Guangyang Zhen Folk Tales
01 · Historical Records
The Guangyang town folk tales originated in the area of Guangyang town in the Nan'an district of Chongqing, their cultural roots reaching back to Pu-Ba culture and overlaid with the culture of the Yangtze river dock and boatmen and the collective memory of the War of Resistance.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Guangyang town folk tales are the collective name for the folk legends and stories widely current in Guangyang town of the Nan'an district, Chongqing. They include myths and legends, local-feature stories, stories of historical figures, stories of daily life and jokes, in many kinds, among which the stories telling of local legends and the origins of local place names are especially prominent. For example, among the myths there are Breaking the Drum to Save the Moon, reflecting the phenomena of sun and moon, and Why the Cock Crows in the Morning; among those reflecting the origin of place names there are The Origin of Guangyang Bar and The Chicken-Scratched Pool of Mingyue Tuo; among those reflecting river culture there are The Legend of the Lu Xian Temple and The Legend of the Great Buddha Temple. Guangyang folk tales have a relatively broad popular base and many tellers. As a dock town, Guangyang had in its history a great coming and going of people. Many storytellers had experience of life on boats from childhood, and hearing the boat-pullers and the passing traders tell stories was one of their great pleasures as children. Guangyang town lies beside the Yangtze; the people of Guangyang grew up by the river from childhood, keeping company with boats and oars and treating the waters of the Yangtze as a friend. Passing boats moored here, and the river waters brought countless stories. Legends about boat travel have become a great feature of Guangyang folk tales, and the Guangyang dragon-boat race still flourishing today is an embodiment of this river culture—this is the second layer of cultural origin of Guangyang folk tales. The Guangyang Bar airfield, as an important military base in resisting the Japanese invaders, is a memory the people of Guangyang are proud of to this day. The inscription “The War of Resistance will surely be won, the founding of the nation will surely be accomplished”, written by a patriotic general of the time, still remains in Guangyang town. The scene of officers and men and people fighting the war together still lives vividly in the mouths of the people of Guangyang—this forms the third layer of cultural origin of Guangyang folk tales.
Breaking the Drum to Save the Moon and Why the Cock Crows in the Morning
The Guangyang myths reflecting the phenomena of sun and moon.
The Origin of Guangyang Bar and The Chicken-Scratched Pool of Mingyue Tuo
Local-feature stories telling the origin of native Guangyang place names.
The Legend of the Lu Xian Temple and the Legend of the Great Buddha Temple
Native Guangyang place-name and temple legends reflecting river culture.
The Guangyang Dragon-Boat Race
The river-culture folk activity still flourishing today.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Guangyang town has twelve kilometres of Yangtze shoreline; the people who lived in this area early on mostly dwelt by the water and moved with the water, so the folk tales of Guangyang town also spread to the neighbouring villages and towns, especially those along the river. The locality has a body of folk storytellers, from youths in their teens to elders in their eighties, who can basically all tell and like to tell Guangyang folk tales and treat storytelling as one of life's pleasures; “setting up the dragon-gate array”, a dialect term for chatting or telling stories, is a daily habit in the eyes of the local people. Guangyang town formerly belonged to Ba county; judging from discoveries within its borders, there are cultural remains of the late Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites, showing that this area was inhabited early on, and afterwards the Ba people established their capital here, so the first layer of cultural origin of Guangyang folk tales should be Pu-Ba culture. The Guangyang town folk tales carry the common historical memory of the people of Guangyang over a thousand years and vividly reflect their conditions of production and life, thoughts and feelings, morality and ethics and ideals and pursuits; they are vivid testimony to regional cultural exchange and fusion and play a positive role in enriching the people's cultural life, promoting social harmony and strengthening social cohesion.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
(Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Du Zhibang, male, Han, born October 1950, a native of Pingchang county, Sichuan, a teller of the Guangyang town folk tales. After being demobilized from the army in 1976 he worked in Guangyang town. He has told and collected a great many folk tales. During the general survey of folk literature in 1987 he told five hundred and sixteen stories and recorded three hundred and eight. By 2012 he had told more than a thousand stories. His storytelling is concise in language, clear in expression and witty, leaving his hearers laughing and with much to savour. Besides persisting in telling folk tales voluntarily to the public at fixed monthly intervals at the Guangyang town folk-tale transmission base, he also often takes part in folk-tale telling and dissemination in the various subdistricts, townships and schools. He is a representative bearer of the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Guangyang town folk tales. He has been awarded the title of first-grade folk storyteller of Chongqing by the Chongqing municipal bureau of culture.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Du Zhibang 05-2028
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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