Hua'er

01 · Historical Records

The Longshan Song and the Longban Song and Longyuan Song of the “Bin Wind” section of the Book of Songs and of the yuefu of the Han, Wei, Southern and Northern Dynasties are its forerunners. On the basis of the shang-zhi four-tone mode and the pentatonic zhi mode it evolved into a hua'er song kind of varied musical form, tonality, melodic movement and rhythm and of distinctive style.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

It is sung on two main kinds of occasion: daily production and life, and the “flower fair”. The “flower fair” is a large folk song gathering, also called “singing the mountain”. The mountain hua'er, commonly called the dry hua'er, the mountain tune or the wild flower, is a representative folk-song genre widely sung in the Hui areas of settlement of Ningxia. It has inherited certain features of the ancient mountain songs of the Longshan region (the unaccompanied song, the antiphonal song and the standing song). The composite and pluralistic culture has made these mountain songs display more the features of a transitional and marginal culture, and the widely sung Hui mountain hua'er is the most representative of them, with a broad mass base and rich folk-cultural content. The mountain hua'er belongs basically to the form of singing for one's own entertainment or of singing within a small circle; on the basis of inheriting the “three lines to a stanza” of the ancient Longshan folk song it is mostly sung by improvising words to a single short song. In its music it inherits the four-tone and pentatonic zhi-mode features of the ancient Longshan unaccompanied song and absorbs many elements from the Xintianyou, the hill-climbing tune, the Taomin hua'er, the Hehuang hua'er and Islamic tonalities, making much use of pentatonic winding progressions. Representative pieces of the Ningxia Hui hua'er include An Ox Drinks on the Bank of the Yellow River, One Visit to My Sweetheart and The Hua'er Is the Speech of the Heart.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Hua'er is a mountain-song kind widely current among the eight ethnic groups—Hui, Han, Tu, Dongxiang, Bao'an, Salar, Tibetan and Yugur—of the four provinces and regions of Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. It is always sung in the local Chinese dialect and may be sung only outside the villages and stockades; it is commonly called a “wild song” (as opposed to the “home song”, that is, the banquet song) and is also known as the “youth”.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Hua'er · Hua'er · Hua'er · Hua'er · Hua'er · Hua'er · Hua'er · Hua'er · Hua'er · Hua'er.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The mountain hua'er is distinctively marked in literature and music, distinctive in style and strong in local colour, preserving the rough and unrestrained character of the mountain wild song while also tending towards the smooth and beautiful flavour of the minor tune. It is a vivid expression of the Hui culture of the Ningxia region and possesses research value in ethnology and folklore; the three lines to a stanza and the rhyming double-character endings of the mountain hua'er are a relatively distinctive folk-song form of the Longshan region and have relatively high literary value. At present those who can master many pieces and styles of the mountain hua'er are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns, and most are already past seventy; the natural bond of transmission has broken down and survives only faintly, while the impact of modernization makes its characteristically local culture drain away unceasingly, so that the survival of the mountain hua'er is in crisis and must draw the attention of the quarters concerned. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Ma Shenglin, male, Dongxiang, born 1942, a native of Haiyuan, Ningxia. Several dozen hua'er and minor tunes sung by him in 1992 were collected into the Chinese Folk-Song Compendium. His singing style is high and powerful and rich, his timbre distinctive, and he is skilled at improvising both tunes and words. His representative works include The Ox-Fellow Tune and The Black Cat Lies on the Stove. He is a representative bearer of the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the hua'er (Ningxia Hui mountain hua'er). In 1986 he took part in the song fair of the eight provinces and regions of the Yellow River basin and was awarded the title of “outstanding folk singer”. Zhang Mingxing: he loved folk music from childhood and from the age of seven learned minor tunes and hua'er with the three old uncles of his village and with such artists as Ma Rulu. At the same time he humbly learned from other artists and widely accumulated and enriched his own singing repertory, forming a personal singing character. He can also sing meihu tunes and Qinqiang, and is skilled at playing the Hui folk instruments the niwawu and the zhumimi. Years of tempering formed a singing style high, rough and bold and full of local colour and the flavour of life, its greatest feature being that he can improvise and sing hua'er and minor tunes of his own making. In 1964 he took part as a performer of the Ningxia delegation in the national amateur artistic festival of the minority nationalities. In the 1980s he provided a great deal of detailed first-hand material for the Ningxia volume of the Chinese Folk-Song Compendium and the Ningxia volume of the Chinese Folk-Ballad Compendium. Male, Hui, born October 1940, died June 2012, a native of Guyuan city, Ningxia Hui autonomous region. He is a representative bearer of the third batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the hua'er (Ningxia Hui mountain hua'er).

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Ma Jinshan 02-0241
• Ma Delin 02-0242
• Ma Mingshan 02-0243
• Zhao Cunlu 02-0244
• Zhang Yingzhi 02-0245
• Wang Cunfu 02-0246
• Ma Shenglin 02-0247
• Wang Lianlian 03-0819
• Liu Guocheng 03-0820
• Zhang Mingxing 03-0821
• Han Shengyuan 03-0822
• Su Ping 05-2040
• Li Guiying 05-2041
• Wang Deqin 05-2042
• Ma Handong 05-2043
• Wang Xiufang 05-2044
• Song Baoyuan
• Zhang Jianjun
• Wen Xianglian

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Hua'er (Ningxia) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Ma Shenglin · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Zhang Mingxing · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