Chuanjiang Work Songs
01 · Historical Records
The Chuanjiang work songs have an extremely long history. Chongqing has enjoyed the benefit of boats since ancient times, and the historical records of successive ages record this abundantly; the Neolithic “stone anchors” and the Eastern Han “tracking figures” unearthed one after another on both banks of the river corroborate the long history of the river-transport industry of the Chuan river. The work songs arose with wooden-boat shipping, with the call leader leading the singing and the boatmen answering, and took settled form through transmission from generation to generation.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Chuanjiang work song is a folk singing form of the one-leading-the-many-responding kind, in which the boatmen of the Chuan river, to unify their movements and rhythm, have the call leader lead the singing while the boatmen answer and join in chorus. The Chuanjiang work songs arose precisely in this peculiar geographical environment. They include the upstream work songs and the downstream work songs. The upstream work songs include the pole-punting chantey, the oar-pulling chantey, the mast-raising chantey, the sail-hoisting chantey and the tracking chantey; the downstream work songs include the towing chantey, the boat-starting chantey, the calm-water chantey, the second-rate oar chantey, the fast second-rate oar chantey, the yao-er-san exchange chantey, the shoal-sighting chantey, the shoal-breaking chantey and the shoal-descending chantey—thus forming a musical culture of the Chuan river system with scores of categories and thousands of pieces. Representative pieces include Eighteen Fooling Around, Eight Brothers Return to Camp, Sister Gui Writes a Letter and the Kuixing Tower, and also the Tracking Chantey, the Cable-Hauling Chantey, the Oar Chantey, the Bracing Chantey, the Great Turtle Dove and the Little Turtle Dove. The Chuanjiang work songs have an extremely long history and are the most distinctive among the labour chanteys of Sichuan. Chongqing and Sichuan have enjoyed the benefit of boats since ancient times, and the historical records of successive ages record this abundantly. The humanistic geography, local customs, natural scenery on both banks of the Chuan river and the custom of assisting labour with song in river transport are themes used without decline both in folk ballads and in the poetry of such men of letters as Du Fu and Li Bai. Scholarship generally holds that the Chuanjiang work songs are a cultural treasure of the history of Yangtze water transport and a song of life cast from the blood and sweat of the boatmen in their struggle with dangerous shoals and evil waters, with the features of a long history of transmission, rich categories and pieces, high and vehement tunes, the one-leading-the-many-responding form and singing without accompaniment.
Eighteen Fooling Around
A representative piece of the Chuanjiang work songs.
Eight Brothers Return to Camp
A representative piece of the Chuanjiang work songs.
Sister Gui Writes a Letter
A representative piece of the Chuanjiang work songs.
The Kuixing Tower
A representative piece of the Chuanjiang work songs.
The Upstream Work Songs (Punt, Oar-Pull, Mast-Raise and Others)
The upstream work-song system including the pole-punting, oar-pulling, mast-raising, sail-hoisting and tracking chanteys.
The Downstream Work Songs (Calm Water, Shoal-Sighting, Shoal-Breaking and Others)
The downstream work-song system including the calm-water, second-rate oar, shoal-sighting, shoal-breaking and shoal-descending chanteys.
The One-Leading-the-Many-Responding and Unaccompanied Forms
The unaccompanied feature in which the call leader leads the singing while the boatmen answer and join in chorus, with no instrumental accompaniment.
Chongqing's “Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Schools” and School-Based Textbooks
The practice of bearers such as Cao Guangyu compiling school-based textbooks and carrying out weekly transmission in the schools.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Chuanjiang work songs circulate mainly in the basins of the Jinsha river, the Yangtze and its tributaries the Min, Tuo, Jialing and Wu rivers and the Daning river. The channel here is winding, the mountains steep, the water swift and the shoals many, and the water level drops greatly over the whole course; especially in passing out of Sichuan through the perilous Three Gorges the boatmen can hardly move a step. Its existence essentially embodies the unyielding spirit of struggle of the working people of the Chuan river basins through the ages in the face of a harsh natural environment, and their character—bold and unrestrained yet not without humour.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Chuanjiang Work Songs.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Chongqing and eastern Sichuan are the main birthplace and place of transmission of the Chuanjiang work songs. In recent years the Neolithic “stone anchors” and Eastern Han “tracking figures” and other cultural relics unearthed one after another on both banks of the river corroborate the long history of the river-transport industry of the Chuan river. At the same time, in musical form and content its development is relatively complete, with very high cultural and historical value. With the spread of motorized iron ships, the manually powered boats run in some bays of the main stream and in small tributary rivers, and the basis for the survival and development of the Chuanjiang work songs has begun to totter; together with such factors as the break in transmission, the Chuanjiang work songs face the predicament of endangerment. Saving and protecting the Chuanjiang work songs and letting them be handed down from generation to generation among the people will play a positive role in enriching and developing the water-system musical culture of China and even of the world. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Cao Guangyu, male, Han, born January 1964, a native of Chongqing. He has long engaged in the transmission and dissemination of the Chuanjiang work songs, collecting and sorting nearly a hundred Chuanjiang work-song tunes, and has created such Chuanjiang work-song stage pieces as When the Boat Reaches the Wharf, Drink Some Wine, Braving Wind and Rain, The Boat Rests at the Three Gorges and Longs for Home and Counting the City Gates. Since 2012 he has persisted in taking part once a week in “intangible cultural heritage in the schools”, and has completed the compilation of a school-based textbook of the Chuanjiang work songs for Renmin Road in Yuzhong district, Chongqing. He is a representative bearer of the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Chuanjiang work songs. He has won the first prize of the national fishing-song and work-song contest, the fifteenth and sixteenth Wenhua awards of the Ministry of Culture and the gold prize of the folk-song section and the special award for ethnic style of the eighth Brahms international choral competition, and has successively taken part in the closing performance of the fifth Asia-Pacific city mayors' summit and, leading the China Oriental Symphony Orchestra and the Song and Dance Ensemble of the General Political Department, in the great symphonic chorus Ode to the Chuan River.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Cao Guangyu 05-2046
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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