Memory Making in Folk Epics of China: The Intimate and the Local in Chinese Regional Culture 1621966453, 9781621966456

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China

Memory Making in Folk Epics of China The Intimate and the Local in Chinese Regional Culture

Anne E. McLaren           Cambria Sinophone World Series General Editor: Victor H. Mair

Copyright 2022 Cambria Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to [email protected], or mailed to: Cambria Press, 100 Corporate Parkway, Suite 128, Amherst, New York 14226, USA. Image on front cover: Song pavilion on the banks of Fen Lake, Luxu. Photo by the author, May 2011. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: McLaren, Anne E. (Anne Elizabeth), author. Title: Memory making in folk epics of China : the intimate and the local in Chinese regional culture / Anne E. McLaren. Description: Amherst, New York : Cambria Press, 2022. | Series: Cambria Sinophone world series | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "This is the first book-length study in the West on the folk epics of the Han Chinese people, who are the majority population of China. These folk epics provide an unparalleled resource for understanding the importance of "the local" in Chinese culture, especially how rice-growing populations perceived their environment and relational world. The folk epics were sung by illiterate farmers while working in the rice paddy or boating along the waterways. It was believed that singing promoted crop fertility and that the rice-plant embodied a female rice spirit whose growth and development paralleled that of human sexuality and procreation. Regarded as "vulgar" due to its erotic content, this song tradition was marginalized and little understood. The erotic content is often removed in editions directed at a national readership. Employing perspectives from memory studies, eco-criticism, and the study of oral traditions, this book examines in detail five iconic folk epics. The author draws on interviews with contemporary song transmitters and ethnologists from the Lake Tai region, as well as a collection of singer transcripts and unedited song material"-- Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022020998 (print) | LCCN 2022020999 (ebook) | ISBN 9781621966456 (library binding) | ISBN 9781621966647 (pdf) | ISBN 9781621966654 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Folklore--China. | Folk songs--China. | Epic literature, Chinese--History and criticism. | Fertility--China--Folklore. | Rice--China--Folklore. | Oral tradition--China. Classification: LCC GR335 .M43 2022 (print) | LCC GR335 (ebook) | DDC 398.20951--dc23/eng/20220617 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020998 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020999

Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Chapter 1: Where Sky Meets Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 2: The Emergence Of The Lake Tai Folk Epics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Chapter 3: How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Chapter 4: Songs of Secret Passion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Chapter 5: Replacing the Bride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Chapter 6: The Song of “Hua Mountain Lifter” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Coda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Cambria Sinophone World Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Preface In twisting rice-chaff to make rope, it’s the beginning that is hard.1 Zhongguo Luxu shange ji Many mountain songs (shan’ge 山歌, or folk songs) of eastern China begin with these words, an acknowledgment by the singer that finding the words to begin is often the hardest part of the performance. Similarly, scholarly books are also difficult to begin. Here I will start with my personal “discovery” of the long narrative songs of the lower Yangzi Delta in November 2004, during a visit to Wuxi, Jiangsu province, organized by Chen Qinjian of Shanghai’s East China Normal University (ECNU). It was here that I met famed Dongting singer and song collector, Zhu Hairong, and a younger generation woman singer, Tang Jianqin. Zhu sung his favorite shan’ge in a rich, booming voice that echoed through the main hall of the Wuxi Culture Bureau, located by the shores of Yacheng Lake. It was this visit that alerted me to the existence of narrative songs of epic length sung by communities belonging to the majority Han ethnic group as distinct from the non-Han minorities. This project, the first English-language study of the folk epics of the lower Yangzi Delta, could not have been completed without the active assistance of Chen Qinjian, who offered concrete assistance with contacts, invitations, and field trips.

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I have benefited enormously from his advice over many years. Many thanks too to his colleagues and (former) postgraduate students who I have met at the ECNU such as Zheng Tuyou (the author of a major study of shan’ge in performance, now at Fudan University), Zhou Xiaoxia, and Zhang Yu (Emily). Zhang Yu spent six months at the University of Melbourne in 2010, assisting me with the translation of “Fifth Daughter” from the original Wu-language transcripts. We subsequently published an article on this folk epic.2 From May 23 to June 16, 2011, I traveled together with Zhang Yu to Lake Tai to investigate the transmission of the folk epic “Fifth Daughter.” At Luxu, Dingzha, and Taozhuang, we interviewed singers, folklorists, and cultural administrators. On a second trip, from May 10 to 19, 2014, we investigated the long narrative songs collected and arranged by Zhu Hairong of Wuxi, with a focus on the folk epic “Hua Mountain Lifter.” I am greatly indebted to Zhang Fanglan, a folklorist from Luxu, who helped to arrange both field trips and accompanied us at Luxu and Wuxi. He also presented us with original song transcripts of “Fifth Daughter.” Yang Wenying and Yang Jingwei, a sister-brother duo of the Luxu Culture Bureau, sang for us and explained the complexities of transmitting this cultural heritage to a new generation. At Luxu we also met singers Zhang Juemin, Ke Jinhai, and Li Yongliang, who was also a song collector. At Fenjia Village in Dingzha we met sisters Gu Xiuzhen and Gu Youzhen, who sang the Jiashan version of “Fifth Daughter” for us. At Taozhuang Culture Station we watched performances by singers Wu Yuying and Jiang Yong. Another Taozhuang singer, Wu Jusheng, an accredited “transmitter” of Wu-language songs, invited us to his home on the riverbanks at Nanyao Creek and sang the ballad version of “Fifth Daughter.” We thank all of those we interviewed together with Jiang Huihong of the Dingzha Xuanchuan dui and Zhang Donglin of the Taozhuang Culture Bureau for their assistance. I am very grateful to Zhu Hairong, whom we visited in his Wuxi home in May 2014. He presented me with his seven-volume collected works, which included many of the shan’ge he collected during his lifetime. While at Wuxi, Zhang Yu and

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I visited Meicun (the claimed site of early Wu settlement), Mount Hou (where Hua Mountain Lifter fled with his fellow rebels), and Yacheng, claimed to be one of the originary sites of Wu songs. I have presented my work on Lake Tai folk epics at various conferences and symposia and have published earlier findings in conference publications (see the bibliography). The first event was “The Interplay of Oral and Written Traditions in Chinese Fiction, Drama and Performance Literature,” held in Oslo in November 2007. My warm thanks to Vibeke Børdahl (Nordic Institute of Asiatic Studies) and Margaret B. Wan (University of Utah) for organizing this conference and editing the conference volume. I am also indebted to Vibeke for sending me a copy of Antoinet Schimmelpenninck’s indispensable study of Wulanguage songs. Vibeke Børdahl and Pekka Hakamies invited me to the Folk Traditions in Modern Society Conference organized by the Nordic Centre of Fudan University (Shanghai, China) and the Kalevala Institute of the University of Turku (Finland) held at Fudan University, in September 2009. I also attended the CHIME (European Foundation for Chinese Music Research) International Symposium on Storysinging and Storytelling in China held in Venice in October 2014, at the invitation of Frank Kouwenhoven, who edited the conference publication. Levi Gibbs (Dartmouth) organized the panel “Negotiating Heritage: Contemporary Practices and Social Issues in Chinese Regional Folksong Traditions” at the 2015 AAS (Association for Asian Studies) Annual Conference in Chicago, where I presented a paper on Zhu Hairong. My thanks also to Patricia Sieber and colleagues for inviting me to discuss issues of regionality at the symposium “Comparative Perspectives on Materiality and History of the Book: China and East Asia,” held at the University of Pennsylvania in December 2015. I presented a paper on sense of place in Chinese song-cycles at the symposium “Place and Contemporary Music in and from East Asia,” organized by Catherine Ingram (University of Sydney) and Keith Howard (SOAS, University of London) and held at The University of Sydney Conservatorium of Music in March 2016. In June 2018, at the invitation of Wu Cuncun, I presented a seminar on folk

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songs and Feng Menglong’s song anthology for the University of Hong Kong’s Chinese Language and Literature Program. My warm thanks to all the above for providing so many wonderful occasions to present my research, refine my ideas, and learn from the work of others. I also wish to thank numerous people who have offered advice, encouragement, and publications, including Rüdiger Breuer (Bochum University), Ge Liangyan (University of Notre Dame), Wilt Idema (Harvard University), Jennifer Jay (University of Alberta), Kathryn Lowry, Gerald Roche (La Trobe University, Melbourne), Alison Tokita (Tokyo Institute of Technology and Kyoto City University of Arts), and Judith Zeitlin (University of Chicago). This project has received funding from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (“The Cultural Heritage of the Lower Yangzi Delta: the Wu Folk Epics,” 2012–2015) and from the Australian Research Council (“Ethnoecology and the State in Regional China,” DP0987640, 2009–2012). These funds have paid for field trips, collaborative work in China and Australia, the gathering of transcripts and folk material, and the translation of Wulanguage song scripts with assistance from local contacts and research assistants. I record my appreciation here. The anonymous reviewers read this manuscript carefully and made very helpful comments that have assisted me to clarify the text and correct mistakes. Any errors that remain are entirely my responsibility. Due to constraints of space, not all suggestions for additions could be included. I also wish to thank David Armstrong and the team at Cambria Press who carried out meticulous work on this manuscript while enduring pandemic conditions. It is anticipated that a sample of photos and video recordings relating to the field trips mentioned earlier will be made available online to the scholarly community.

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Note to the Reader Chinese traditional characters (fantizi 繁體字) are used except in cases where the author names and book titles are in simplified character script (jiantizi 簡體字).

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Notes 1. Luxu shange ji, p. 2, “Shan’ge wu chang wangji cuo (er)” stanza 2. 2. McLaren and Zhang, “Recreating ‘Traditional’ Folk Epics in Contemporary China.”

Introduction The Culture of Locality Only my mother tongue gives me the strongest feelings of intimacy and familiarity; only my mother tongue presents me with absolutely no barrier, and only my mother tongue can fully reveal to others my inner feelings. Yu Pingbo 俞平伯 (1900‒1990), preface to Wuge jiaji 吳歌甲集 (1925)1 Scholar Yu Pingbo was an early advocate of literature written in the regional languages of China. In response to his critics, he declared: “Whether one talks of the past, the present, or the future, regional literature exists—we must not shut our eyes and fail to recognize it, even if some people detest it.”2 Yu was well aware that men and women of the gentry class were taught by family elders to be ashamed of the “vulgarity” of regional languages (fangyan 方言) and the “immorality” of expressive culture in these languages. Nonetheless, regional speech forms are lively and authentic and should form part of China’s new national literature.3 Fellow oral culture enthusiast Wang Yizhi 王翼之, also writing in the 1920s, explains how he had to overcome his initial prejudice against

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collecting folk songs from his home area of Suzhou. When he was a young child, a local jade carver taught him the following ditty: The eighteen-year-old girl stamps her foot on the bed plank. The mother says to her, “What’s ailing you?” “You’ve already got a man; how can you know the ache of having no lover? How can you know how day after day, I sizzle like a prawn roll fried in the pan?”4 His grandmother was horrified at the crudity of this song and told him sternly not to sing the songs of “vagrants and vagabonds.” After that, Wang Yizhi considered these songs “filthy and despicable.”5 This ditty is readily identifiable as a young girl’s “song of love longing” (aolang ge 熬郎歌), a standard component of “songs of secret passion” (siqing ge 私情歌) that made up the majority of the narrative songs of China’s lower Yangzi Delta region.

