Disclaimer: This post was originally written in Chinese and translated into English by GPT-5.2.
“Poetry is where the will goes: in the heart it is will; when expressed in words it is poetry. Emotion is stirred within and takes form in words; when words are not enough, therefore one sighs; when sighing is not enough, therefore one sings; when singing is not enough, without knowing it the hands dance and the feet tread.” This passage from the “Preface” to “Guanju” in The Book of Songs · Zhou Nan · Guanju · Preface excellently reveals the essence of art as a means of emotional catharsis (catharsis). The so-called “expressing one’s will,” “sighing,” “singing and chanting,” “hands dancing and feet treading,” and so on, all refer to the essential function of art: the release of emotion. We often say that art reflects reality, yet art can often be independent of, or rise above, reality. In fact, as to “reflecting reality,” we might as well understand it as a kind of emotional need for people to express their own understanding of reality. As a kind of spiritual creation and spiritual entertainment in the daily leisure of ordinary people, folk ballads have the characteristics of being close to life, catchy and smooth, and easy to sing, pass on, and memorize—very much in line with our understanding of the cathartic essence of art. These characteristics promote the dissemination and popularity of folk ballads, enabling them to gain a broad audience, and widely reflecting all aspects of the everyday life of ordinary people, expressing their genuine joys, anger, sorrows, and delights—this ultimately forms a virtuous cycle. Folk ballads are undoubtedly one of the most important components of folk literature.
This is the attitude we adopted when reading Compilation of Chinese Ballads • Fujian Volume • Fuzhou Subvolume (hereinafter referred to as the “Subvolume”). Beginning in 1984, the Central Ministry of Culture, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, and the China Folklore Association jointly organized and led the compilation of the three sets of folk literature compilations (Compilation of Chinese Folk Tales, Compilation of Chinese Ballads, Compilation of Chinese Proverbs), and this book was produced in this context. Starting in the summer of 1988, thousands of collecting teams spent nearly three years going deep into Fuzhou’s five districts and eight counties to carry out specific and meticulous folk-song collection work, and this book was finally officially published in the summer of 1990. As part of the three sets of folk literature compilations, the Compilation of Chinese Ballads embodies the important status of folk ballads in folk literature; and the fact that the collection work was carried out in the name of “collecting teams” embodies the characteristic that folk ballads broadly reflect the real lives of ordinary people. All of these corroborate what we said above. In terms of content, the “Subvolume” confirms this point in a concrete, microcosmic way:
In terms of time, the “Subvolume” collected folk-ballad works from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties through to New China, across various historical periods; proportionally, those from the late Qing, the Republic of China, and New China predominate. In terms of geography, the “Subvolume” collected folk-ballad works from Fuzhou’s five districts and eight counties, and even the rural areas under each county; proportionally, those from Fuzhou’s urban and suburban areas predominate, such as Gulou District and Taijiang District. The uneven distribution of folk ballads across time and region may reflect certain facts—for example, that folk ballads experienced a flourishing period in the modern and contemporary era, and that folk ballads developed more fully in urban areas with higher levels of economic development, and so on. The “Preface” of this book puts it this way: “Fuzhou traditional folk songs, due to tampering and devastation by rulers of successive dynasties, have mostly been lost; at present, only a small part from the middle and late Tang and the Five Dynasties has been preserved. The ballads that have been preserved owe much to being closely related and intimately connected to current affairs in their content.” Of course, these are beyond the scope of this article, and we are unable to verify them. What we can be certain of is that, as a reflection of the real lives of ordinary people, the vitality of folk ballads lies in the accuracy and authenticity of that reflection. In other words, the content of folk ballads is a mirror of the appearance of the era in which they exist. Only when this mirror can still accurately reflect the true face of a certain era will people continue to preserve it.
