Wenshuiguzi
01 · Historical Records
Wenshui chizi is a distinctive folk genre transmitted within Wenshui County; because it originates in and circulates mainly around the Yuecun area, it is also called Yuecun chizi. Yuecun chizi originated in prayers for rain and is closely bound up with the production methods and life customs of the local people.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Yuecun in Wenshui County lies beside the old official road at the foot of the Lvliang Mountains, on the western edge of the Taiyuan Basin. Oral accounts show that Yuecun chizi was originally transmitted as ritual music for prayers for rain. Because the rain-praying ritual held a distinctive place in the production and life of the local people, chizi music on the one hand was handed down from generation to generation with the culture of praying for rain and was used by the local people as sacrificial music, thereby keeping the dignity of ritual music; on the other hand it gradually combined with the life customs of the people and became the processional music used in welcoming the gods and holding community offerings and in everyday reception of guests. The instruments used in chizi music are the small cymbals, the large cymbals, the large nao and the large drum, known as the thunder-god drum; their different combinations, the distinctive striking method and the performing posture give the music its unique sonority. Chizi has a strong flavour of the loess region; its style is bold and sonorous, rough and unrestrained, simple and weighty. It is a miniature of the sacrificial and rain-praying culture of the ancient working people of China and carries on the essence of Huaxia farming culture.
Lei Gong Shan Dian
Through collecting and sorting, chizi music now has such pieces as 'Thunder God and Lightning', 'Rolling Dark Clouds', 'Abundant Rain Falls' and 'Joyful Harvest'.
Wu Yun Fan Gun
Through collecting and sorting, chizi music now has such pieces as 'Thunder God and Lightning', 'Rolling Dark Clouds', 'Abundant Rain Falls' and 'Joyful Harvest'.
Pu Jiang Gan Lin
Through collecting and sorting, chizi music now has such pieces as 'Thunder God and Lightning', 'Rolling Dark Clouds', 'Abundant Rain Falls' and 'Joyful Harvest'.
Xi Qing Feng Shou
Through collecting and sorting, chizi music now has such pieces as 'Thunder God and Lightning', 'Rolling Dark Clouds', 'Abundant Rain Falls' and 'Joyful Harvest'.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
There are two explanations for why the local people call this folk genre 'chizi': first, because the small cymbals, the distinctive instrument used in its performance, are locally called chizi; second, because it is named after the sound, 'chizi', that is produced when the small cymbals are struck. The local people use 'zhen' to refer to the changes of formation in a performance of chizi music: flowing formations such as 'two dragons emerging from the water' and 'two dragons playing with a pearl', and fixed formations such as the 'square formation' and the 'rhombus formation', which correspond very closely to the content of praying for rain. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Yuecun chizi came into wide use and was given new content; it became a form of folk art dear to the local people, its influence gradually spread from Yuecun to the whole of Wenshui County, and it became 'Wenshui chizi'.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Through collecting and sorting, chizi music now has such pieces as 'Thunder God and Lightning', 'Rolling Dark Clouds', 'Abundant Rain Falls' and 'Joyful Harvest'. After years of restoration and sorting, Wenshui chizi music has taken part many times in national competitions and won honours repeatedly; it is praised as 'the outstanding wonder among the gong-and-drum music of the Three Jin provinces' and has become the signature of the traditional art of Wenshui County. Wu Jiwen (official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han nationality, born in September 1952, a native of Wenshui County, Shanxi Province. Since the 1980s he has devoted himself to the collecting, sorting, transmission and development of Wenshui chizi; after decades of continuous effort he has successively arranged the four movements 'Thunder Roars and Lightning Flashes', 'Rolling Dark Clouds', 'Abundant Rain Falls' and 'Joyful Harvest', and has led the Wenshui chizi art troupe to take part in competitions and performances of various types, carrying out transmission teaching and research through the method of training by performing. In recent years he has taken an active part in bringing intangible cultural heritage into schools, lecturing to and demonstrating for young students and widening the audience for Wenshui chizi; he has also cooperated voluntarily with universities on in-depth research and development, working together to promote the transmission and development of Wenshui chizi. Representative inheritor of the third national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage item Wenshui chizi.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wu Jiwen 03-0854
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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