The Folk Epics of the Lower Yangzi Delta In pre-contemporary China, songs were a powerful medium for expressing intimacy and identity among regional communities. Short songs like the aolang ge were sung by men and women all over the delta. When short songs were assembled into longer narrative forms by a talented singer, they provided not only entertainment but also a dramatization of issues that greatly concerned the community: upholding the family honor, invoking blessings for a good harvest, and resisting the impositions of local authorities. Songs of the rural population were largely disregarded in the world of cosmopolitan China until the early twentieth century, when, under the influence of Western ideas about the need for a modern nation to have a national language and literature, Chinese intellectuals began to take a serious interest in the collection of songs from regional cultures. In the 1920s, leading intellectual figures such as Gu Jiegang 顧 頡剛 (1893‒1980) participated in a folksong collecting movement across

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multiple regions of China, including the Wu-speaking zone of the lower Yangzi Delta.6 Gu and his fellow enthusiasts concentrated on the songs they themselves were most familiar with, those sung by women and children in their own families or by acquaintances in their local area. The collections of the 1920s consisted of short lyrical songs of one or more stanzas. In the 1930s, folklorists were surprised to uncover several narrative songs of over one hundred lines.7 The focus of this study is the narrative songs of several thousand lines that were “discovered” in the late twentieth century. These “folk epics” were performed by men and women while working in the rice paddy or boating along the waterways in the regions bordering Lake Tai in southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang provinces. Some narrative songs deal with culture heroes, supernatural figures, and rebel leaders. But the vast majority feature amorous encounters between men and women that lead to social opprobrium, punishment, and death. Contemporary Chinese folklore scholars, like their predecessors, have been somewhat disconcerted by the erotic material found in these songs of passionate love.8 Some declare that the more explicit songs did not originate with the peasants themselves and must surely come from the effete bourgeois classes in urban areas.9 Others argue that the eroticism should be understood as women’s pursuit of sexual liberation and the right to choose their own partner.10 In contemporary anthologies designed for the general reader, erotic material is often modified or removed. This phenomenon of ambivalent feelings about the ingrained customs and “vulgarity” of “the folk” is hardly unique to China. Michael Herzfeld has dealt with the same situation in Greece. He defines this concern as “cultural intimacy,” that is, “the recognition of those aspects of cultural identity that are considered a source of external embarrassment but nevertheless provide insiders with their assurance of common sociality.”11 Some might dispute this claim of “common sociality” in the case of Chinese regional cultures. For example, Wei Shang, writing of male literati before the twentieth century, observed that regional language or

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dialect “did not in any fundamental way shape the inner core of his very existence or his self-identity.”12 However, Gu Jiegang and his circle of folklore collectors were very aware of the crucial role of one’s mother tongue in expressing intimacy and identity from one’s earliest childhood. It would be more accurate to state that the educated classes of the imperial and early Republican era were taught from a young age to look with disapprobation on the “crude” songs of the unlettered and to distance themselves from the vulgar herd.13 The conventional view ignored the fact that it was oral traditions transmitted in regional languages that resonated most strongly with the majority of the population and that performance arts in manuscript and print served as the major reading material of the semiliterate.

The culture of the Locality The New Culture Movement of the early twentieth century marked a watershed in intellectual appreciation of the value of regional languages and culture. As Yu Pingbo declared, “why should one reject the language that was the constant companion of one’s childhood in active pursuit of the fashionable?”14 At the same time, the multiplicity of languages and dialects spoken throughout the new Republic could easily lead to confusion about which language could be regarded as the “mother tongue.” Yu Pingbo, for example, tells us that although he has spent sixteen years living in Suzhou, he is not a “real” Suzhounese like his friend Gu Jiegang and is not fully proficient in Suzhou speech. His ancestral roots lie in Deqing, in northern Zhejiang province, but he barely understands the language spoken by Deqing people. He has also lived in Beijing but declares that his Beijing speech is inferior.15 Yu Pingbo’s dilemma was not unique among the intellectual class. Chinese populations south of the Yangzi River even today speak a profusion of different language forms.16 The dialect of upland Deqing, for example, was likely to be incomprehensible to the residents of Suzhou (see discussion in chapter 2). Urban residents did not always comprehend the speech

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of adjacent rural populations.17 This great diversity within the group of sometimes mutually unintelligible languages conventionally termed “Wu language” (Wuyu 吳語) militated against the development of a written literature based on regional genres. There were some exceptions, the main one being the literature based on or partially deploying Suzhou speech patterns that developed in the Ming era and reached a high point in the nineteenth century. “Suzhou literature” included song anthologies, opera scripts, lute ballads, and the occasional novel. According to Don Snow, Zhou Xiayun, and Shen Senyao, over the course of the nineteenth century, there developed “a degree of consensus” concerning how to record Suzhou speech forms in popular performance forms and novels.18 Nonetheless, its use within these genres remained restricted to nonprestige areas (e.g., the speech of lower class or comic characters), and it never became an esteemed literary medium.19 Suzhou-based literary genres fell into decline in the early twentieth century.20 In the premodern era, Chinese popular novels, plays, and storytelling genres were mostly recorded in a lingua franca known as guanhua 官話 (Mandarin)—that is, the language used in cross-regional trade and official exchange throughout the empire.21 Guanhua and classical Chinese were the preferred written languages of cosmopolitan or trans-regional China.22 Sheldon Pollock uses the term “cosmopolitan” to refer to “cultural and political networks that transcended the immediate community.”23 It is the literature of cosmopolitan China that is generally the subject of scholarly investigation. We know much less about the cultural forms that were performed in regional communities by amateurs as distinct from professionals and least of all about non-Mandarin regional performance culture.24 This volume is the first book-length analysis of the best-known long narrative songs that were familiar to Wu-speaking populations in the immediate pre-contemporary era. In the study of China’s narrative song traditions, it is the epics of borderland ethnic groups that have claimed most attention; the narrative songs of so-called “Han Chinese” communities are largely unknown.25 Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group in state definitions, comprise over 1.2 billion people, speak many

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different languages, and reside in vastly different geographic domains. As discussed in recent scholarship, Han Chinese is in fact a constructed ethnicity used to describe populations considered to be of Chinese ethnicity as opposed to ethnic minorities.26 It is thus hardly surprising that when one investigates the culture of the locality, as opposed to the panChinese domain, new phenomena constantly emerge. The Chinese written tradition is full of gaps and silences that ignore, exclude, and marginalize the cultural forms transmitted orally in the medium of regional as opposed to cosmopolitan language.27 For example, Chinese writings are silent on the subject of the feminized rice spirit that permeated the imagination of the Lake Tai singer-farmer, and failed to record the gendered nature of the process of rice cultivation, in which the rice-seedling transformed from a young girl, to a pregnant wife, and finally to a Rice Mother bearing child-grains (zi 子/籽, the two words are homophonous). It is argued here that an imaginary based on intimacy, locality, and identity was embedded in the rituals and songs that accompanied the hard toil of rice cultivation, forming a “ritual technology” in which the technology of agricultural work operated in tandem with a set of spiritual beliefs and ritual practices that sustained communities and ways of life from imperial times to the present.28 This folk imaginary underpinned the development of the longer narrative songs, as delta populations constructed a symbolic world where fertility in the human world was shaped by the same logic and discipline that governed the cultivation of the rice crop. In addition, delta folk epics offer fresh insight into the relationship between local and pan-Chinese culture. Here I draw from the notion of the “epichoric” (in the words of Alexander Beecroft) to describe cultural forms that circulated within the bounds of the local language region and exist in an “ecology” of competition with other genres and regions.29 Epichoric texts reflect an imagistic world based around one place or locality. Their particular aesthetic value lies in the way they “construct a sense of place for the community in question, marking boundaries and imbuing mountains, rivers, trees, and other natural and artificial features with meaning.”30 The folk epics of the lower Yangzi River tell us that singer-

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farmers understood their “social, relational world” to be deeply embedded in the natural and built environment: the rice paddies; the orchards and mulberry fields; and the hamlets and townships perched along canals, rivers, and lakes.31 The “epichoric” relates in complex ways to the world beyond the local, just as the long waterways of the delta region wind through far-flung hamlets to market towns and metropolises.32 Memory making played a crucial part in forging local identities. In the songs explored here, it is local memories that are recalled in all their density; the history of cosmopolitan pan-China appears distant and remote. Some folk epics even offer an implicit challenge to canonical ideas from cosmopolitan China. For example, the singer acknowledges the achievements of the Great Earl (Taibo 泰伯/ 太伯) who was celebrated in the written tradition and who supposedly founded the first Wu kingdom early in the first millennium BCE. But it is a local man, not the Great Earl, who is commemorated in a lengthy folk epic. Impressive monuments testify that Taibo brought northern sedentary civilization to the “barbaric” south. The singer-farmer, however, reminds the community that it was in fact local men and women who reclaimed the marshlands of the delta and constructed a land and waterscape of polders, rivers, and canals. Another folk epic, “Hua Mountain Lifter” (Hua Baoshan 華抱山), calls to mind a local man who led an uprising against the authorities in the seventeenth century. When the rebel-farmer is demonized as a “local brigand” by the authorities, the singer turns the rhetoric of demonization back against the ruling classes. The songs of illicit love affairs were believed to be stories about actual events experienced by real people who had lived in familiar places. Many of these tales involve violence, punishment, and death. In confronting tragedy, the singer draws broadly from the lamentation culture of the Jiangnan region to mourn the deceased. In this way, folk epics served as an aesthetic medium to commemorate distant ancestors and noted individuals from the local community.

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The Singers The song transcripts on which this study relies were collected from villagers by cadres and folklorists from the 1950s to the l980s. The village singers acquired their repertoire in the early twentieth century, mostly from parents or seniors who had performed these in the preceding century. The singers had command of a transmitted repertoire that allowed the best of them to compose extempore to suit a particular purpose and audience. However, their life experience in the early decades of socialism (1949–1978) shaped the type of songs or stories they could call to mind from the tradition acquired in their youth. In addition, the context in which their material was elicited—that is, an artificial performance produced for folklorists—has also influenced their reconstruction of the tradition in the contemporary period. One could say of our chosen singers that they are the bearers of an oral tradition passed down through many generations but at the same time live “co-eval” with the revolutionary transformations and socialist campaigns of twentieth-century China. Johannes Fabian has called for acknowledgment by ethnographers of the contemporaneity of the performer, who should not be relegated to a distant “primitive” temporality.33 In response to Fabian’s critique, scholars now interpret transmitted cultural forms as not so much “remnants” of the past but rather as works that function in both historic and contemporary power structures.34 This approach places emphasis on the creativity and agency of the singer, as well as on the motivation and agenda of folklorists, editors, and publishers. It also points to several critical questions. What can song material elicited in the late twentieth century tell us about the actual folk culture of pre-1949 China? To what extent has it been affected by contemporary concerns? Further, how should one assess the scholarly value of published material that purports to represent the “authentic” folk heritage of the region? To what extent has it been sanitized and “rearranged” (zhengli 整理) by enthusiastic culture cadres and bureaucrats in line with the politics of the day?