According to this book’s classification, these folk ballads can be divided into eight major categories. Below are the notes the author made while reading these folk ballads:
Labor songs. Labor songs can further be divided into: field songs, fishing songs, herding songs, weaving, tea songs, salt songs, grazing songs, boatmen’s songs, water songs, urban labor songs, and even include the Min River waterborne boat people’s New Year congratulatory songs (i.e., the ballads sung by the Dan people when they go ashore at New Year and go door to door begging for guo), involving all aspects of every laboring stratum of society. These work songs: ① some enthusiastically praise the value of labor, mainly agricultural admonitory ballads, whose authors generally come from or represent the ruling stratum, such as Yan Renyu’s Tang work Zan Nong Qu and Huang Yan’s Five Dynasties work Quan Nong Ge. Of course there are also those created by ordinary people, such as the She ethnic group’s Nongshi Ge, which is divided into twelve sections from January to December; each section repeats the sentence “I urge you sisters to be willing to work,” and the ballad ends with the line “When the farm work is finished, it’s good to celebrate the New Year.” ② some depict the arduous labor scenes of ordinary laborers, often simultaneously reflecting their bitter, lowly lives and fates. There are many ballads of this type, such as Gengniu Yao, which, borrowing the image of an ox made to do whatever others command, expresses the tragic reality that peasants are exploited to the utmost yet still have no livelihood; and Changnian Shi, which writes from the first lunar month all the way to the twelfth, expressing the “year-round hard fate” of farm laborers. Of course there are also ballads such as Zhibu Ge, Fangfa Ge, and Kanchai Ge that merely reflect labor scenes and the whole process or part of the process of work. ③ Quite a few of the ballads collected in the “Subvolume” are actually unrelated to labor, and merely reflect the special status of certain laborers; the best example is the Min River waterborne boat people’s New Year congratulatory songs. Interestingly, the “Subvolume” also includes a Jiaoshu Xiansheng, reflecting the harsh reality that a teacher works hard teaching, yet once the child is taught well, the parents only praise their own child as “ge ye tong” (smart), and not only do they not acknowledge the teacher’s contribution, they immediately want to hire a “Juren Bo” to be the teacher instead. This shows the broad social scope reflected by labor songs.
Current-affairs songs. Current-affairs songs, as the name implies, are ballads composed in response to current affairs and have a strong sense of the times. For example, the middle and late Tang Huangmi Yiban Chu Minjiang reflects the severe taxation of the time through the exaggerated statement “Min people eat the bitterest of bitterness; even in a good year they must endure famine.” The Ming Tao Houtong He Da Fang reflects the historical fact that Tao Houtong impeached Xue Dafang and ultimately won. Just as we discussed earlier, the ballads included in the “Subvolume” are concentrated in time from the late Qing to New China, and the current-affairs songs are the same. Ballads about the Mawei Naval Battle, ballads about the Xinhai Revolution, class-struggle songs, Anti-Japanese Fuzhou ballads, and eulogistic songs form the main body of the current-affairs songs, respectively expressing the understanding and attitudes of ordinary people in different periods toward the political situation and political events of their time, and possessing strong historical material value. These current-affairs songs have clear positions; in many cases one can distinguish the author’s loves and hates and views simply from the titles, such as [Qing, Qianlong] Xiangshen Huaide Hen, [late Qing] Jiuguo Shi Quan Ge, Welcome Sun Yat-sen, Song Advocating Cutting the Queue, Ten Hatreds of the Rich, Anti-Wo Song, Go Find the People’s Liberation Army, When the Communist Party Comes, Laugh Ha-ha, and so on.
