Guo Dejing

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Guo Dejing, Male, Han, from Xingguo, Jiangxi, is a sixth-batch national representative bearer of Xingguo Mountain Songs (Ⅱ-8). The tradition is documented in Xingguo, Jiangxi. Within the regional tradition and school record of Xingguo Mountain Songs in Xingguo, Jiangxi: The fusion of the ancient manners and lingering charm of the Central Plains with the local indigenous culture formed the Xingguo mountain songs with their distinctive character. The Xingguo mountain songs arose after the Hakka forebears migrated south and settled in southern Jiangxi, formed by the fusion of the ancient manners of the Central Plains with the local indigenous culture.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

The bearer record for Guo Dejing is anchored in the documented technical standards of Xingguo Mountain Songs in Xingguo, Jiangxi. Within the documented technical tradition of Xingguo Mountain Songs in Xingguo, Jiangxi: Xingguo county lies in southern Jiangxi under the jurisdiction of Ganzhou city. More than ninety-five per cent of Xingguo's population are Hakka who migrated south from the Central Plains and their descendants. Because of the peculiar geographical environment and their Hakka background, the Hakka who lived generation after generation in the high mountains and dense forests led a hard life, and at leisure from labour they had only mountain songs with which to give vent to their inner feeling. In the towns and villages of Xingguo song is heard everywhere and everyone is a singer, so Xingguo has always been praised as a “home of mountain songs”. Representative pieces of Xingguo mountain songs include The Mustard Greens in the Garden Have Bolted, Embroidering a Sachet, Every Trade Produces a First-Rate Scholar and Praising the Eight Immortals. Xingguo mountain songs are lively and varied, full of the breath of life, and have such forms as solo, antiphonal singing, “three striking iron”, linked singing and round singing, and such kinds as locked songs, plate songs, duelling songs, guessing flowers, throwing Guanyin, loach biting its tail, embroidering the sash, vine twining round the tree and tree twining round the vine. Divided by the larger performance forms, Xingguo mountain songs are roughly as follows: singing to and fro in the fields and hills, varying with the feeling, the scene and the person, with content covering man-woman love, production, life and current affairs; “jumping the sorcerer”, divided into the South River mountain songs and the East River mountain songs, the South River ones again divided into love songs and the buffoonish comic songs, performed in costume by the male and female sorcerers, while the East River mountain songs are congratulatory; the custom songs, sung at temple fairs, weddings and funerals, birthday congratulations, house-building and a child's first-month celebration, the singers being mostly professional song masters; the narrative mountain songs, mostly antiphonal singing of question and answer, pro and con, on public occasions, with a strong narrative quality, often unfolding around a single theme, and nowadays often used by local government as a means of publicity; and the singing contest, a special form in which singers gather to hold a tournament, testing their store of knowledge and comparing their quickness, with climaxes following one another and the champion of the platform decided at the end. Xingguo mountain songs are rooted in the deep soil of Hakka culture, covering every aspect of Hakka life and full of rich Hakka cultural information. In a sense the Xingguo mountain songs are a historical scroll of the Hakka's living and multiplying. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Mustard Greens in the Garden Have Bolted": One of the representative pieces of Xingguo mountain songs. "Embroidering a Sachet": One of the representative pieces of Xingguo mountain songs. "Every Trade Produces a First-Rate Scholar": One of the representative pieces of Xingguo mountain songs. "Praising the Eight Immortals": One of the representative pieces of Xingguo mountain songs.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2025, Guo Dejing was announced in the sixth batch of national representative bearers for Xingguo Mountain Songs, with Xingguo, Jiangxi as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Xingguo Mountain Songs in Xingguo, Jiangxi: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2006 (batch 1), with Xingguo, Jiangxi as its declared area, and Xingguo County Cultural Center as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

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. Guodejing (Xingguo, Jiangxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Guodejing · China ICH Official Archive