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The method adopted here is to focus as far as possible on original transcripts of an individual singer, as distinct from the hybridized songs from multiple sources as redacted by folklorists. The transcript of a song by a known singer will be regarded here as a performative event that belongs not just to the contemporary era but also to the life history of the singer and to an inherited oral tradition. In other words, the prime focus will be on the song of an individual singer, not an anonymous collectivity, as is often the case in studies of folk culture. For example, in the case of “Shen Seventh Brother” (“Shen Qige” 沈七哥), I will rely primarily on the transcript sung by Wuxi singer, Qian Afu 錢阿福 (1907‒ 1993). My study of the folk epic “Fifth Daughter” (“Wu guniang” 五姑 娘) will be based on the rendition by Lu Amei 陸阿妹 (1902‒1982). The tale of “Hua Mountain Lifter” (“Hua Baoshan” 華抱山) will be placed in the context of the life of both Hua Zurong 華祖榮 (1927‒2012), who is the chief contemporary transmitter of this tradition, and his fellow villager, Zhu Hairong 朱海容 (b. 1930), who is responsible for the written compilation. These individuals were both transmitters and composers. Their mastery of inherited song material allowed them to draw from their own life experience to create anew the contemporary versions of “traditional” folk epics. Of the singers listed above, I have only had the opportunity to meet Zhu Hairong, as Qian Afu and Lu Amei were already deceased at the time of my visits to the region. Fortunately, there is considerable published material on the life and times of these individuals. Concerning Qian Afu, I rely on the book written about him by his good friend Zhu Hairong, as well as reports by Chinese ethnologists. Lu Amei offered a lengthy account of herself to folklorists who recorded it in an informally published work that was gifted to me by Zhang Fanglan. In addition, I will draw from the seven volumes of the writings of Zhu Hairong, comprised of essays and folk material collected over his lifetime. Within limits, these reflexive accounts by singers and fellow villagers allow for access to “a speaking subject, who sees as well as is seen,” in the words of James Clifford.35 With the aid of this material, it is possible to contextualize

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songs that were transcribed in the late twentieth century within the lived experience of these singers and folk practitioners. These singers were raised in the rice-paddy zones of the Lake Tai and its tributary system in the early twentieth century. Before 1949 these water-bound domains formed “song communities,” where singing was a part of everyday communication, ritual performance, and agricultural toil. During their lifetime, the singers discussed here experienced the Japanese occupation of the Jiangnan area, the vicissitudes of the early decades of socialism, and the violence and chaos of the Cultural Revolution. They also underwent a political transformation from “farmer” to “peasant” (nongmin 農民), a term with a particular class resonance in socialist China.36 There is evidence that at least some of the so-called “peasants” resisted the stigmatization this involved. At any rate, pre-contemporary religious festivals, rituals, and expressive arts saw a sustained revival after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.37 In the case of the singer-farmers investigated in this study, some continued to sing and transmit mountain songs when conditions allowed. Village enthusiasts (including some cadres) collected transcripts of the most valued songs and tried to save them from destruction at the hands of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.38 In the reform era (post 1978), a handful of singers were able to call to mind, reconstruct, and perform once again the longer narrative songs that had been iconic in their home region. Wu songs, both short and long, were entered into the register of national-level Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2005.39 The long narrative songs that emerged were largely based on inherited themes and formulaic language, exactly the sort of material condemned by imperial elites and party ideologues as vulgar, immoral, or superstitious. Nonetheless, the seemingly traditional folk epics transcribed for the first time in the 1980s are best viewed as “new” versions of old material, recreated in the very different circumstances of socialist modernity. Practiced singers could easily compose material to suit the new conditions. In the early 1980s, Qian Afu sang hymns of praise to the new reformist regime of Deng Xiaoping, but his songs contained trenchant criticism of the campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s.40

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Mountain songs now served as a medium for remembering and curating traumatic events of the recent past.

Definitions For the villagers of Lake Tai, all songs, whether they be short or long, lyrical or narrative, are simply “mountain songs,” a term used all over China to describe folk songs.41 In performance one can speak of a songcycle that can be just as long or as short as the singer and the audience desires. Chinese folklorists and ethnologists, however, are influenced by Western terminology that distinguishes between a story told in several stanzas (a ballad) and a much longer, more elaborate form comprising thousands of lines on a heroic theme (an epic). In Chinese generic classifications, the longer form of delta shan’ge are termed “long narrative songs” (changpian xushi ge 長篇敘事歌) to distinguish them from the lengthy songs on quasi-historical, martial, or mythic themes (shishi 史 詩) associated with the Mongols, Tibetans, and Miao.42 According to conventional understandings, epic-length narrative songs are the natural preserve of borderland ethnic groups. When the long narrative songs in the delta first emerged to public notice in the early 1980s, there was much debate about their authenticity.43 However, Chinese folklore scholars subsequently identified close to forty separate narrative song-cycles in the Wu-language zone. It is now established that long narrative songs were in circulation in the lower Yangzi Delta during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and possibly long before. Here I will employ the term “folk epic” to describe the longer song narratives in line with the emerging trend to include non-heroic and romantic tales in the study of performances of epic length.44 In this study, “folk epic” refers to a lengthy narrative song sung by amateur singers that is not necessarily heroic or martial in nature and that relates best to a community rather than to a national tradition.45 Protagonists of delta folk epics were invoked while working in the rice paddy, boating on the canals, instructing children, and composing sacred texts for temple

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recitation. Key events related in folk epics were associated with familiar waterways, homesteads, townships, and sites of pilgrimage. As noted by Blackburn and Flueckiger in their study of Indian epics: “Epics stand apart from other ‘songs’ and ‘stories’ in the extent and intensity of a folklore community’s identification with them; they help to shape a community’s self-identity.”46 Folk epics are not defined by length. The cases examined here vary from around 2,000 to 20,000 lines. Most singer-farmers interviewed in the 1980s and 1990s could only sing short episodes rather than the “full” story. In other words, one episode in song could be considered as a separate song but was also understood to belong to a cycle of songs narrating a sequence of events in line within a familiar structure. Considered as separate episodic sessions, the long narrative songs from the lower Yangzi Delta can be considered as a song-cycle; in their fuller oral or textualized form, they can be considered as a folk epic.47 An example of this distinction is the case of Lu Amei, whose songs about Fifth Daughter were elicited by folklorists in a series of interviews conducted in the early 1980s. Lu drew from the transmitted song-cycle as she pleased, taking no regard for chronological sequence. Her experience shows how the short episodic songs could coalesce into a sequence of songs that when seen as a whole appear as narrative songs of epic length.48 This phenomenon of “epics” that are only occasionally performed in relatively complete form, or where only a few can perform lengthy sessions, is well-known among global epic traditions. Lauri Honko, in his study of Indian Siri epics, claimed: “The oral epic has no fixed length.”49 He added that many so-called “epics” comprise “a collection of relatively free-standing episodes or sub-epics…the epic as a whole [is] practically never recited from beginning to end.”50

The Scope of this Study This study focuses on key folk epics that are broadly representative of major categories within the 39 Wu-language folk epics (or long narrative

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songs) identified by Zheng Tuyou.51 Twenty-eight are stories of private love affairs. These can in turn be divided into five broad categories of tales.52 In the first type the two lovers fall in love, begin an affair without the family blessing, and are horribly punished. In the second type, a brother-in-law forces himself on his wife’s younger sister, resulting in a loss of dignity for his wife and her resulting suicide. In the third type of story, two lovers fall in love, but the male lover is already betrothed, and his parents will not allow him to marry the woman of his choice. He dies of love longing and his lover remains faithful to him till death. Chapters four and five treat these first three types of folk epics, drawing from multiple versions sung across the delta. In the fourth type of story, the woman is already betrothed but falls pregnant to another man. This tale usually ends in either abortion or infanticide. In the final category, a betrothed woman elopes with another man and her younger sister is sent out to be married in her place. When this scandal is exposed, disaster falls on the family. The most striking feature of the tales of secret passion is that these stories mostly end in death or punishment for the chief protagonists. This makes them quite distinct from mainstream Chinese love comedies where the lovers ultimately get married and the family is reconciled. Possible reasons for the tragic endings are explored in chapter four. An important consideration here is that the songs convey memories of local people whose trauma is relived over the generations. The songs thus have a dual function: they celebrate the delights of love but also lament the dead. Some folk epics deal with local individuals who are remembered for their brave or heroic actions. One example is Chen the Tiler, who seeks revenge on a high-ranking official who has thrown him out of his house (see chapter 2). Chapter three treats a hero called Shen Seventh Brother, who in ancient times taught his people how to grow rice and sing songs. This important folk epic about a culture hero appears to be one of the earliest in the repertoire and was continually performed by song troupes in the late imperial and early Republican era. “Hua Mountain Lifter”

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narrates the heroic exploits of three generations from the Hua family as transmitted by their descendants. This unique and very lengthy folk epic is the subject of chapter six. Not included in this study are folk epic versions of famous stories that are nationally known and much studied. These include the folk epic of Meng Jiangnü, who went to find her husband at the Great Wall, and the folk epic version of “The White Snake.” Another category not included here are morality tales, in which a wastrel is punished for his wild ways. These too are worthy of investigation but are not my focus in this volume. My intention rather is to introduce to a Western readership the folk epics that belonged particularly to Lake Tai song communities in the immediate pre-contemporary era. The majority of these folk epics were not known beyond Wu-speaking regions; some could be termed cross-delta in transmission, whereas others had more restricted circulation. All of them, however, had deep roots in their communities as a crucial expression of local identity. The folk epics conveyed memories in song; the protagonists were claimed to be real people and the stories to be broadly true. The song tradition thus allowed memories of past tribulations and tragedies to be passed down through the generations in a way that made sense to delta populations. Qian Afu expresses this spirit of resilience in a couplet: When the rice shoots endure rain, they become shiny green. When the mountain songs endure wind, they will be passed down for a thousand years.53 My choice of folk epics was also influenced by a desire to explore the process of textualization of delta oral traditions in the historical and contemporary period. The chosen studies reflect different stages in the literary processing of folk material, thus allowing for an investigation of the relationship between the singer, collector, and editor of song material. My discussion of Lu Amei’s “Fifth Daughter,” for example, is based on a transcript of song sessions of individual singers (ziliao 資料) reproduced in mimeograph form for limited circulation. The

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folklorists concerned adapted Chinese character script to record the speech forms of the Luxu region.54 I also draw from so-called “strungtogether texts” (chuanben 串本), which comprise an arrangement of selected songs from the unprocessed transcripts organized in narrative order as understood by the folklorist but not necessarily the singer. Where available, I investigate song books (changben 唱本), which are manuscripts of song texts based loosely on folk epics. Changben comprise rewritings of song material in standardized poetic formats with few regional expressions. Changben provided popular reading material for both urban and rural populations. I also reference edited long narrative songs produced for a national readership in the contemporary period. These “readable texts” (zhengli ben 整理本) contain inserted material to link disparate song sections, glosses of Wu-language expressions, and sometimes invented material by folklorists. A prime example is Jiang Bin’s anthology of reworked folk epics, Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi 江南十大民间叙事诗. “Hua Mountain Lifter” is an exceptional type of folk epic that does not fit into any of the above categories. As I demonstrate here, it was created by a literate singer who had mastered the local repertoire and was able to compose extempore as well as record the songs in writing. I term this type of folk epic a “composer-recorded text.” This type of text emulates the essential features of shan’ge aesthetics to create a literary artifact. The textualization of the delta shan’ge tradition illustrates the variety of ways that historical and contemporary editors and authors have drawn from oral traditions in the production of literary texts. My intention here is to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between oral and literate domains in China from the late imperial to the contemporary era. As we will discover, the gap between the oral and the literate was often quite profound.

