Zhang Jianjun

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Zhang Jianjun, Male, Han, from Ningxia, is a sixth-batch national representative bearer of Hua'er (Ⅱ-20). The tradition is documented in Ningxia. Within the regional tradition and school record of Hua'er in Ningxia: Hua'er is a mountain-song kind widely current among the eight ethnic groups—Hui, Han, Tu, Dongxiang, Bao'an, Salar, Tibetan and Yugur—of the four provinces and regions of Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. It is always sung in the local Chinese dialect and may be sung only outside the villages and stockades; it is commonly called a “wild song” (as opposed to the “home song”, that is, the banquet song) and is also known as the “youth”. The Longshan Song and the Longban Song and Longyuan Song of the “Bin Wind” section of the Book of Songs and of the yuefu of the Han, Wei, Southern and Northern Dynasties are its forerunners. On the basis of the shang-zhi four-tone mode and the pentatonic zhi mode it evolved into a hua'er song kind of varied musical form, tonality, melodic movement and rhythm and of distinctive style.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

The bearer record for Zhang Jianjun is anchored in the documented technical standards of Hua'er in Ningxia. Within the documented technical tradition of Hua'er in Ningxia: It is sung on two main kinds of occasion: daily production and life, and the “flower fair”. The “flower fair” is a large folk song gathering, also called “singing the mountain”. The mountain hua'er, commonly called the dry hua'er, the mountain tune or the wild flower, is a representative folk-song genre widely sung in the Hui areas of settlement of Ningxia. It has inherited certain features of the ancient mountain songs of the Longshan region (the unaccompanied song, the antiphonal song and the standing song). The composite and pluralistic culture has made these mountain songs display more the features of a transitional and marginal culture, and the widely sung Hui mountain hua'er is the most representative of them, with a broad mass base and rich folk-cultural content. The mountain hua'er belongs basically to the form of singing for one's own entertainment or of singing within a small circle; on the basis of inheriting the “three lines to a stanza” of the ancient Longshan folk song it is mostly sung by improvising words to a single short song. In its music it inherits the four-tone and pentatonic zhi-mode features of the ancient Longshan unaccompanied song and absorbs many elements from the Xintianyou, the hill-climbing tune, the Taomin hua'er, the Hehuang hua'er and Islamic tonalities, making much use of pentatonic winding progressions. Representative pieces of the Ningxia Hui hua'er include An Ox Drinks on the Bank of the Yellow River, One Visit to My Sweetheart and The Hua'er Is the Speech of the Heart. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "An Ox Drinks on the Bank of the Yellow River": Representative pieces of the Ningxia Hui hua'er include An Ox Drinks on the Bank of the Yellow River, One Visit to My Sweetheart and The Hua'er Is the Speech of the Heart. "One Visit to My Sweetheart": A representative piece of the Hui mountain hua'er of Ningxia, sung by improvising words to a single short song. "The Hua'er Is the Speech of the Heart": A representative Ningxia Hui hua'er in the four-line metre with rhyming double-character endings.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2025, Zhang Jianjun was announced in the sixth batch of national representative bearers for Hua'er, with Ningxia as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Hua'er in Ningxia: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2006 (batch 1), with Ningxia as its declared area, and Ningxia Cultural Center (Ningxia Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding Center, Ningxia Exhibition Hall) 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. Zhangjianjun (Ningxia) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Zhangjianjun · China ICH Official Archive