She Xiaoshuoge
01 · Historical Records
The She novel song originated in Bailukeng village of Hounan town, Xiapu county, Fujian. The novel song began in the Qing, when the more literate of the She singers adapted Han chapter-novels and pinghua librettos into oral and manuscript songbooks of their own people, and later works were created on the basis of the deeds of heroes circulated among the She and combined with the life, psychology and language of the people, such as The Song of Emperor Gao, The Song of Successive Dynasties, Zhong Liangbi, The White Snake, The Song of Ten Worthies, Zhong Jingqi and Lan Tianyu, so that the novel song took shape. The late Qing and early Republican period was the heyday of the novel song, with many singers.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Bailukeng is the area with the densest She population and the richest cultural deposit and may be called the first village of eastern Fujian. As a long story song the novel song is a unique literary form and cultural vehicle created by the She people. In content the She novel songs are mostly drawn from the stories circulating in Chinese folk opera and narrative-singing and differ from the She's ordinary miscellaneous songs. Their basic poetic features are: first, a strong narrative quality with plot; second, a strict structural method, each piece made up of many individual songs, each individual song having four lines of seven characters, like the Chinese seven-character quatrain; third, the use of various techniques to give artistic treatment to the characters; and fourth, the author's signature cleverly hidden at the end of the song. Because the She novel songs are rich in content and varied in form, bright in language and harmonious in rhyme, using no allusions and indulging in no exaggeration or embellishment, fusing narration, description of things and lyric expression into one and plain yet true, they are widely recognised by the She people. They are not only the essence of She songs but also the most representative cultural form of the She and the most distinctive artistic category of eastern Fujian. The novel song occupies an important place in the cultural and literary history of the She and is a progressive product in the development of She culture. There survive a hundred and thirty manuscript and oral novel songs.
The Song of Emperor Gao
A representative novel song of the She, recounting the legend of the She ancestral founder.
Zhong Liangbi
A She novel song created from the deeds of a hero of the people.
The White Snake
A She novel song adapted from Han chapter-novels and pinghua librettos.
The Song of Successive Dynasties
A novel song narrating the rise and fall of successive dynasties.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The She novel song takes Bailukeng of Xiapu, Fujian, as its centre and circulates in the She-concentrated areas of eastern Fujian and southern Zhejiang; sung in the She language, with one singing and the crowd responding, it is mostly performed at ancestor worship, weddings, festivals and farm slack seasons, the tunes and pieces differing somewhat from place to place.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Zhong Changyao, a surviving transmitter of the song king, both sings and transmits songs and collects folk songs; he has so far collected more than a hundred and sixty passages and more than a million characters of She songs, and has collated more than five hundred including novel songs. But Zhong Changyao is now seventy-three and needs a transmitter to continue his work. At present the transmitters of the novel song are daily decreasing and the creation of novel songs has basically stopped, so that the related work of salvage and protection urgently needs to begin.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhong Changyao 04-1496
- Lei Guosheng
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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