Orality and Literacy Mountain songs were sung by illiterate rural communities of the delta region. Good singers went to considerable efforts to learn their repertoire

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and were proud of their skills. Songs collected in the 1920s expressed scorn and derision for the educated class and the Confucian classics. The teacher tells me to read the Mencius, I tell the teacher to eat some hard shit.55 The teacher teaches me the Golden Mean, I tell the teacher to prepare for his decease.56 In the song below, the singer boasts of his ability to create mountain songs without the aid of a script: Opera singers rely on scripts passed down from olden times, Men working the sculling boat need a hempen rope, A young girl sending off her birth dates needs a matchmaker, A scholar must begin with The Three Character Classic. But mountain songs do not rely on scripts passed down, The man on the rowing boat needs no sculling rope, Since when do secret love affairs require a matchmaker? Those who sing mountain songs have never been to school.57 In these songs we catch a glimpse of how the culture of the local seeks to poke fun at the po-faced culture of the cosmopolitan. Qian Afu, Hua Zurong and Lu Amei, like most of the singer-farmers born before 1949, did not attend school and were regarded as illiterate. Their songs thus reflect to a large extent the type of mountain song transmitted over the generations before the contemporary period. What happened to these singer-farmers as they began to acquire literacy in the twentieth century? Zhu Hairong acquired both literacy and literary skills during his lifetime. The young Zhu was immersed in mountain singing from a young age and remained an enthusiast throughout his life. Unlike many of his fellow villagers, he had the opportunity to undertake a few years of schooling. He joined the communist party in 1948, shortly before the fateful crossing of the Yangzi River by the Peoples Liberation Army. In the 1950s Zhu was given further training in literacy at a school for cadres and subsequently

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held posts in cultural affairs. In the reform era, he emerged as a prolific publisher of folk material from the Wuxi Dongting region. He is largely responsible for the compilation of the longest of the delta folk epics, “Hua Mountain Lifter,” which comprises over twenty thousand lines. “Hua Mountain Lifter” has been hailed for its inclusion of a huge number of items of local culture, including agricultural work, the seasonal round, proverbial sayings, historical battles, religious activities, and folk stories.58 The sheer aggregation of this folk material makes “Hua Mountain Lifter” distinctly different from the songs of illiterate or semiliterate singers of the Wuxi Dongting region. This folk epic appears (in the words of Walter J. Ong) as “an itemized terrain” of elaborated facts about the sort of local knowledge that tends to be embedded or implicit in the songs of other less educated village singers. According to Ong, “persons whose world view has been formed by high literacy need to remind themselves that in functionally oral cultures the past is not felt as an itemized terrain, peppered with verifiable and disputed ‘facts’ or bits of information.”59 In Chinese-language scholarship, Zhu Hairong is portrayed as a mere “collector” or “arranger” of mountain songs. Here it is argued that he is an example of a man belonging to the folk and immersed in their traditions who has acquired the ability through literacy to “objectify” his own culture. I cite here the classic definition of this phenomenon by Bernard Cohn, writing about how the intellectual class of nineteenth-century Bengal saw the culture of their birth through the lens of colonization: They in some sense have made it into a “thing”; they can stand back and look at themselves, their ideas, their symbols and culture and see it as an entity. What had previously been embedded in a whole matrix of custom, ritual, religious symbol, a textually transmitted tradition, has now become something different. What had been unconscious now to some extent becomes conscious.60 Drawing from a notion proposed by Walter Ong, one could say that Zhu’s epic-length creations in verse rely as much on “chirographic” or written

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culture as they do on preceding oral traditions.61 This sort of folk epic is the product of a literate participant in a recognized oral tradition within a context of accelerated social change. Dorothy Noyes has described how, under the pressures of modernization and nationalism, tradition becomes “communal property,” a written and printed commodity, where the “folk” can choose to record and conceptualize the transmitted culture of their forebears.62 This self-conscious appropriation of the “folk” by one of the “folk” appears to have overtaken Zhu Hairong, the shan’ge singer who became a government cadre. As discussed in chapter 6, Zhu Hairong sought to fashion a sense of local identity based on the aesthetic power of a folk genre of epic proportions. This study begins with the ritual and secular songs of rice cultivation in chapter 1. In Chinese folk song collections, this type of song is categorized as a “laboring song” (haozi 號子 or laodong ge 勞動歌). In Chinese Marxist frameworks, laboring songs reflect the exploitation of peasants by the landlord class. The faith system that underpins the complex imagery of these songs of the rice paddy has been overlooked and misunderstood. Some of these songs draw upon a set of archaic allusions and mythologies to call on the deities and ancestors to bring about a good harvest and protect the community. One can understood this type of song as a “song of blessings” (zange 讚歌) common to the more obviously religious genres known to the region. Other songs elaborate understandings about the cyclic flow of fertility, sexuality, and procreation as it relates to the process of rice cultivation and human society. These songs, sung at work, contain the rich imagery, often based on sexuality and fertility, that became the basis of the formulaic material deployed in both short and long songs of the delta. Chapter 2 deals with the history of the emergence of Wu songs in print and manuscript culture from the seventeenth century and the development of the longer form of narrative song under the influence of song competitions and amateur song troupes. The commercialization of the economy, the growth of market towns, and burgeoning popular market for printed texts promoted the rise of the distinctive song culture of the delta. In chapter 3, I proceed to the folk epic about Shen Seventh

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Brother, who brought the knowledge of how to grow rice to the Lake Tai region in ancient times. This folk epic provides an exegesis in narrative form of the origin and spiritual significance of the songs of the rice paddy. The singer proclaims a southern indigenous origin for rice growing and song-making in contrast to the official view that it was a princeling from the north who brought sedentary civilization to the “primitive” south. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with stories of secret passion. Whereas the agricultural songs deal with fertility and ordered procreation through the “marrying off” of the rice seedling, songs about human love affairs deal with the catastrophic consequences of liaisons formed without the mediation of matchmaker and the blessings of family elders. These tales challenge the modern reader, as they deal not only with young couples falling in love and eloping but also with issues of abduction, rape, and coercive marriage. In local understandings, all these examples belong to the story matrix known as “tales of secret passion.” The other intriguing aspect of these tales of illicit love is the almost inevitable tragic ending. How can one account for the grim conclusion to most tales of secret passion and the anxiety, despair, and air of lamentation that hangs over the latter half of the tale? To understand this, we need deeper insight into the minds of the singers and the significance of the songs. In chapter 6, the book turns to “Hua Mountain Lifter,” which tells the story of a bandit-rebel who leads an uprising during the anti-rent campaigns of the late imperial era. This folk epic encodes community memories of rent resistance movements going back to the Ming period, as well as more recent traumas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The key protagonist is a local man who acquires miraculous skills in a quest to save his people. In the Coda I reflect on memory making in the reconstruction of delta folk epics in the late twentieth century. Appended is a translation of highlights from one of the most popular folk epics, the tale of “Fifth Daughter.” In the early twentieth century, the songs of ordinary people were taken seriously for the first time as the potential foundation for a vernacular

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literature that was rendered “authentic” by the expressive power of the mother tongue. In the opening decades of the twenty-first century, accelerated modernization has largely destroyed the iconic rice-polder civilization that formerly governed Jiangnan, the “land of fish and rice,” and the song tradition that sustained the rural population. In response to the loss of local oral traditions, Chinese folklorists have made strenuous attempts to collect Wu-language songs and transcribe them using adapted or newly invented forms of Chinese character script. These folklorists generally portray the songs and folk epics of the lower Yangzi Delta as a vehicle for secular entertainment. Erotic material is stigmatized as “unhealthy” and excised in anthologies for the general reader. In this study I offer a different perspective. I have sought to bring to light both the sacred and the secular in these songs of rural communities. Songs about scandalous love affairs were the secular counterpart to the sacred agricultural songs that accompanied rituals for crop fertility. Both take notions of orderly procreation, be it in the natural world or in human society, as their normative value. As demonstrated here, the folk epics offer a unique resource for investigating the spiritual imaginary of the singer-farmers, particularly their belief that the potency of their locality, harnessed by the power of their singing, could ensure the fertility of the crop and the longevity of their community.

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Notes 1. See Gu et al., Wuge, 17. 2. Preface by Yu Pingbo, Gu et al., Wuge, 16. 3. As argued by Yu Pingbo, Gu et al., Wuge, 16–17. Notions of authenticity were important to the early folklore movement; see Hung, Going to the People, 60‒62; and Tam, Dialect and Nationalism in China, 118–119. 4. Wang Yizhi, preface to Wuge yiji (1927) in Gu et al., Wu ge, 253‒254. 5. Wang Yizhi in Gu et al., Wuge, 254. 6. Hung, Going to the People, 46‒49; Schneider, Ku Chieh-kang and China’s New History, 135‒137. 7. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 20, 22, 32. 8. Early pioneers of folklore study such as Zhou Zuoren 周作人 (1885‒ 1967) and Gu Jiegang sought to collect and publish erotic songs but met with social opposition (Hung, Going to the People, 75‒79). 9. Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 15. 10. For a contemporary view, see Cai, “Lun changpian xushi Wu ge zhong de xing yishi,” 60‒65. Early folklore scholars claimed that songs about love affairs demonstrated resistance to Confucian strictures (Hung, Going to the People, 65‒68). 11. Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy, 3. 12. Shang, “Writing and Speech,” 281. 13. In his autobiography, Gu Jiegang wrote of his initial distaste for vernacular culture and folk songs (Schneider, Ku Chieh-kang and China’s New History, 134‒135). Zhou Zuoren derided the vulgarity and lack of artistry of folk songs in his preface to Liu Fu 劉復 (1891‒1934) (“Jiangyin chuange” in Wu ge, 399‒401). For Zhou Zuoren, the problem is that the regional language has not been refined by men with literary skills. 14. Yu Pingbo, preface in Gu et al., Wuge, 17. 15. Yu was born in Suzhou to a family originally from Deqing. In late adolescence he went to Beijing to study at Peking University. For these comments, see Yu’s preface in Gu et al., Wuge, 17. 16. Wu is regarded as a “regional language” in Chinese-language scholarship. This is somewhat misleading as the Wu fangyan group contains subcategories such as Suzhou speech, Shanghai speech, Ningbo speech, as well as a myriad of different speech forms at village level. Fangyan is often rendered as “dialect” in English-language translation. As Victor

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17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

22.

23.

24.

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H. Mair has pointed out, many fangyan are in fact separate languages. They are mutually unintelligible and could not be regarded as dialectal forms of Mandarin. He coins the term “topolect” to translate fangyan, see Mair, “What is a Chinese ‘Dialect/Topolect’?” Famed anthropologist Fei Xiaotong 費孝通 (1910‒2005) observed that although he was born in the Wu-speaking region of Songlingzhen 松 陵鎮, located only ten kilometers (six miles) away from the village of Jiangcun 江村, he had trouble in understanding the speech of Jiangcun residents (Peasant Life in China, postscript dated 1996, 425). See Snow, Zhou, and Shen, “A Short History of written Wu,” 146. In novels, the use of Suzhou idioms was strongly associated with courtesan life, Snow et al., “A Short History of written Wu,” 162. See Snow et al., “A Short History of written Wu,” 162‒164. Guanhua was based on the speech forms of the various dynastic capitals. Over the centuries it developed into northern and southern forms, see Simmons, “Chinese Urban Language.” By the mid-nineteenth century, Beijing speech forms came to dominate guanhua, see Coblin, “A Brief History of Mandarin.” There was no absolute division between guanhua and Classical Chinese as guanhua could include classical expressions and Classical Chinese could include idiomatic speech, see Zhang Zhongxing, Wenyan he baihua, 187‒203. Pollock, The Language of the Gods, 10. Pollock distinguished between Sanskrit as a “supraregional” language deployed across vast distances (cosmopolitan) as opposed to regional languages derivative from Sanskrit (vernacular), see The Language of the Gods, 12, 21. On this basis, classical Chinese can be considered a “cosmopolitan” language as it was used across the empire. Guanhua, however, does not equate easily to Pollock’s “vernacular” form because it is a transregional language. For a discussion, see Shang, “Writing and Speech,” 267‒272, 279‒280; and Beecroft, An Ecology of World Literature, 2‒3, 11‒14. For studies of China’s regional culture, see Gunn, Rendering the Regional, and Liu Jin, Signifying the Local. In recent years, a number of valuable studies of regional performance forms have been published. Most deal with professional performers or texts loosely based on professional performance. See Børdahl, The Oral Tradition of Yangzhou Storytelling; Bender, Plum and Bamboo; Keulemans, Sound Rising from the Paper; and Wan, Regional Literature and the Transmission of Culture. For Hakka ballads and mountain songs, see Idema, Passion, Poverty and Travel. He has

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25.