Ritual songs. Ritual songs mainly involve various rites in folk weddings, funerals, festive occasions, and superstitious activities—either direct descriptions of such rites, or ballads required to be sung in such rites. However, the internal components of the ritual songs in the “Subvolume” are complex; they often do not involve any description of any specific rite, but purely express some kind of folk belief or superstition. For example, Lao Ya Qi Yao Yao: “The crow goes ya-ya, flying from treetop to beneath the tree; everyone is safe—why must you caw in chaos?” expresses the old Fuzhou superstition that crows are inauspicious. One way to avert misfortune is to sing this ballad to the crow when one encounters its cawing. Another example is Jia Que Qi Ka Ka: “The magpie goes ka-ka (sound of joyous chirping), carrying comes, shouldering comes; empty-handed guests, don’t come.” It merely expresses the host’s wish that, under the auspicious omen of magpies bringing good news, the guests who come will all bring fine gifts. These are unrelated to rites, and are not even ballads that must be sung under some rite—unless we call the act of singing itself a rite. It can be seen that the concept of “ritual songs” here is used very broadly, to the point that even seasonal-festival songs are included. But according to our examination, none of these seasonal-festival songs has any relation to rites; rather, they simply contain seasonal knowledge, such as Fengzai Ge, Dragon Lantern Dance on the Fifteenth of the First Month, Twelve Seasonal Songs, New Year’s Eve Song, Idle Songs of the Twelve Months, and so on. Also listed under ritual songs are “songs of propriety, customs, death, and chastity,” such as Why Are Women Not People and Song of Keeping Chastity by Marrying into the Household, which are also not ritual songs. The ritual songs that truly fit our definition are ballads about wedding proprieties and celebrations, and they constitute the main body of ritual songs. Only a small number of these ballads involve descriptions of rites, such as Song of the Bride’s Companion Sister-in-law, Song of the Groom Lifting the Hair, and Singing at the Hall-Bowing, but most can only be regarded as ballads sung during wedding ceremonies. This shows that in the Fuzhou dialect, ritual songs more often refer to ballads related to rites rather than ballads describing rites.
Love songs. As an important carrier for expressing feelings between men and women, love songs include antiphonal “pan poetry” songs, questioning songs, admiring songs, longing songs, mutual-love songs, farewell songs, ill-fated-love songs, and so on. Compared with other types of folk ballads, love songs are more antiphonal, or rather, have a clearer singing addressee; pan poetry songs are the best example. Pan poetry songs, also called antiphonal songs, are ballads in which “two people or more take turns singing antiphonally; there are no fixed lyrics, but there is a certain tune.” Pan poetry is generally doggerel; the lyrics answer according to the other party’s questions. Typical representatives include Ge Tan and Pan Shige; these songs have questions and answers and are highly interactive. But if judged by this standard, the songs included under questioning songs—If the Sky Falls, Brother Dares to Bear It, The Tangerine Falls into the Ancient Well’s Heart, Brother and Sister Q&A, To Sister, Always One Heart—can also be regarded as antiphonal Q&A songs, because in form these ballads all have two roles, A and B, singing responsively. Love songs generally have a clear singing object; the reason is easy to understand and needs no elaboration. For example, In Life, Affection and Righteousness Are Worth a Thousand Gold is divided into ten sections; every two sections repeat once “Sing songs, mountain songs, for sister to hear” and “Singing mountain songs is truly pleasant to hear,” for a total of five times. Folk love songs differ from love songs created by ordinary literati: the language is plain and the emotions are direct, embodying a strong folk character. For example, Thunder God and Lightning Entwine Straight (III): “Brother and sister agreed the moon would ‘come’ (lai) above the pear; the moon has risen but brother does not ‘come.’ Either at sister’s home the moon comes out early (cuo: home), or at brother’s home the moon comes out late.” Climb the Tree to Catch Birds and Sing: “…Sister’s words, every sentence fragrant. Going out for three days without bringing rice, I take thoughts of sister’s words as dry rations.” The techniques used by folk ballads in artistic expression are often simple, even to the point that there are no special techniques to speak of; this is profoundly embodied in the widespread use of “numerical rhetoric.” By “numerical rhetoric” here is meant a method of expressing feelings and meaning more hierarchically and orderly by using numbers or ordinal-like words. For example, the labor song Ten Chants of Fish Names has ten sections, each beginning with “one round of gongs and cannons,” “two rounds of gongs and cannons” … “ten rounds of gongs and cannons,” introducing ten kinds of local fish in Fuzhou. The current-affairs song Patriotic Song puts forward a total of “ten hopes” (“first hope… tenth hope”), reflecting the wish of Fuzhou folk to oppose Yuan Shikai’s signing of Japan’s Twenty-One Demands and the corresponding measures. The ritual song Song of Flower Names for the Twelve Months’ Solar Terms describes, from the “first month” to the “twelfth month,” the main flower varieties in Fuzhou in different months of the year. “Numerical rhetoric” is also used extremely widely in love songs, such as Ten Lychees, Ten Incense Threads Bless Brother, Ten Glances at the Lad, Ten Thoughts of Sister, Ten Send-offs for the Gentleman, and so on, vividly expressing the love-song authors’ complex and delicate emotions. The following two songs particularly embody the importance of “numerical rhetoric” to Fuzhou love songs; “numerical rhetoric” being used to this degree is rare in the entire “Subvolume”: the song Bidding Sister Farewell even sings from “bidding sister farewell at the first stop” all the way to “bidding sister farewell at the twentieth stop”; in the song Record of Reunion, after “Sister respectfully sings ten cups of wine,” it is followed by nine sections of “second urging to drink… tenth urging to drink”; after urging to drink, there come fifteen sections of “first stop bidding sister farewell… fifteenth stop bidding sister farewell”; and as sister misses her gentleman deeply, she “looks for brother” from the first day to the tenth day; when brother returns after three years, he “buys… twelve buys” to “buy several gifts” for sister. Beyond this, love songs to some extent also reflect the unequal experiences of the poor being bullied by the rich, such as the two songs Bao Lang Mei and Deng Lang Mei. “Deng lang mei” and “bao lang mei” are two kinds of child brides in Fuzhou’s feudal society: in the former, the rich, to spruce up appearances and add labor power, would buy a wife in advance for a child not yet born; in the latter, when the infant is one year old or two or three years old, a wife is married in and made to perform the wedding bows with him. Deng Lang Mei reflects the tragic fate of the waiting-child-bride who “waits for her husband until fifty-seven” from childhood, showing how deeply the feudal system suppressed human nature.
Life songs. Life songs are an important component of Fuzhou folk ballads; in terms of size, they occupy slightly more than one-fifth of the “Subvolume,” making them the largest proportion among Fuzhou folk-ballad types. Life songs broadly reflect the daily lives of ordinary people in the Fuzhou region, and their understanding of and attitudes toward such lives. There are world-of-men songs reflecting poor people being single, baby girls being drowned, matchmakers speaking recklessly in arranging marriages, and stepmothers being biased and cruel; there are satirical songs mocking hooligans (male ruffians), Taoist priests, newlyweds, lazy wives, early marriage, shrews, and plague gods; there are admonitory songs expressing life philosophy, advocating diligence, frugality, endurance, harmony, and exhorting bridegrooms and brides; in addition, there are anti-gambling and anti-opium songs, overseas-Chinese-hometown songs, and Fuzhou-city commercial songs reflecting the characteristics of the times and the region. They are too numerous to list, and the scope of reflection is very broad. Especially the overseas-Chinese-hometown songs, such as Record of Nanyang (also known as Overseas Chinese Tears), Ten Send-offs for the Gentleman to the Foreign Lands, and Going Abroad Record, not only detail the specific routes and methods by which lower-class people in Fuzhou had to embark on the road of leaving the country and home to escape poverty, as well as the spirit of striving behind it, but also vividly portray the pain of parting from loved ones and the pain of longing caused by leaving one’s native place. Since ancient times, Fuzhou has been “eight parts mountains, one part water, and one part fields,” with relatively backward farming conditions. This backward level of agricultural production, together with its near-sea geographical position suitable for commerce, led Fuzhou to form a regional character of being willing to endure hardship and daring to strive; Fuzhou’s many overseas-Chinese hometowns are historical phenomena formed under this regional character and specific periods. But in general, life songs are important materials for studying the lives of ordinary people in Fuzhou and their attitudes toward life, and should be treated seriously.
