people laugh and amused, and Hand-waving Song, which is known as the most influential large-scale song and dance of the Tujia people.
Being in equanimity and tranquility, people live in peace with each other. In the past, life here was self-sufficient, easy, and simple, but people are still in rich emotions. Love is an eternal topic for human beings. Therefore, most folk songs of the Tujia in southeast Chongqing are love songs that praise love. “Send my love to the koi pond, and rest under the candlenut; hold my love’s hand, and I hope you return early!” There are a lot of love songs for men and women in the Tujia nationality, though the word “love” does not appear in the songs, they still depict the romantic atmosphere between men and women, which makes those who hear the song feel the same. They keep themselves informed of the people, the matters, the feelings, and the sceneries around them, sing for the life in their own language, keeps the original taste born in their bones, and bestows this land an eternal meaning of life.
Time has elapsed like the flow of water with a flick of the finger. The unique songs have been spread from one to another when working in the field. In the continuous sublimation, many excellent folk songs have appeared, and even become an intangible cultural heritage. Yellow Poplar Shouldering Pole and Beaming with Joy at Sunrise are the representatives among them. Till now, children are often found jumping and singing on the country road, “The sun comes out and feeds you with joy!” Those classical folk songs left by predecessors are still an indispensable treasure in southeast Chongqing.
The unique features of a local environment make its inhabitant thrive in it, while the folk songs in that environment represent its history and culture. Just like both highbrow music and lowbrow music can both be rich in emotions; one can only comprehend those emotions by attentive listening. And the rhythm and lyrics are the crystallization of the spirit and feelings of the local indigenous people. The forms of Tujia Folk songs in southeast Chongqing can be a triplet, a quatrain, and a cinquain, among which the quatrains consist of four lines of seven characters that play the major role. While observing the rhyme scheme of Chinese classic poetry, the folk songs creating right from people’s mouths are not confined to one pattern, thus reflecting the interesting life while keeping in flexible forms. With the idiomatic local dialect, the Tujia folk songs in southeast Chongqing exude an extraordinarily strong fragrance of the earth.
(The original article comes with a Chinese version authored by Gu Muqian, Deng Yue (advisor/Ran Hongqing)as well as an English version translated by Hu Jieling (advisor/Hu Wei, Li Huahua), and was later narrated by Wu Yi (advisor/Lei Yu), all of whom are students (and teachers) from Chongqing Institute of Foreign Studies.)