26.

27.

28.

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also produced many other works of translation that include regional texts (see the bibliography). Schimmelpenninck has completed a major study on the short mountain songs of Wu-speaking populations, see Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, see also translations of Jiangsu folk songs in Mair and Bender, Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, 124– 144; on Wu-language bridal laments, see McLaren, Performing Grief. On regional song traditions in Shaanxi, see Gibbs, Song King; for Sichuan boat songs, see Chabrowski, Singing on the River. Catherine Ingram has a forthcoming monograph on the Big Songs of the Kam people of south China. CHINOPERL 39, no. 1, 2020 deals with regional languages in performance texts from the Qing. On China’s rich epic literature in the borderlands, see Mair and Bender, eds., The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, 213‒ 278. Bender has translated lengthy epics of minority peoples in China (Butterfly Mother, The Borderlands of Asia, and The Nuosu Book of Origins). For the long narrative songs of a Tibetan community, see Li and Roche, “Long Narrative Songs.” The only publications in the West to date on the folk epics of the lower Yangzi Delta are by this author (see the bibliography). On the historically contingent nature of “Han Chinese” as an ethnic group, see Mullaney, Leibold, Gros, and Bussche, eds., Critical Han Studies: The History, Representation, and Identity of China’s Majority, Introduction, esp. 1‒3, 16. On the development of the term “Han Chinese” as a bio-racial category in the nineteenth century, see Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China, 82‒83. Noting the “extreme focus” of Western studies on China’s written culture, Barend ter Haar observes that “Traditional China is still largely studied as an empire of texts, as if there were no oral culture” (Telling Stories, 27). David Johnson observes that our information on rural life in China before the twentieth century comes from “sources written by men who for the most part knew next to nothing about the countryside.” He adds, “This fundamental bias in our sources, the unquestioned assumption that villages and the people who lived in them did not matter, is so universal as to be virtually invisible” (Johnson, Spectacle and Sacrifice, 5‒6). In his study of the Mnong Gar swidden farmers of central Vietnam, Condominas observed, “When we look at people’s cultures from the inside, it is seen that they—ritual and technology—cannot be separated…religious activities associated with plant cultivation are indissolubly inte-

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29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38.

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grated into agricultural tasks.” In this context, rituals to ward of baleful forces or win blessings from the deities are “necessary and mandatory techniques.” See Condominas, “Ritual Technology,” 28‒29. Beecroft defines “epichoric” as literary forms that “take place within a single, small scale, political and/or cultural context” (An Ecology of World Literature, 37). Beecroft, An Ecology of World Literature, 33. Mark Bender has explored the construction of the environment in myth-epic traditions of the Yi, Miao, and Wa. He observes that “they draw imagery and content from highly diverse ecological niches within the landscape” (Bender, “Landscapes and Life-Forms,” 89). Karin Barber has found that in many non-western societies, individuals are “indissolubly meshed into a social, relational world” (The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics, 109). See Beecroft on how the epichoric competes with other epichoric regions and interacts with broader transregional zones (An Ecology of World Literature, 56–59). Fabian, Time and the Other. See the Foreword by Matti Bunzl, Time and the Other, xxiii. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett argues that “heritage produces something new in the present that has recourse to the past” (“Theorizing Heritage,” 369‒ 370). Ann Anagnost, in her studies of 1990s China, speaks of “a conscious retrieval of the past that is nevertheless fundamentally conditioned by the tumultuous history of the socialist era separating then from now” (National Past-Times, 6). “Introduction: Partial Truths,” in Clifford and Marcus, eds., Writing Culture, 14. Cohen, “Cultural and Political Inventions in Modern China,” 151‒170. For example, peasants in Shandong, fought perceptions of peasant backwardness through the restoration of rituals associated with filial piety; see Kipnis, “Within and against Peasantness,” 110‒135. A similar phenomenon has been observed in other parts of China. On the resurgence of interest in folklore in the reform era, see Tuohy, “Cultural metaphors and reasoning,” 205‒214. Stephen Jones observes the “resilience” of Shaanbei folk culture and rituals after decades of socialism; see Ritual and Music of North China, xix. Sara L. M. Davis, in her study of the songs of the Tai Lüe people of southern Yunnan, notes the “underground” nature of the ethnic revival movement; see Song and Silence, 7. Erik Mueggler demonstrates how the Yi people of Zhizuo

Introduction

39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

44.

45.

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drew on their traditional cultural resources to reimagine and deflect the trauma of past socialist campaigns; see Mueggler, The Age of Wild Ghosts, 159‒198 and also his Songs for Dead Parents. This was a matter of regional pride. The cities of Wuxi and Suzhou both claimed to be originary sites of Wu singing, see McLaren, “From the Heart of the Lake,” 40. Wuge wang de ge, 171‒183. The Lake Tai region is notably flat and has very little high land. “Mountain song” is simply a generic term to describe a song sung loudly in the open air. The term shishi (history in verse) is used to translate the English term “epic” and refers to heroic narratives in verse as in the Homeric tradition. For a study reflecting mainstream Chinese understandings of epic traditions, see Yin, “The Paradigm Shift of Epic Studies in China,” 126‒ 139. Sometimes the term shishi (epic) is used for religious songs that deal with battles and quasi-historical topics; see Bender, “King of Yalu in Mashan,” 86. Chinese folklore scholars were influenced by Marxist historiography, particularly the idea that epic poetry belonged to the stage of pre-civilization. These ideas were proposed by Lewis H. Morgan (1818‒1881) and adopted by Marxist theorists. In line with these ideas, the non-Han Chinese minority groups were regarded as less “civilized” and thus more likely to have epic poetry. For a discussion on this, see McLaren and Zhang, “Recreating ‘Traditional’ Folk Epics in Contemporary China,” 27‒28. Stuart H. Blackburn and Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger distinguish between three types of village epic forms in India: martial, sacrificial, and romantic; see Blackburn, Claus, Flueckiger, and Wadley, eds. Oral Epics in India, 4. Barber notes that scholars of oral traditions are increasingly using the term “epic” for long verse narratives that do not fit the traditional paradigm of a heroic narrative sung to music; see Barber, The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics, 47. See also Indian folk epics, which according to C. N. Ramachandran, “document the history of a particular community (and not a nation), its way of life, its value-system, and its ideals and aspirations. They also reflect the contradictory pulls of admiration as well as assimilation of panIndian themes and values on the one hand, and fierce assertion of their own identity and way of life, on the other” (Ramachandran, “Ambivalence and Angst,” 299).

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46. Blackburn and Flueckiger in their Introduction to Blackburn et al., eds. Oral Epics in India, 6. 47. For more on song-cycles in oral poetry, see Finnegan, Oral Poetry, 106– 109. 48. See also the observations of Antoinet Schimmelpenninck on the way that singers rely on an assembly of short songs to continue their narrative. Singers cease only when their recalled repertoire has reached its limit, or sometimes to avoid relating a tragic ending; see Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, 221. 49. Honko, Textualizing the Siri Epic, 30. 50. Textualising the Siri Epic, 31. 51. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 81‒84. 52. Zheng, 78‒81. 53. Wuge wang de ge, 57. 54. They explain their strategies in the introduction to Wu guniang ziliao ben. These include the use of non-standard character forms in local circulation, of synonyms drawn from Mandarin, and of characters found in ancient records. Sometimes they resorted to square brackets with an explanatory gloss. They drew up a list of common terms to assist the reader. Similar strategies were adopted in printed editions of delta folk epics and mountain songs. 55. Gu et al., Wuge, 58, song 35. 56. Gu et al., Wuge, 58, song 36. 57. “Zhao Shengguan,” in Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 232. The Three Character Classic (Sanzi jing 三字經) is a primer written in lines of three syllables. It formed part of the early education of Chinese youth before the contemporary era. 58. See particularly the study of Liu Shijie, “Shenhou de wenhua diyun,” 41‒ 48. 59. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, 98. 60. Cohn, An Anthropologist Among the Historians and other essays, 229. 61. Ong, Orality and Literacy, 159. 62. Noyes, “Tradition: Three Traditions,” 245‒247.

Memory Making in Folk Epics of China

Chapter 1

Where Sky Meets Water The Sacred and the Secular in Songs of the Rice Paddy Lake Tai is broad and vast, blue-green, pure and bright, Sky meets water and cloud follows cloud. The sun shines on the jade-green water as golden fins bob up and down, Seventy-two peaks emerge then vanish, come into view, then fade from sight. Singer: Qian Afu, “Shen Seventh Brother” (Shen Qige 沈七哥)1 For the singer-farmer of Lake Tai, the lake was a magical place. On gazing at the distant horizon, the water of the lake appears to blend into the blue sky (tian 天), a word that also means “heaven.” On looking into the water, the singer marvels at its vastness and purity, so calm and placid that one can see the golden fins of fish and the peaks of seventy-two mountains believed to lie submerged in its depths. In delta folk epics, Lake Tai often appears together with the Yangzi River, located to its north. The daily tidal surges of this mighty river governed the ebb and flow of its tributary rivers and lakes and thus the

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daily working conditions of the rural population. The singer likens the Yangzi River to a water dragon, twisting its sinews as far as the distant Eastern Ocean. By contrast, the calm, flat surface of Lake Tai, which accepts the overflow from the mighty Yangzi, is likened to a gleaming white pearl. When both worked in balance, as force and counterforce, overflow and receiving basin, the community would know peace and prosperity: The Yangzi flows east day and night. A huge dragon in the east, it flickers then vanishes. Lake Tai gleams white as silver, Like a pearl, it shimmers in the light. Singers: Hua Zurong and Zhu Hairong, “Hua Mountain Lifter”2 In this chapter I introduce the type of songs that accompanied specific activities in the annual round of rice cultivation. These workday songs were at once secular and sacred, just as the waters of Lake Tai blurred into the far horizon of heaven. First I will briefly survey the historical development of the polder system in the Lake Tai region, a development that transformed the former land of swamps and marshes into productive rice paddy. Over the centuries, civil war and foreign invasion led to the largescale migration of populations from the Yellow River to the lower Yangzi Delta. As northerners adapted to this well-watered environment, their traditional notions of an agrarian state based on dryland farming shifted to accommodate the new importance of southern rice-paddy agriculture. The songs examined in this chapter allude to a belief system distinct from and possibly earlier than the agrarian ideal of the cosmopolitan domain. This chapter proceeds to discussion of key paradigms implicit in these laboring songs: that the rice shoot is “married off” into the paddy field; that loud singing makes the crops grow; that spiritual powers can be harnessed to aid rice cultivation; and that fertility in the rice crop parallels sexuality in human society.

