Xu Gencai
Lineage & School of Heritage
As a child he listened to stories told by his father, a folk artist; he was especially fond of marine animal stories and retold them to his playmates.
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Male, Han ethnicity, born in February 1941 in Dongtou County, Zhejiang Province. He is a storyteller of marine animal stories. As an adult he worked as a fisherman and as a craftsman, which brought him into contact with more people and allowed him to collect and pass on more marine animal tales. From the 1980s onward he deliberately devoted himself to collecting and retelling marine animal stories; he has gathered and arranged more than seventy folk tales of the Dongtou islands, can tell more than eighty marine animal stories and other folktales, and can sing more than thirty folk songs. He has set marine animal stories down in writing and published them in literary journals, and he frequently goes to kindergartens and primary schools to tell stories to children.
Honors & Recognition
National representative bearer of Haiyangdongwu Stories, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
- Haiyangdongwu Stories Ⅰ-111
Profile
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