Proverbs
01 · Historical Records
Northern Shaanxi folk proverbs are an oral literary form in which the people of northern Shaanxi pass on production and life experience from generation to generation in simple, easy-to-remember colloquial speech; they circulate mainly in Mizhi and Suide counties of Yulin city, Shaanxi, and radiate through the twenty-three counties and districts of northern Shaanxi.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Northern Shaanxi folk proverbs are an oral literary form in which the people of northern Shaanxi pass on production and life experience from generation to generation in simple, easy-to-remember colloquial speech; they circulate mainly in Mizhi and Suide counties of Yulin city, Shaanxi, and radiate through the twenty-three counties and districts of northern Shaanxi. Northern Shaanxi lies in the belly of the loess plateau, and Mizhi and Suide lie in the belly of northern Shaanxi. The proverbs of Mizhi and Suide are many in number, rich in content and wide in spread and representative in northern Shaanxi. From pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar to structure the northern Shaanxi folk proverbs use the northern Shaanxi dialect and have a strong northern Shaanxi flavour; they also make great use of such rhetorical devices as metaphor, personification, bi and xing, contrast and exaggeration, at once vivid and easy to remember, catchy and easy to spread, and moreover providing rich nourishment for such artistic forms as northern Shaanxi folk song, storytelling and daoqing. The northern Shaanxi folk proverbs hold philosophy and are a vivid wordless book recording the social and historical memory and experience of northern Shaanxi.
Proverbs of Ordinary Life
One of the main types of northern Shaanxi folk proverbs.
Proverbs of Agricultural Production
One of the main types of northern Shaanxi folk proverbs.
Proverbs of Weather and Seasons
One of the main types of northern Shaanxi folk proverbs.
Proverbs of Clear Reasoning
One of the main types of northern Shaanxi folk proverbs.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The northern Shaanxi folk proverbs have wide subjects, rich content and flexible form, covering every field of social production and daily life, and are divided mainly into such types as ordinary life, agricultural production, weather and seasons, diet and health, clear reasoning about affairs and the instruction of the people; some have one or two lines, some many, some five-, seven- or nine-character, some longer. The agricultural proverbs alone include many aspects such as farm work, farm seasons, farming technique, water conservancy, fertiliser, farm tools, tillage, seedlings and seeds, planting and harvest, and are the vivid summary and concise expression of the farming experience of the local people for generations.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Proverbs · Proverbs.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
As oral literature the northern Shaanxi folk proverbs have few clear historical records and are transmitted to the present mainly by word of mouth and heart-to-heart teaching among the broad masses. They are the result of the natural environment and still more the crystallisation of the collective wisdom of the people, of important guiding significance for social production and daily life, and play a positive role in transmitting and developing the culture of northern Shaanxi, promoting social harmony and building civic morality.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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