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Chinese work songs are typically regarded as a form of secular entertainment, sung to ease harsh toil or to complain about the heavy exactions of the landlord or the imperial state. This offers only a partial perspective. The agricultural songs and attendant rituals are better understood as a type of “ritual technology” that provides a meaningful framework for collective action by marshalling and coordinating the organization of communal labor. As Bryan Pfaffenberger explains, “ritual is a key component of agricultural work; the rites call forth social groups to engage in specific activities, and they provide a metacommentary on the entire productive process.”3 In other words, the songs and ritual practices are integrated with the agricultural activities to achieve material and spiritual efficacy. The final section of this chapter deals with what happened to these mountain songs after the revolution. In the early decades of socialist China, after 1949, the enchanted world of beneficent spirits and powerful ancestors, together with the ecological knowledge transmitted in mountain songs, confronted an altogether different paradigm—the “command economy” model of socialist agriculture. In the heyday of Maoist rule, the process of rice cultivation, refined over the centuries by farmers in the delta, was overturned in favor of a military model that called for deep ploughing, close cultivation, and disruption of the intricate chessboard of waterways. The old way of life was threatened as never before. Noted singers were persecuted and “revolutionary songs” replaced “feudal” songs. It appeared that the regional song tradition would vanish forever. However, village cadres and local enthusiasts elicited songs from noted singer-farmers and recorded them surreptitiously to await publication in more liberal times.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China

Figure 1. Map of Folk Epic Sites in the Region of Lake Tai, lower Yangzi Delta.

Source: Map by Kat Orgallo, Zenzi Design, Melbourne.

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The Historical Development of the Polder System The singers who are the focus of this study came from regions adjacent to Lake Tai, specifically, Changshu, Suzhou, and Wuxi to the north, and Wujiang and the Lake Fen region to the southeast. In the contemporary era, these regions belong to modern-day southern Jiangsu province and northern Jiashan County in Zhejiang province. This region is a lowland basin of flat plains, wetlands, and waterways with an average altitude of three to five meters above sea level.4 The area to the southeast of Lake Tai is the lowest in the delta, so low that in the pre-contemporary period, the rice paddy fields were sunk in deep embankments lower than the level of surrounding waterways.5 British explorers and merchants who penetrated the delta region in the mid-nineteenth century were overwhelmed by the sheer mass of rivers, lakes, and waterways. In the 1850s, Robert Fortune, a British naturalist and trader, penetrated deep into the Yangzi Delta region in search of commercial opportunities for the British East India Company.6 Traveling by boat from Shanghai as far as Pingwang 平望 to the south of Lake Tai, he was amazed by the “highways” of canals and rivers that linked the market towns: This is a most extraordinary part of the country; the lake, or rather lakes, extend in all directions for many miles, sometimes so narrow as to have the appearance of canals, and then again expanding into large sheets of water. Everywhere the shores are low and have a most irregular outline formed by reed-covered capes and deep bays.7 He was surprised by the general prosperity of this prime silk-growing region: The natives seemed well-to-do in the world, having plenty of work without oppression, and enough to procure the necessaries and simple luxuries of life. It was pleasant to hear their joyous and contented songs as they laboured amongst the mulberryplantations and rice-fields.8

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The singer-farmers of that time would not have agreed with Fortune’s comments about “joyous and contented songs.” One early twentieth-century singer from the Suzhou region noted that appearances could be deceptive: We sing our songs to ease our cares, You may think we are happy at our toil, But if we eat in the morning, we don’t eat at night, Beneath the bitter goldthread tree, we pluck the lute.9 What Fortune initially believed to be the natural environment of the Lake Tai region is in fact the product of herculean human labor over millennia. The lower Yangzi River delta is one of the world’s most ancient centers of rice cultivation.10 The earliest known rice-farming settlement dates back more than 10,000 years.11 Early zones of rice civilization in the delta such as Hemudu 河姆渡 (5500–3300 BCE) and Liangzhu 良渚 (3300– 2000 BCE) relied on a technique known as “using fire to plough and water to weed” (huogeng shuinou 火耕水耨). Land was first cleared by fire in order to remove trees and foliage, then the fields were inundated with water to kill the weeds.12 Hemudu sites dating back to 5000 BCE show evidence of the building of irrigation systems and polders—that is, banks of earth that enclosed the paddy field.13 In the fifth century BCE, the aristocrats of the first Wu kingdom (585–473 BCE) established significant rice paddy sites.14 Polders allowed for controlled irrigation and mitigated the risk of both drought and flood. The first centuries of the common era saw another important innovation: the transplantation of the rice shoot. Rice seeds were planted in a nursery bed and then plucked out and transplanted into a prepared field. While this process was labor intensive, it resulted in a much higher yield over a shorter period.15 Paddy field cultivation expanded during the emergence of another state called Wu (222–265 CE). As northerners spilled into the delta region under the pressure of war, the kingdom of Wu expanded its tillable acreage to accommodate the increase of population.16 The subsequent Western Jin Dynasty (265–316) briefly unified

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the country, but in the early fourth century CE the northern capitals were lost to non-Han invaders. Migration to the south sharply accelerated during this period of disruption.17 The Eastern Jin court set up its new capital south of the Yangzi in what is now the city of Nanjing. For this northern elite, rice was an exotic crop. It was reported that one of their rulers (the Emperor Jianwen 簡文, r. 371‒372) failed to identify a crop of rice growing in a paddy field. This was a matter for severe self-reproach, as encouragement of agriculture had been regarded as a prime duty of the emperor since ancient times.18 The Eastern Jin continued to expand water works and was responsible for a major canal linking Huzhou to Wujiang.19 Under the Tang (618–907) dynasty, the state constructed a system of horizontal and vertical canals (tangpu 塘浦); locks and sluices allowed for controlled drainage and irrigation.20 The tenth century CE saw the beginning of the large-scale reclamation of low-lying swamplands to rice paddy.21 It was also a time when the lower Yangzi River delta region was largely self-governing. In 907 a ruling house known first as the Wu and later as the Wuyue Dynasty (907– 978) established a kingdom with its capital at Hangzhou. The Wuyue kingdom commandeered troops to build a “chessboard” of polders of variable heights to divert water from high to low areas. The kingdom also sought to mitigate the impact of coastal tides from the ocean by building stone seawalls along the east coast.22 The gravity-fed system of canals, sluices, irrigation ponds, and polders set the pattern for the strong development of rice cultivation in the lower Yangzi Delta.23 However, the Wuyue kingdom subsequently lost its independence and was subsumed into the unified empire under the Song Dynasty in 978 CE. The Lake Tai region was now burdened with the tribute of grain along the Grand Canal to the distant northern capital.24 The Song era (960–1279) was a time of considerable improvement in rice cultivation. Technological innovations and the introduction of early ripening Champa rice from Vietnam led to higher crop yields. Rice cultivation had now become a highly laborious process. The soil was

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thoroughly prepared by the breaking up of clods of soil, followed by weeding and leveling until the paddy field was smooth and flat. New tools such as the spike-tooth harrow and the iron-nailed rake continued to be used well into the twentieth century.25 These ancient tools still feature in delta agricultural songs of the present day. In 1127, when the Song court lost control of the northern heartland to non-Han invaders, there was another massive wave of migration to south China. Since ancient times, cosmopolitan understandings of China’s agrarian economy had focused on millet, wheat, and barley, the chief crops of the Yellow River region. Classical notions of good governance placed great importance on the ruler’s direct encouragement of agriculture, particularly millet. With the loss of the north, the court and elite classes began to adapt this traditional paradigm to the southern economy of rice and sericulture. An outstanding example signaling the importance of rice to the state is the album of paintings depicting the different stages of rice and silk farming in the Jiangnan region, the Tilling and Weaving Pictures (Gengzhi tu 耕織), presented by Lou Shu 樓璹 (1090–1162, also known as Lou Shou) to the Emperor Gaozong 高宗 (r. 1127‒1162) in 1145.26 This was only two decades after the political elite had been forced to abandon its northern capital and set up a new one south of the Yangzi River at what is now Hangzhou. Lou’s realistic depiction of southern agricultural practices was warmly welcomed by the court. According to Francesca Bray, it was the first work “to celebrate the indispensable role of the irrigated Jiangnan landscape in supporting the imperial order.”27 Lou’s scrolls on Tilling comprised illustrations of twenty-one steps in the rice cultivation process, with each step accompanied by an eight-line poem. In her comprehensive study of this album, Roslyn Lee Hammers argues that Lou promoted the role of officials as middlemen in the administration of agriculture in contrast to the classical agrarian model that depicted a direct link between the emperor and his subjects.28 Further, in his poems, Lou critiqued the imposition of severe taxes on the farming

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population and called on the wealthy to show appreciation for the hard toil of the common people.29 Lou’s work is particularly interesting because his poems allude to the ritual, cultural, and symbolic world of the rice-paddy farmers. In “Soaking Seeds” (jin zhong 浸種), for example, we are told that the farmers sacrifice a chicken to Goumang 句芒, a sacred being associated with the coming of spring and with trees.30 Another poem refers to the belief that birds help the crops grow by turning over the soil, a notion we also find in folk epics (see chapter 3).31 Singing also features in Lou’s poems. In “Transplanting the Rice Shoots” (chayang 插秧), we are told that loud song accompanies the choreographed movements of the planters: From the southern stream to the northern stream, Songs boom out as they plant the new shoots. Throwing down the plants, their hands never cease. Moving left and right, they never miss a step.32 The poem “Irrigation” accompanies an illustration of the square pallet chain pump operated by four figures, one of whom is a woman. This poem captures the wonders of the magical machine that can pump water upward and the songs and laughter of men and women when the day’s work is done.33 These lines reflect an established tradition of rice-paddy songs and the participation of women in rice-paddy farming. A native of Hangzhou, Lou Shu reminds the court that rice cultivation has been transmitted since ancient times in the Wu region. In “Fertilizing” we are told that pulling up the weeds and fertilizing the rice paddy with the ashes of stubble are practices passed down by the Wu ancestors.34 In his album, the rituals, songs, and folk beliefs of the farming population are sympathetically depicted as an integral part of the process of rice cultivation and hence intrinsic to the flourishing of the rice crop. Rice and sericulture allowed the lower Yangzi region to gain preeminence in China’s economy during the later imperial era.35 Nonetheless, this period also saw a gradual decline in state management of the polders.

