Xiabaoping Folk Tales
01 · Historical Records
On 8 June 2005 the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association named him a Chinese folk story-teller.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xiabaoping township of Yiling district, Yichang, Hubei, lies among the high mountains on the north bank of the Xiling gorge of the Yangzi. Since ancient times it has been prosperous and stable, its education and culture relatively flourishing, but its communications very inconvenient. According to surveys more than two thousand folk stories circulate in Xiabaoping township and its surroundings. There are more than a hundred people here who can tell over fifty stories, of whom more than twenty can tell over a hundred and four can tell over two hundred. Liu Defang, a peasant of Tanjiaping village now sixty-seven, can tell more than four hundred stories and can also sing more than a million characters of mountain songs, weeding gong-and-drum songs, funeral drum songs, flower-drum opera and shadow puppetry. Among the stories Liu Defang tells, for instance, more than a hundred contain literary forms such as poetry and couplets, elegant and refined. The story series of the hired hand Dong Guotian and the story series of the bricklayer Chen, told separately, are several hundred short stories; taken together they are two vast works, something rare among folk stories.
Laughter in the Wild Mountains
The folk story collection of Liu Defang, representative of the Xiabaoping folk stories.
The Story Series of the Hired Hand Dong Guotian
A story series that is several hundred short stories separately and a great work when taken together.
The Story Series of the Bricklayer Chen
A story series standing alongside that of the hired hand.
Liu Defang's Jokes
Side-splitting folk jokes, published as the disc Liu Defang's Joke House.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Special geographical, economic, cultural and historical conditions formed a special environment for the growth and transmission of local folk culture, so that the folk-cultural deposit is very rich. Xiabaoping township folk stories have many original-ecological works, most with distinctive local features, and the stories are of relatively high cultural taste.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association and the Hubei and Yichang federations have made eight investigations and held academic discussions, holding that the Xiabaoping township folk stories represented by Liu Defang's story collection Laughter in the Wild Mountains are the epitome of the folk literature of the Three Gorges dam area—Yiling district of Yichang and the whole Three Gorges region—with relatively high academic and appreciative value. But at present the outstanding transmitters of Xiabaoping folk stories are mostly advanced in years and the younger generation is ever less interested in stories, so that the transmission of Xiabaoping folk stories is on the verge of dying out.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Liu Defang 01-0013
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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