Changshan Hecai Ballads
01 · Historical Records
According to the Changshan County Gazetteer of the thirteenth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming, 1585, the Qiuchuan Town Gazetteer and many genealogies, the folk custom of singing hecai ballads at the wedding-night teasing of the bridal chamber in Qiuchuan town of Changshan county, Zhejiang, has a history of four or five hundred years. The custom of hecai at beam-raising is older still: as early as the Northern Wei, Wen Zisheng had his “Prayer Text for Raising the Beam at the Changhe Gate”, called by people “the mother of beam-raising texts”.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Changshan hecai ballads are lively and festive folk ballads current in Changshan county of Quzhou city, Zhejiang, and performed at weddings, beam-raisings, birthday congratulations, spring planting, autumn harvest and shop openings. They are relatively well preserved and complete, their performance rites are very particular, and their influence in the people's daily life is relatively great. They may be divided into five kinds: first, beam-raising hecai, a sacrificial hecai rite of praying for blessing and driving out evil held when the roof beam is installed before a new house is completed; second, wedding hecai, performed in such rites as meeting the bride, the wedding ceremony of bowing, drinking the crossed-cups wine and teasing the bridal chamber; third, birthday or longevity hecai, at decade birthdays or birthday congratulations; fourth, funeral hecai, performed at funerals to bless the departed in reaching the Western Paradise and enjoying bliss in the immortal hall, and also to pray for the protection and peace of the descendants; and fifth, other hecai ballads connected with production and life. The Changshan hecai ballads have the following features: first, a marked literary character—the last characters of the front and back lines are basically rhymed, and the lines have the same number of characters, neat phrasing, a strong sense of rhythm and are pleasant to read aloud. Second, strong interaction—when the hecai singer sings, the audience responds, making the atmosphere warm. Fourth, attention to ethics. The Changshan hecai ballads have a long history and circulate widely. Their content is varied and they have striking artistic features and local cultural characteristics.
Beam-Raising Hecai
The sacrificial hecai rite of praying for blessing and driving out evil held when the roof beam is installed before a new house is completed.
Wedding Hecai (Meeting the Bride and Teasing the Bridal Chamber)
The hecai ballads performed in such rites as meeting the bride, the wedding ceremony of bowing, drinking the crossed-cups wine and teasing the bridal chamber.
Birthday and Longevity Hecai
The hecai at decade birthdays or birthday congratulations.
The Hecai Lyrics (More Than a Thousand Pieces, Over 200,000 Characters)
The extant hecai lyric texts, refined by men of letters and sung orally by the people.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
They have rich content and forms of expression, touching on every aspect of daily life; they embody the people's wisdom and their longing for a good life, are deeply loved by the local people, and have been transmitted without a break for several hundred years. The strong interaction further shows how beloved the Changshan hecai ballads are in the life of the local people. Third, they have a strong local colour, combining local culture and folk customs with natural scenery. The hecai singer must be a locally respected elder; a person of improper conduct cannot become a hecai singer.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
This custom, refined by men of letters and sung orally by the people, is still transmitted in all parts of Changshan today. The Changshan hecai ballads are mostly transmitted by word of mouth and personal instruction between father and son and master and apprentice; the extant hecai lyrics number not fewer than a thousand and more than two hundred thousand characters. Born alongside rites and customs and adding colour to folk ceremonial, simple in form of expression, serving life, praying for blessings and reposing feeling, they have important research value in history, music, folklore and literature, and play a positive role in transmitting folk culture and promoting social harmony. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Zeng Xiangtai, male, Han, born December 1933, a native of Changshan county, Zhejiang, a hecai song master of the Changshan hecai ballads. He has sung and transmitted the hecai ballads for more than seventy years and is thoroughly versed in the art. He has more than thirty apprentices in Changshan and more than three hundred students in school have taken part in training. He has taken part in the publication of several related works such as The Changshan Hecai Ballads, A Collection of Changshan Folk Customs, Folk Beam-Raising Hecai Ballads, Hecai Ballads Passed Down from Generation to Generation and The Hecai Master. He is a representative bearer of the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Changshan hecai ballads. In recent years he has energetically carried out transmission activities for the Changshan hecai ballads, taking part in many public-benefit cultural performances and in various forms of training and instruction, and has successively set up Changshan hecai ballad transmission and teaching bases at Changshan county experimental primary school and Changshan No. 1 primary school.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Cengxiangtai 05-2032
- Cenglingbing
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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