Cao Guangyu

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He became a boatman at the age of seventeen, and in 1987 he studied under the chant leader Chen Bangui. Within the regional tradition and school record of Chuanjiang Work Songs in Chongqing: The Chuanjiang work songs circulate mainly in the basins of the Jinsha river, the Yangtze and its tributaries the Min, Tuo, Jialing and Wu rivers and the Daning river. The channel here is winding, the mountains steep, the water swift and the shoals many, and the water level drops greatly over the whole course; especially in passing out of Sichuan through the perilous Three Gorges the boatmen can hardly move a step. Its existence essentially embodies the unyielding spirit of struggle of the working people of the Chuan river basins through the ages in the face of a harsh natural environment, and their character—bold and unrestrained yet not without humour. The Chuanjiang work songs have an extremely long history. Chongqing has enjoyed the benefit of boats since ancient times, and the historical records of successive ages record this abundantly; the Neolithic “stone anchors” and the Eastern Han “tracking figures” unearthed one after another on both banks of the river corroborate the long history of the river-transport industry of the Chuan river. The work songs arose with wooden-boat shipping, with the call leader leading the singing and the boatmen answering, and took settled form through transmission from generation to generation.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in January 1964 in Chongqing Municipality. He has long been engaged in the transmission and dissemination of Chuanjiang work songs. He has collected and organised nearly one hundred melodic models (qupai) of Chuanjiang work songs, and has created stage works for Chuanjiang work song performance, including Chuan Dao Matou Ba Jiu He (Drinking at the Wharf When the Boat Arrives), Chuang Feng Yu (Braving Wind and Rain), Chuan Xie Sanxia Hao Xiang Jia (The Boat Rests at the Three Gorges and Longs for Home) and Shu Chengmen (Counting the City Gates). Since 2012 he has taken part once a week, without interruption, in the Intangible Cultural Heritage on Campus programme, and he completed the compilation of a school-based textbook, Chuanjiang Work Songs, for Renmin Road in Yuzhong District, Chongqing. Within the documented technical tradition of Chuanjiang Work Songs in Chongqing: The Chuanjiang work song is a folk singing form of the one-leading-the-many-responding kind, in which the boatmen of the Chuan river, to unify their movements and rhythm, have the call leader lead the singing while the boatmen answer and join in chorus. The Chuanjiang work songs arose precisely in this peculiar geographical environment. They include the upstream work songs and the downstream work songs. The upstream work songs include the pole-punting chantey, the oar-pulling chantey, the mast-raising chantey, the sail-hoisting chantey and the tracking chantey; the downstream work songs include the towing chantey, the boat-starting chantey, the calm-water chantey, the second-rate oar chantey, the fast second-rate oar chantey, the yao-er-san exchange chantey, the shoal-sighting chantey, the shoal-breaking chantey and the shoal-descending chantey—thus forming a musical culture of the Chuan river system with scores of categories and thousands of pieces. Representative pieces include Eighteen Fooling Around, Eight Brothers Return to Camp, Sister Gui Writes a Letter and the Kuixing Tower, and also the Tracking Chantey, the Cable-Hauling Chantey, the Oar Chantey, the Bracing Chantey, the Great Turtle Dove and the Little Turtle Dove. The Chuanjiang work songs have an extremely long history and are the most distinctive among the labour chanteys of Sichuan. Chongqing and Sichuan have enjoyed the benefit of boats since ancient times, and the historical records of successive ages record this abundantly. The humanistic geography, local customs, natural scenery on both banks of the Chuan river and the custom of assisting labour with song in river transport are themes used without decline both in folk ballads and in the poetry of such men of letters as Du Fu and Li Bai. Scholarship generally holds that the Chuanjiang work songs are a cultural treasure of the history of Yangtze water transport and a song of life cast from the blood and sweat of the boatmen in their struggle with dangerous shoals and evil waters, with the features of a long history of transmission, rich categories and pieces, high and vehement tunes, the one-leading-the-many-responding form and singing without accompaniment. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Eighteen Fooling Around": A representative piece of the Chuanjiang work songs. "Eight Brothers Return to Camp": A representative piece of the Chuanjiang work songs. "Sister Gui Writes a Letter": A representative piece of the Chuanjiang work songs. "The Kuixing Tower": A representative piece of the Chuanjiang work songs.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a representative bearer of Chuanjiang work songs, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He has won the first prize at the National Fishing Song and Work Chant Competition, the Qunxing (Stars) Award of the Ministry of Culture at its fifteenth and sixteenth sessions, the gold award in the folk song category and the special award for ethnic style at the eighth Brahms International Choral Competition. He has performed at the closing ceremony of the fifth Asia-Pacific City Mayors' Summit, and has led the China Oriental Symphony Orchestra and the opera house of the General Political Department in large-scale symphonic choral works such as Chuanjiang Song (Ode to the Chuanjiang).

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Cao Guangyu · National Representative Bearer Archive