Ma Jianjun

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Ma Jianjun, Male, Unspecified, from Tianzhuzangzuzizhi, Gansu, is a third-batch national representative bearer of Tibetan Folk Songs (Ⅱ-115). The tradition is documented in Tianzhuzangzuzizhi, Gansu. Within the regional tradition and school record of Tibetan Folk Songs in Tianzhuzangzuzizhi, Gansu: Tibetan folk songs are the principal form of folk music in Tibetan areas, and may be divided into types such as mountain songs (herding songs), labour songs, love songs, custom songs and chanting tunes. As one branch of the Amdo Tibetans, the Huarui Tibetans inherited and carried forward the form and content of the “le” style of folk song, and gradually formed Huarui Tibetan folk songs with a character distinctly their own. At present, under the rapid change of traditional ways of life, the folk art troupes of Tianzhu County have been disbanded one after another, while local facilities for preserving sound and video recordings remain relatively backward. The chanting tune, also called the “six-syllable mantra song”, is a type of song sung by Buddhist believers when worshipping the Buddha and the other deities in a monastery. By the eleventh century CE the “le” style of folk song had become one of the folk song forms most beloved by the people of the Amdo Tibetan area, and it developed gradually from that point on.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Also known as Huarui Sonam Cairang, male, Tibetan, born in May 1946, a native of Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province. Devoted to the culture of his own people from early childhood, he became accomplished through self-study and emerged as an outstanding figure in the singing of Huarui folk songs and drinking songs. When the transmission of Huarui folk songs faced a lack of successors, he took the initiative to shoulder the burden of teaching apprentices and passing on the culture, and his apprentices are now to be found throughout the Huarui region. Beginning in 1978 he published one after another in national newspapers and periodicals fifteen long narrative songs that he had collected and collated, among them such representative works as The Origin of Highland Barley, which were included in A History of Tibetan Literature; he has received commendations and awards at county, municipal, provincial, and national level. In 1995 he was included in A Register of Contemporary Chinese Artists, and in 1998 in the Cihai of Chinese Figures (Contemporary Culture Volume). Within the documented technical tradition of Tibetan Folk Songs in Tianzhuzangzuzizhi, Gansu: Mountain songs are called “lalu” in the Weizang region, “lu” in the Khampa region and “le” in the Amdo region; they are songs sung freely in the mountains and wilds. Labour songs are called “lexie” in Tibetan; there are very many kinds of them, and almost every form of labour has its own particular song. Love songs include songs of courtship and tea-of-love songs, while custom songs include wine songs, guessing antiphonal love songs, wedding songs, arrow songs, farewell songs and so on. Huarui Tibetan folk songs are current in Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County of Wuwei City, Gansu Province and the surrounding area, and have a history of more than one thousand five hundred years. Fragments of Tibetan manuscripts among the Dunhuang documents record that in antiquity the Tibetans had the habit of using folk songs as a way of communicating with one another. Huarui Tibetan folk songs are characterised by being vivid and plain, popular and easy to sing, with a marked rise and fall of delivery. By content they may be divided into narrative tunes, love songs, songs of lament at a daughter's marriage, satirical songs, songs of admonition, humorous songs and songs of welcome; the content is rich and the kinds complete, and the forms of singing include solo, antiphonal, unison, singing with dance and question-and-answer forms, among many others. Representative works include the Song of the Auspicious Sheep, the Trilogy of Genesis and Xizan. Huarui Tibetan folk songs are current at all kinds of feast gatherings and at occasions of daily life; they combine entertainment, artistry, local character and ethnicity in one, and shoulder the heavy task of cultural enlightenment. Their content is very wide-ranging, from primitive religious culture to historical geography, from local customs and human relations to social production, comprehensively reflecting the profound understanding of life and the broad awareness of a harmonious natural world acquired by the Huarui Tibetans over the course of the nation's historical changes; while displaying a broad social life they also permeate ideological content such as ethics and morality, becoming an encyclopaedia of Huarui Tibetan social life. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Song of the Auspicious Sheep": By content the songs may be divided into narrative tunes, love songs, songs of lament at a daughter's marriage, satirical songs, songs of admonition, humorous songs and songs of welcome; the content is rich and the kinds complete, and the forms of singing include solo, antiphonal, unison, singing with dance and question-and-answer forms, among many others. Representative works include the Song of the Auspicious Sheep, the Trilogy of Genesis and Xizan. "Trilogy of Genesis": By content the songs may be divided into narrative tunes, love songs, songs of lament at a daughter's marriage, satirical songs, songs of admonition, humorous songs and songs of welcome; the content is rich and the kinds complete, and the forms of singing include solo, antiphonal, unison, singing with dance and question-and-answer forms, among many others. Representative works include the Song of the Auspicious Sheep, the Trilogy of Genesis and Xizan. "Xizan": By content the songs may be divided into narrative tunes, love songs, songs of lament at a daughter's marriage, satirical songs, songs of admonition, humorous songs and songs of welcome; the content is rich and the kinds complete, and the forms of singing include solo, antiphonal, unison, singing with dance and question-and-answer forms, among many others. Representative works include the Song of the Auspicious Sheep, the Trilogy of Genesis and Xizan.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Tibetan Folk Songs (Huarui Tibetan Folk Songs), a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

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. Ma Jianjun · National Representative Bearer Archive