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The Jiangnan model of wetland rice cultivation required sustained community and government effort.36 Over the centuries, large polders were broken up into smaller ones with creeks and ditches as boundaries. The smaller polders, now in private possession, were less resistant to flooding and less well maintained.37 During the Qing dynasty (1644– 1911) severe deforestation along the upper reaches of rivers flowing into Lake Tai led to increased waterlogging, drought, and serious floods. Greater population led to severe pressure on land.38

The Language of Water By the late nineteenth century, the rural population lived in hamlets along the canals in water-locked communities, a situation that continued until the late twentieth century.39 Water was never far away, whether the singer-farmer was toiling in the rice paddy, walking along the top of steep embankments, or seeking respite from the summer’s heat along the creeks and inlets. During festivals, villagers journeyed by boat to one of the numerous song pavilions built on timber stilts over the lakes. They moored their boats closely together and listened for hours to song competitions. When they left their hamlets to see kinsfolk, visit market towns, or sell produce, they would travel by a slow flat boat, poling down the reed-filled canals. It was along the banks that men and women worked the waterwheels that irrigated the rice paddy. Young men sculling slow boats were always on the watch for pretty girls at work on the water wheels or washing clothes by the river side. Bodies of water were so integrated into everyday life that their names merged with those of leading families. For example, bang 浜 or bangdou 浜兜 referred to a stream or creek, as well as to the leading family who resided on its banks. The events in “Fifth Daughter” are centered around the Yang Family Creek (Yangjia bang 楊家浜). The dai 埭 was a dam used in irrigation or to store an overflow. Individual dai were known by the families that lived close by (e.g., Yao Family Dam, Yaojia dai 姚 家). The dang 蕩 was a shallow, marshy, reed-filled lake. Xiamu Lake

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(Xiamu dang 夏墓蕩) in Taozhuang 陶莊, Jiashan County, was the site of a song pavilion built over the water. Tang 塘 refers to an irrigation canal. Market towns were built along the banks of canals and were often known as such-and-such tang. Du 瀆 refers to a man-made canal, like the one attributed to legendary founder of the region, Wu Taibo 吳 泰 [太]伯. A tributary that drains water from or into a large body of water is known as a pu 浦. Villages by the Lake Fen region are linked to Lake Tai by the Great Pu or Taipu River (太浦). The terms weitian 田 and yutian 圩田 refer to a polder or sunken paddy field protected by raised embankments.40 When boating with a pole, it was essential to have a sense of the depth of water and the number of streams and bays before one reached the destination. Question and answer songs helped the boatmen to navigate the waterscape: Let me put to you some questions, How many poles deep is the water in Xitang’s Maming Pond? Xiamu Lake has how many creeks and bays? Which river flows direct south to Jiaxing? Let me answer you respectfully, I know that Maming Pond in Xitang is two poles deep. Xiamu Lake has 72 creeks and 36 bays. Green Dragon stream flows directly south to Jiaxing.41 Singer: Shen Shaoquan 沈少泉 (b. 1914, male), Dingzha xiang 丁柵鄉, Jiashan, collected in 1983 Water was largely a benevolent force, but sometimes it could wreak enormous damage. Singer-farmers in Taozhuang conjured up the idea of Lake Tai as being shaped like a rhinoceros, with a single horn and a long tail. From ancient times, rhinoceros and oxen were regarded as custodians of the waterways. Iron effigies of these sacred animals were built on the banks of rivers.42 In the song presented next, the singer conjures up the scene where the rhinoceros in Lake Tai decides to go on the rampage, leading to disastrous floods:

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China At Yixing the upper polders have eight bays, The lower banks have nine bends, At the eighth bend appears a young rhinoceros. The rhino’s foot treads on Huzhou, Its head goes as far as Changzhou, its tail to Suzhou, Its stomach so ravenous it wants to eat up all the grass on the hilltops of Sacred Grotto.43 Singer: Wu Jusheng 吳菊生 (b. 1949, male), Taozhuang, Jiashan, collected 2008

Marrying off the Rice Shoot The highly constructed nature of the polder environment together with the elaborate technology of rice cultivation shaped the song tradition in a multitude of ways. The dominant understanding of rice growing could be characterized as “marrying off the rice shoot.” In this regard, the Yangzi Delta is not different from many other rice zones of monsoonal Asia, where cultivators typically draw analogies between human procreation and rice growing. The tender rice shoot is likened to a fertile young girl, the swelling panicle of rice resembles conception, and the harvest of rice grain is regarded as her progeny: “Rice stands for fertility and woman power.”44 Throughout monsoonal Asia, songs relating to this folk imaginary were sung at each stage of the annual round: plucking, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, threshing, and storing.45 The conventional understanding holds that the rice spirit was unknown in the Chinese tradition. According to Francesca Bray, “while in other regions of Asia rice and its associated images figure prominently in folklore, in religion, in poetry, and in the symbolism of fertility and wellbeing, in China popular rice imagery, verbal and visual, is conspicuous by its near-total absence. There is no goddess of rice, no shrine, no spirit of rice residing in the seed grain.”46 She acknowledges that due to the imposition of the written language developed under the northern dynasties, “much valuable information about the southern traditions was

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lost…and if rice deities or spirits were a central part of the culture, they have yet to be identified.”47 Ethnographic evidence collected in the late twentieth century demonstrates that in the Yangzi Delta, the process of rice cultivation was understood as involving the impregnation of the young bride, the gestation of the young rice panicle, and the conversion of the girl-bride into a Rice Mother. Chinese folk culture specialist Jiang Bin and his team of scholars undertook detailed fieldwork in Jiangsu and Zhejiang during the 1980s and 1990s.48 They found that the task of the rice cultivator was to nurture and nourish the rice plant as appropriate for each stage of her life: infancy, childhood, puberty, marriage, conception, and delivery of a child. Maxims signaled the unique importance of rice in the life of farming populations. The choice of rice grain was just as important as choosing a bride for one’s son: “When you choose a wife you check out the woman / In making a rice paddy you check out the type of grain.”49 The rice shoots would generally spend four weeks in the nursery bed, just as the young girl enjoyed a carefree childhood in her natal home. Four or five days before transplantation, the rice shoots would be given special fertilizer known as “food to send off the bride,” just as a bride on departure from her natal home would be given a final bowl of rice.50 The act of transplanting the rice shoots in the paddy field paralleled that of sending off a bride to be married into another village (imitating the common practice of exogamous marriage). Once transplanted, farmers would weed carefully around the growing shoot and loosen the soil near the roots. This process encouraged air to penetrate and allowed for optimal growth. However, the rice farmers had a different way of explaining why this was necessary: “The rice shoot needs weeding just as a young girl needs a lover.”51 The rice spirit was accorded different names correlating to each stage of rice cultivation. For example, she appears first as the Rice Shoot Maiden wearing a green skirt (yang guniang 秧姑娘). Once the rice sheaf starts to form, she turns into the Rice Flower Mother with golden

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panicles of rice (daohua niangzi 稻花娘子) or Rice Goddess (daohua xiannü 稻花仙女). When mature, the harvested rice can be invoked as the Rice Buddha (dao pusa 稻菩薩) or as the Husband-and-Wife Rice Deity (daogong daopo 稻公稻婆). When the sheaves are piled up into a tower in the shape of a golden beehive, the deity is revered as Ruler of the Five Grains (wugu wang 五谷王). In some regions, sheaves were placed in a decorated barrel and venerated as Deity of the Barrel of Rice (daotong shen 稻桶神).52 In the Wuxi region, woodblock prints in green, white, and yellow were wrapped around a figure made of straw and venerated with gifts of wine and food. Green indicated the rice shoots, white the water that inseminated the crop, and yellow the mature crop.53 In the Fenghua 奉化 region of Zhejiang, field-side shrines known as Rice Shoot Temple (qingyang miao 青秧廟) or Rice Goddess Temple (daohua xiangu miao 稻花仙姑廟) were dedicated to the rice deity. Different types of food offerings were given at different stages of the calendar in line with perceptions of what was best for the different stages of conception, gestation, and birth. At other times, the Rice Goddess was invoked by women afflicted with premature aging or bodily weakness and men suffering impotence.54 Local ethnologists report that these rites were carried out sporadically in the more remote parts of Jiangnan (i.e., Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces) well into the late twentieth century. Practices were in abeyance during periods of prohibition in the Republican era (1911‒1948) and during Maoist campaigns such as the Great Leap Forward (1957‒1959) and the Cultural Revolution (1966‒1976). In the era of high socialism, rites were carried out surreptitiously.55 In the late twentieth century, rice rituals were revived in a few village areas, including Xiangshanqu 鄉山區 in Dongyang 東陽, Zhejiang Province. At Xiangshanqu a ritual known as baidou 拜斗 was carried out in the seventh month of the lunar calendar. Harvested rice sheaves were placed in a barrel decorated with cut-out symbols of good luck arranged on red, gold, and silver paper. Women were the major participants in this ritual, while their menfolk set off fireworks and struck percussion instruments.56 The women stepped over

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a stack of smoldering rice-chaff to purify themselves then lined up to light incense and bow before the Goddess. Sometimes an adult woman would dress up as the Grain Spirit (gu shen 谷神) and accept the prayers and veneration of the onlookers while they sang songs such as “The Song of the Four Seasons” (siji diao 四季調) or “The Twelve Month Flower Song” (shi’er yue huaming 十二月花名). A woman dressed up as the Grain Spirit would then enact the actions of transplanting rice in a ritual dance.57 According to farmer Chen Yaode 陳耀德 from Fenghua: We venerate the Rice Goddess from the time she begins to grow in the “stomach” [nursery bed] to the time that the rice grains form. Before Liberation [before 1949] we carried out rituals three to five times [during rice cultivation]. At the first ritual we set out vegetarian offerings; at the second we presented her with melons, fruit, and rice cakes; at the third ritual, after the rice grains formed, we laid out flesh sacrifices such as fish and meat. I can’t tell you about the reasons for the change in sacrificial offerings. As for our prayers, I can still remember a few lines. The Rice Goddess is so glamorous! On her head a clip of jade; on her body a skirt of green. We thank the sun, moon, rain, and dew for their favors, May her green, green jade-body give birth to yellow and gold. Yellow gold yellow, will be her bridal dowry, Yellow gold yellow, she brings food to her beloved in the field. Yellow gold yellow, glistening brightly, Pearly-white rice grains to feed our sons and grandsons, May the Rice Goddess Maiden bestow on us her rich bounty.58 In this song to the Rice Goddess, the maiden rice shoot is praised as a beautiful bride. With the aid of the sun, the moon, and rain, together with prayers and sacrificial offerings, the rice spirit will transform from a green shoot to a golden rice sheaf bearing a harvest of pearl-white grains. A ritual known as “opening the door of the rice shoot” (kai yangmen 開秧門) was carried out at the beginning of the rice-planting season.59

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This refers to planting the bunch of rice shoots in such a way that the roots were freed of muddy sediment and kept loosely apart. First the bunches were tied up carefully with rice-chaff to protect the pollenproducing organs of procreation, the “mother-flower” (huamu yang 花 姆秧). In Huzhou sacrificial offerings were left in a small shrine next to fields to invoke the Husband-and-Wife Field Deity (tiangong tianpo 田公田婆).60 As the first rice seedlings were transplanted, the planters would let out a sighing sound to expel evil demons and chant: “The rice plant forms shoots just as a mother bears a son/If the mother and son are at peace / Then they bear more seeds.”61 In the following song, Jiashan singer Zhou Zengyang 周增樣 (b. 1913) reminds himself of the importance of keeping intact the pollen-bearing “mother-flower” when plucking the tender rice shoot from the nursery bed. He plucks the seedling with his thumb and forefinger and gently opens up the plant, breathing in the fragrance of the pollen: When you pluck the rice shoots, be sure to pluck the mother-flower, Open the rice shoot gate and smell the fragrance of the pollen.62 The sexualized nature of this act was understood by at least some participants. In Ying Changyu’s study of the Fenghua region, one of the female informants told him matter-of-factly: Opening the rice door is the same as opening up the “yin door” [yinmen 陰門; female parts]. This is the meaning of what happens when you plant the first few rows. When you plant you have to part the seedlings with your fingers, like opening thighs. When planting the first rows, the planter must turn his back toward the sun to hide his actions because, if the sun were to see what happens to the rice-maiden (yanggu 秧姑), then the ricemaiden would be mortally embarrassed. So, naturally, any planter who faced the sun would be punished with “rice sickness” (yang feng 秧風).63

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The second couplet of this song portrays the planter with his gaze trained downward and his back to the sun. There is a popular saying about the back-breaking labor farmers endured: “Their face turned to the yellow earth, their back to the sky.” This proverbial saying calls to mind the eternal earthbound nature of agricultural labor. However, in song this dismissive image of a life of drudgery spent doubled over in the mud is transformed into the image of Celestial Master Zhang, who in popular belief could expel loathsome demons with a mere snap of his fingers. Master Zhang could summon magic forces with his bare hands, His face turned towards the sacred water, his back towards the sky.64 The next stanza reminds singer and listener of the efficacy of mountain songs in boosting energy and concentration in the act of plucking and transplanting. Singers enjoyed competing with each other. If one’s neighbor responds antiphonally to your song, then you must be sure to go on.65 When you pluck the rice shoots, be sure to pluck the mother-flower, Open up the rice shoot gate and smell the fragrance of the pollen. That big brother in the next field knows how to respond to your songs, If you run out of mountain songs, then you’ll be careless in your planting. If you’re careless in your planting, then the shoots will not grow. You must sing loud and long to the Jiashan County yamen, For every mountain song you sing, there’ll be an extra peck of grain, Then when the four seasons have run their course, you’ll sing the thirty-six songs of New Year celebration.66 Singer: Zhou Zengyang (b. 1913, male), Xiadian miao 下甸廟, Jiashan County, song undated

