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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.

“Hey-ho, hey-ho-hey, let’s pull together; hey-ho, hey-ho-hey, let’s cross the rapids….” Chongqing is mountainous and hilly, with many rivers, such as the Jialing River, Wujiang River, Daning River, and others. For this reason, the traffic condition in Chongqing is very poor. In early times, boatmen can be seen everywhere, towing boats and singing songs due to the heavy dependence on manual wooden boats to transport goods and people. They sing songs always in the way of “chanting.” These kinds of folk songs are later called Chuanjiang Haozi.

During the Ming (AD1368-1644) and Qing (AD1636-1912) dynasties, all boatmen listened to the helmsman, who gave directions by drumming, to sail the boat, hence the appearance of the unified rowing rhythm. It was around the mid-Qing dynasty that Haozi – the songs boatmen used to unify the rowing rhythm – came into being and the solo leading singer. The songs of Chuanjiang Haozi are inspired by the environment around the singers, varying with different water potentials and currents. When sailing upstream, boatmen will sing songs like “Lan-Da-Rao Haozi” and “Qi-Fu-Rao Haozi,” which have fervid and stentorian tones. When towing boats, they will sing songs like “Da-Ban-Jiu Haozi” and “Zhua-Zhua Haozi,” which have bold and strong melodies to relieve tension, fight fatigue and build strength. When sailing downstream, they will sing songs like “Mo-Yue Haozi” and “Rao Haozi,” which have mild tones and slow rhythms, to adjust themselves after exhaustion. According to the records, the songs of Chuanjiang Haozi are quite plentiful and colorful, with 26 kinds of tunes and more than hundreds of lyrics, which are often improvised by the leading singer. It has evolved into various schools, such as “Da-Tong-Tong” with low voices and “Bian-Yin” with high voices, based on the difference in the voice characteristics of the leading singer.

Cao Guangyu, the inheritor of Chuanjiang Haozi, once said, “Chuanjiang Haozi is a song of life composed with blood and sweat by boatmen as they battle together against dangerous shallows and waters.” It is, therefore, not only a unique form of music but also rich in emotions and meanings of life.

Boatmen often say, no shanty, no strength. It is more like a kind of spiritual food for them. Treading on stones and rubbing hands with sands, they struggle to make a living to support their families. Chuanjiang Haozi has become an anchor in their extremely hard lives, enabling them to be full of strength and confidence to overcome any difficulties. Chuanjiang Haozi is the embodiment of the indomitable spirit of resistance inspired by working people in the face of danger and the boatmen’s real living conditions at that time. They sing to each other and work together to ensure their safety. That’s the meaning of Chuanjiang Haozi.

In the 1970s, China took great strides in development, and motorboats began to replace man-powered ones. Since then, the profession of boatmen has gradually disappeared, along with the songs of Chuanjiang Haozi. Nowadays, those old boatmen often recall the years on boats with a touch of an indelible memory. The era of boatmen has passed, but the spirit of working together and helping each other in Chuanjiang Haozi is never out of date. It is an important part of folk songs in Sichuan and Chongqing and traditional Chinese music culture. In 2006, with the approval of the State Council, Chuanjiang Haozi was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage.

(The original article comes with a Chinese version authored by Yu Siying, Sun Zhuowen, Luo Fengling (advisor/Ran Hongqing) as well as an English version translated by Wu Liang (advisor/Hu Wei), and was later narrated by Zhang Zikang (advisor/Ren Yi), all of whom are students (and teachers) from Chongqing Institute of Foreign Studies.)

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