Historical-legend songs. Historical-legend songs overlap somewhat with current-affairs songs. They mainly reflect some local historical story songs, historical figure songs, and legend story songs circulating in Fuzhou; these ballads reflect ordinary people’s understanding of certain historical phenomena and historical figures in Fuzhou, and thus also have the characteristics of current-affairs songs in reflecting and criticizing current events. These historical-legend songs have strong Fuzhou regional characteristics; the historical stories and historical figures they reflect are all local to Fuzhou, with well-known ones such as Wang Shenzhi, Qi Jiguang, Lin Zexu, and so on. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the Fuzhou historical story songs collected in the “Subvolume” (Every Word and Sentence Is an Ancient Person’s Name, Ten Characters Sing Ancient People, Ten Chants of Ancient People’s Names) are all compiled based on widely known historical figures and their famous deeds, showing a distinct function of historical education.
Children’s songs. The children’s songs in the “Subvolume” are divided into four types: game songs, knowledge-teaching songs, riddle songs, and others. These ballads are full of childlike interest; the language is simple, the rhythm harmonious, the ideas pure, the length short; phrase repetition and symmetrical structures are common, making them very conducive to children’s singing and memorization. For example, Sitting in the Hand Sedan Chair: “You lift the chair, I lift the chair, I sit in the sedan chair and bounce, bounce; no pulling in front, no pushing behind, lifting back and forth, walking to both sides.” ‘Auntie’ Calls, Lychees Turn Red: “‘Auntie’ (summer cicada) calls, lychees turn red; frogs call, hug the fire basket.” In addition, because children’s songs are conducive to children’s singing and memorization, some children’s songs may produce regional variants during transmission. For example, Gulou District’s Go! Go! Go!: “Go! Go! Go! Go to Fuzhou city. In Fuzhou do business, Penghai golden-money crabs. Crab claws, invite the in-laws. Crab hands, invite friends. Friends arrive, all congratulate. Congratulating friends, you one jiao, I half a piece.” When transmitted to (or conversely) Cangshan District, it becomes Walk Walk Walk: “Walk walk walk, walk to Fuzhou city. In Fuzhou do business, Penghai golden-money crabs. Crab claws invite the in-laws, crab hands invite friends. Friends arrive, invite the learned Way. Learned Way friends, you one ridge I half a piece.” This kind of change produced by transmission is manifested in different word choices and pauses, but the imitative relationship between the two is very obvious. From the perspective of socio-cultural studies, this phenomenon of ballad dissemination and variation is undoubtedly an interesting topic worthy of research.
Miscellaneous songs and others. The ballads collected in this section are not further classified, including Zhen Niaozi (20 songs), Jia Quezi (6 songs), *Shao Feifei (30 songs)*, and *Selections from the long narrative ballad *. The content is extremely miscellaneous, and the classification criteria are also very vague and difficult to grasp. For example, *Zhen Niaozi* (I): “True little bird, pecking bo-bo; a three-year-old child can sing; it’s not that after weaning someone taught the servant to sing, it’s that in the servant’s belly all is song.” This is a children’s song widely circulated in Fuzhou and could be placed in the children’s songs category. In addition, the later *Shao Feifei (30 songs)* and *Selections from the long narrative ballad * are both literary creations; they may reflect the colloquial characteristics of spoken Fuzhou dialect at the time, but after all they are not folk ballads in the strict sense. The “Preface” of this book says: “These two groups of rhymed texts, because they have circulated among the people for a long time, although they are not folk songs, they have enjoyed the treatment of folk songs, entered common people’s homes, won fame at home and abroad, and are Fuzhou specialties, so we record them.” This reflects the complexity of the criteria for identifying folk songs.
All in all, although the “Subvolume” has problems in classification, we still believe that it fairly well embodies the basic appearance of Fuzhou folk ballads and has great significance for documentary research on Fuzhou folk literature. These problems should, to a large extent, be attributed to the complexity of folk-ballad classification itself and the insufficiency of research in this area. That the “Subvolume” can comprehensively include these ballads and carry out a rough classification already marks a major advance in Fuzhou folk ballads. But as for comprehensive and detailed research on these ballads, we still have a long road ahead.
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