Baiyang Village Folk Songs

Shanghai
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Fengxian County, Shanghai is a famous "hometown of folk songs", and the singing of various long and short folk songs has a long history. The long narrative poem "Baiyang Village Folk Song" of the Han nationality is a shining pearl that is circulated in the folk song hometown of Fengxian County, the southern suburb of Shanghai. Experts believe that "Baiyang Village Folk Song" overturns the wrong conclusion that "the Han nationality has no folk long narrative poems, and there is no folk long narrative poems in Jiangnan". The Tibetans have the long heroic epic "The Legend of King Gesar", the Yi people have the oral narrative poem "Ashima" in Sani language, and the Han people finally have the oral narrative poem "Baiyang Village Folk Song" in Wu language. "Baiyang Village Folk Song" is a folk long narrative poem describing love. The basic content describes the love tragedy of the male protagonist, Xue Jingchun, the boat rower, and the female protagonist, Sister Fang. Sister Fang loves labor, loves life, is ingenious, kind-hearted, and pursues free love and marriage. By chance, she and Xue Jingchun met twice by the river, and they fell in love with each other, so they swore to get engaged privately. However, under the constraints of the feudal marriage ethics of matchmaker and parents' orders, Sister Fang married Yang Jingwen, a wealthy man in Baiyang Village with "a fortune of millions and gold and silver". In the end, Xue Jingchun was beaten by Yang Jingwen, and his eyes were disabled and blinded, ending in a tragic ending. The last section of the long poem, through Xue Jingchun's mouth, complained to the feudal society in grief and anger: "Why can't we meet each other even though we are thousands of miles apart? Why are we separated by force?" "Who can the poor turn to for help in their suffering?" The long poem "Baiyang Village Folk Song" is divided into the main songs such as "Selling Field Melons", "Weaving Handkerchiefs", "Handkerchiefs", "Sister Crossing the River", "Marrying Sister", "Asking for a Wife", "Carrying a Sedan", "Crying for Marriage", "Sending Sister", "Looking for Sister", "Looking for Sister Twice" and "Picking Mulberries", "Picking Fresh Peaches", "Falling Su", "Beating Window Lattice", "Fragrant Oil Pad", "Male Medicine", "Pinching Dough and Wrapping Wontons" in "Yangcun Yazhi", a total of 18 chapters, plus the beginning and end of the song, the lyrics are more than 3,100 lines long, with varied sentence patterns and lively and free. Rhetoric uses a lot of metaphors, similes, puns, parallelism, etc., which are vivid and vivid. Language inherits the tradition of "Wu Song", uses a lot of dialect idioms, proverbs, and two-part allegorical sayings, interspersed with historical and opera allusions, with a strong and intimate Jiangnan flavor. For example, "I took your girl's Yunnan white copper as silver ("silver" is homophonic to "people"), but you didn't know that your tin is filled with lead, not silver (people)!" "Raised my brother to sharpen the hoe and the small flowers, and it gave birth to bells and flowers; raised my little girl to sharpen the thin knife to cut shallots, and cut off the shallots at both ends." There are also many beautiful poems similar to the "Xintianyou" in northern Shaanxi in the folk songs, such as "Chestnut flowers bloomed and the petals were crooked, and the knee-high steamed buns fell to the ground to thank my mother. Mom, the hornbeam flowers bloomed darkly, and my husband's family wanted to ask for a letter on the first Double Ninth Festival" and so on. When singing "Baiyang Village Folk Song", two people usually sing it separately. The one who sings first is called "head song", who leads the first two sentences, and the one who sings second is called "hanging flower" or "stepping shell", who repeats the song with the one who sings first. Folk songs have high-pitched, loud, and heroic tunes, with many supporting words and long voices. It is more laborious to sing, and the singers are all men. "Baiyang Village Folk Song" is mainly spread in the central area of Fengxian, especially in Qixian and Jinhui areas. Zhu Bingliang, a famous singer from Longtan Village, Qixian, is a representative figure. Zhu Bingliang was born in a poor peasant family. He worked as a tailor and long-term worker since he was a child and never went to school. He loved to learn to sing folk songs, apprenticed to a master, and studied hard. He had no education, but his memory was amazing. In addition to singing "Baiyang Village Folk Song" with more than 3,100 lines, he could also sing two other narrative long poems "Lin's Daughter Looking for Her Husband" and "Yan's Private Love" (three poems with more than 6,000 lines in total), and was called the "King of Folk Songs". After liberation, he participated in the regional, provincial and municipal performances and received wide acclaim. His three long narrative poems, including "Baiyang Village Folk Songs", were successively published in the "Folk Literature and Art Collection" (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House). In 1984, he was admitted as a member of the China Folk Literature and Art Association and died of illness in 1987. "Baiyang Village Folk Songs" reflects the political, economic, folk customs and folk customs of the society at that time, and at the same time, it has a great impact on the local social culture at that time. Under its influence, the medium-length narrative folk song "Selling Red Water Chestnuts" (recorded in Guangming Township, Fengxian, sung by Zhang Renyu) was derived, which also reflects the theme of men and women pursuing freedom in love. The famous traditional Shanghai opera "Selling Red Water Chestnuts" created by Zhao Chunfang, a senior Shanghai opera veteran born in Qianqiao Township, Fengxian, is famous in Shanghai. The lyrics in the Shanghai opera "Ludang Fire" "The peach blossoms are all white in the red, red in the white, three grades and four colors of flowers", and the lyrics in "Abida" "The sheep eat the dry nest and have no choice" are all from "Baiyang Village Folk Songs". The award-winning play "Tao Lang and Mei Niang" by Fengxian Folk Song Troupe is adapted from a folk story, with obvious shadows of "Bai Yang Village Folk Song". The beautiful tunes of the folk song are even more out of the singing scope of Fengxian folk songs. "Bai Yang Village Folk Song" has also brought obvious influence on local mass art. Mass art in Jinhui, Qixian and other areas is booming and well-known throughout the county and even the suburbs. For example, Jinhui's performance and singing of "Blackboard Newspaper in My Team" and gong and drum book "On the Grain Drying Ground", Qixian's song and dance "Maotou Girl Learns to Farm" and performance and singing of "Ma Dasao's Aria" all benefited from Fengxian traditional folk song singing in terms of lyrics and composition, and the programs won awards at the municipal and even national levels. Good programs such as "The Hardship of Farmhands" and "Members Carrying River Mud" created by professionals in the city at that time all drew nutrition from "Bai Yang Village Folk Song". However, the singing and inheritance of "Baiyang Village Folk Songs" has been lacking. Folk singers like Zhu Bingliang have passed away one after another. There are not many old artists who can sing Fengxian traditional folk songs, and there are no folk singers who can sing "Baiyang Village Folk Songs" in full. Therefore, it is urgent to take effective measures to ensure that the original Wu dialect "Baiyang Village Folk Songs" can continue to be passed on.

Intangible culture related to the heritage

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