Tongyao
01 · Historical Records
Shaoxing children's rhymes have a long history; the Southern Dynasties Fan Ye's Book of the Later Han, Biography of Zhang Ba records the Kuaiji children's rhyme. From 1922 to 1923 sixty-nine Shaoxing children's rhymes were entered respectively in the Grand View of Illustrated Children's Rhymes and the Collection of Children's Rhymes of the Various Provinces; from 1928 to 1934 Lou Zikuang's Shaoxing Songs and One Hundred Yue Songs and the Folk series founded by Tao Maokang recorded a great many Shaoxing children's rhymes; Zhou Zuoren collected children's rhymes in Shaoxing and later joined the Peking University Ballad Research Society, publishing a preface and many other articles and collecting two hundred and twenty-three Shaoxing children's rhymes in the Manuscript of Research on Children's Rhymes.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Shaoxing children's rhymes are folk songs whose chief singers are children, current in the Yuecheng, Keqiao and Shangyu districts and the cities of Zhuji, Shengzhou and Xinchang in Shaoxing, as well as in Yuyao city and Xiaoshan district of Hangzhou. Through active dissemination the influence of Shaoxing children's rhymes has spread all over the country and even to the Chinese communities overseas. The widely current Shaoxing children's rhymes number about four hundred, their subjects rich and varied, chiefly game rhymes, instructive rhymes, narrative and descriptive rhymes, and also tongue-twisters, riddle songs, counting songs, chain songs, head-word songs, upside-down songs and question-and-answer songs, deeply loved by children and young people. Shaoxing's distinctive geographical environment and deep cultural deposit provided ample nourishment for the growth and development of the rhymes. Shaoxing children's rhymes are oral literature handed down by word of mouth among the great mass of the Shaoxing people from generation to generation; in the course of raising children every household uses the ancient rhymes as material for linguistic and intellectual enlightenment. Their wording is plain and concise and their language humorous, with positive significance for children's intellectual enlightenment, moral education and literary edification. They enrich children's lives, imperceptibly promote their healthy growth, and play an important role in harmonising the community and building a harmonious society.
The Wheat-Threshing Song
A representative game-themed Shaoxing children's rhyme.
The Youth Goes Wandering
A representative instructive Shaoxing children's rhyme.
Ten Bridges in Shaoxing City
A representative narrative and descriptive Shaoxing children's rhyme.
The Children's Rhymes in Yue Proverbs
The fifty-five Shaoxing children's rhymes in the Qing Fan Yin's Yue Proverbs.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Shaoxing children's rhymes are short in form and harmonious in syllable, chanted in the Shaoxing dialect, their content mostly reflecting local folk customs, with a strong local character. They are an indispensable part of the life of the local people, great in number, rich in content, long in transmission, wide in influence, strong in regional character and varied in form.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Tongyao · Tongyao · Tongyao.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
To this day Shaoxing children's rhymes are still widely sung in Shaoxing and its surroundings; their mode of transmission is regional collective transmission by the people, and the transmitting group is very wide.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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