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China

Songs of Harvest Blessings In songs of harvest blessings, the singer-farmer calls on supernatural powers to assist him or her with the task at hand. In the song presented next, the mundane actions involved in weeding and harvesting are described as the heroic deeds of mythic deities; the humble implements used to weed and harrow are transformed into ferocious weapons. While some of the figures invoked in this song are part of the national pantheon, others were known only in the local area. The first figure mentioned here is Shen Seventh Brother, regarded by Wuxi Dongting people as the ancestral founder of rice cultivation (see chapter 3). In the folk epic “Shen Seventh Brother,” it is recounted that Seventh Brother defeats the myna bird in a song competition. Here the singer imagines himself as an expert singer like Shen Seventh Brother. He is represented as standing on a spike-toothed harrow pulled by an ox in harness (dingba 釘耙). The farmer takes on the familiar role of Pigsie wielding his talismanic nine-toothed harrow. You ask me to sing a song, let’s let me sing a song, Just like Shen Seventh Brother, who worsted the myna bird in song. You ask me to turn six ke of soil three times with the iron rake,67 Just like Pigsie with his nine-toothed harrow, I expel the demons.68 Expert rice planters were able to rapidly pluck bunches of seedlings and plant them in an elegant row. In the stanza presented next, the planter claims hyperbolically that he can plant a whole row in the time it takes for a single bird call. The bird imagery reflects the local belief that birds assist with rice cultivation, a story narrated in “Shen Seventh Brother.” The rapid movement of the planter from left to right reminds the singer of Chang’e 嫦娥, Lady of the Moon, working the shuttle of her loom. While harrowing the soil with a long-handled rake, the farmer sees himself as similar to Zhao Zilong 趙子龍, who rescued the infant son of Liu Bei 劉 備 from the clutches of the enemy at the battle of Changban Slope.69 You ask me to plant the rice shoots, I can plant six stalks in a single birdcall.

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Just like Chang’e in the moon, I draw the bow left and right and pierce the golden shuttle. You ask me to loosen the soil, I grab the long-handle rake, Just like Zhao Zilong doing battle at Changban Slope. The next stanza deals with weeding around the growing rice shoots. The farmers kneel barefoot in the muddy paddy. They use their fingers to carefully remove weeds around each rice shoot, forming a “nest” in which the tender shoot has adequate space to grow. In this song, the weeds are demonic forces that must be cast out with the same ferocity as the God of Hell in laying out his snare to trap the wicked. The gold spread on the ground refers to golden oil cakes used as fertilizer. You ask me to weed the paddy, I will dig six nests like an oil lamp, Just like the God of Hell, who casts his net of snares to trap the demons and ghouls. You ask me to reap the ripened sheaves, my scythe will gleam and sparkle like a dancing sword in battle—lightning from Heaven will blind your eyes, Just like Liu Hai 劉海 [the God of Wealth], who spreads his gold upon the ground.70 Wuxi farmers would curse the weeds as they plucked them out. Three weeds, the incarnation of evil men, were regarded as particularly noxious. The farmers would chant this incantation: “Three weed demons, you harm the people / We’ll behead you and chop off your roots. If the father cannot finish the job, then the sons and grandsons will carry on.”71 In the final section, the singer-farmer evokes auspicious symbols as he looks forward to a cornucopia of plenty, thanks to the blessings of the ancients and the heroic labor of the community. I bundle the rice just like the lion grabbing the silken ball. I pile up the rice grains just like the unicorn sending son-seeds, rising as high as the tips of the clouds. I thresh the rice sheaves just like the hundred birds before the phoenix, spitting out golden pearls.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China I hull the rice like the nine dragons, fine pearls popping out one by one. You ask me to sing a song, so I’ll sing a song. Let’s sing, we sing a song of planting in the fields. We sing of a mild wind and seasonal rains, we sing of a good year to come, We sing of the five grains in abundance and a rich harvest. The harvest is good, we sing a song of thanks, We thank Fu Xi 伏羲, Shennong 神農, and the Five Grain ancestors.72

The entire song is structured around the sequence of rice cultivation, from transplanting (shiyang 莳秧), to loosening the soil with the rake (tangdao 耥稻), weeding by hand around the growing shoot (yundao 耘 稻), reaping the crop (gedao 割稻), bundling up the rice sheaves (kundao 捆稻), and threshing the rice (qianlong 牽礱). Before the 1950s, the figures celebrated here would have been very familiar to the rural population, as they figured prominently in opera performed seasonally in village temples and in woodblock prints that were placed on family altars and sacrificially burned at New Year and other festival occasions.73 Harvest songs encode notions of time passing in the annual round. The singer-farmers relied on both the lunar calendar, which prescribed the times for festivals, and the 24 solar periods (jie 節) that related to specific agricultural activities. In the following song, “Duanwu” 端午 and “the Double Ninth” refer to festival occasions, whereas Summer Start is a solar period.74 The blending of both calendars shows how everyday activities are infused with spiritual significance. The final line refers to the transformation of the seedling to Rice Mother. The grains of rice are sprouting hairy awns, At the third day of Summer Start comes a yell— it’s time to plant. At the fourth month, the yellow shoot forms sacred flowers, By the fifth day of the fifth month at the Duanwu Festival, all transplanting is completed. At the start of the sixth month the rice forms blades,

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At the seventh month the ears of grain grow long. On the eighth month we venerate the gods, At the Double Ninth we chant in praise of the Rice Mother. Singer: Huang Xueyuan 黄雪原 (b. 1928, male), Baimao 白茆, Changshu, undated75 Songs relating to the annual round and the deities were probably among the oldest in the shan’ge repertoire. Similar songs and rituals, also addressed to a rice spirit or rice goddess, are prevalent throughout the rice-paddy zone of monsoonal Asia including Japan, the Philippines, India, Thailand, Java, Bali, and Vietnam.76 As previously discussed, the Yangzi River region is one of the world’s most ancient centers of domestic rice cultivation. It is thus possible that notions of a rice deity originated in the Yangzi River region and spread, together with the technology of rice cultivation, to other parts of east and southeast Asia.77 Chinese texts only reference the last two and a half thousand years of rice cultivation and do not record the songs and rituals that accompanied the annual round.78 For this reason, parallels between the rituals and songs of the Yangzi River region and those of monsoonal Asia have been obscured in scholarly investigations. Considering the ethnographic data collected by Chinese folklorists together with the songs of the rice paddy discussed here, it is now possible to confirm the importance of the feminized rice spirit in the beliefs of certain southern Chinese populations. Ritual practices revived in the last decades of the twentieth century testify to what was probably a widespread practice along the Yangzi River during the imperial era.79 Songs discussed in this chapter come from the length and breadth of the Lake Tai region: from Changshu and Wuxi in the north; to Luxu in the southeast; and further south as far as Jiashan and Fenghua, a span of two provinces in the present day. In the absence of historic records testifying to veneration of the rice deity, one could say that the agricultural songs of the delta offer a truly unique record of this belief system.

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Songs about how to Grow Rice Songs also encoded local knowledge about how to grow rice. One example is rice transplantation, which required the farmers to plant a fixed number of bunches in a straight line and then to move backward together in time with the rhythm of the song to do the next row. Fei Xiaotong, in his 1930s study of a Lake Tai village, was impressed by the sheer efficiency of this combination of song and movement: One person will plant six or seven bunches in one row within his reach without stepping sideways. Finishing one row he will take one step backwards and start another row. Finishing one strip he will start another from the beginning. If there are several persons at work on the same farm, they will form a row and move backwards at the same time. The rhythmic movement of the workers is very impressive. To maintain the rhythm, which is helpful in this monotonous work, they often sing rhythmic songs. Special songs have grown up under the name of yengo [yangge 秧歌]—“Young shoot songs.”80 Fei does not tell us the content of the song he heard. However, it may well have been similar to this song by Qian Afu recorded in 1959. Speaking of songs, let’s just sing. When we plant rice, we sing rice-planting songs. We plant the green shoots in the row, now left, now right, We plant them in the open field, now right, now left. Left and right, left and right, till the phoenix nods its head, Coming and going just like the loom of a shuttle. First look ahead and then crouch back, Then turn back and spring forward again. If you plant a small bunch, then it won’t grow much, If you plant a large bunch, then it won’t grow at all. Not big, not small, just four or five are plenty,

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Then the ears will be large and the rice-seeds many.81 Singer: Qian Afu, collected July 1959 Here the singer reminds the workers that each bunch of rice shoots must be the same size and should be spaced out at evenly in a straight line.82 Highly skilled planters could grab six or seven bunches and then plant them first to the left, in line with the newly planted row, and then to the open field on the right. This required a rapid swivel and precision planting. The phoenix nod refers to the signal to cease work, which was often the beat of a drum. This song parallels the movements of the farmer to that of a weaver working the shuttle of a loom.

Songs and Fertility Loud, reverberating songs sung in the fields or by a waterway were believed to promote crop fertility. This notion is reflected in the songs of Qian Afu, who lived by a creek bordered by clumps of bamboo. Before 1949 song competitions were often held on the banks of his home creek. For this reason, his locality was known as “the creek of mountain songs.” In the following song, it is the vitality of the mountain song that charges the growth of the bamboo leaves and makes the water surge into the creek: The bamboo leaves grow green and greener, As burst follows burst of mountain songs. The bamboo-ringed stream grows long and longer, The creek brims full of mountain songs. Singer: Qian Afu, collected December 27, 197983 In Lake Tai song communities, singing was believed to have a powerful effect on the everyday world. In other words, it was not just a form of entertainment or communication but could enact spiritual power. In the following song, mountain songs are declared to be more efficacious than an invocation to the Buddha: When you enter a temple, you recite a prayer to Amitabha,

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China When you go down to the fields you sing a mountain song. If you recite a lifetime of Buddhist prayers, you still won’t go to the Western Heaven. But if you sing a few mountain songs, the sheaves of rice will grow and grow.84 Singer: Lu Ruiying 陸瑞英 (b. 1932, female), Baimao, Changshu, song undated

Singers often bragged about how many songs they could sing. Qian Afu claimed that his repertoire was infinite precisely because he lived on the waterways, as if there was an exact correspondence between the vast expanse of the water of his home region and the sheer abundance of his songs: You ask me—how come you have so many good songs? It’s because my home is on the banks of the waterways. Singer: Qian Afu, collected 196185 Loudness and the ability to sustain lengthy periods of antiphonal singing were the defining qualities of a good singer. Ethnomusicologist Antoinet Schimmelpenninck carried out extensive fieldwork on shan’ge singing in the lower Yangzi Delta from 1987 to 1992. She noted that well-regarded singers did not necessarily have to sing in tune and might not even have a pleasant singing voice. However, a good singer was one who had mastered a large repertoire of songs, was capable of impromptu adaptation, and could sing with “loudness and energy.”86 In 2003, Cao Haoliang 曹浩亮 of Changshu was asked by folklore scholar Zheng Tuyou whether in his younger days he would sing to himself when working the fields. Cao responded: It really was work on my own. This piece of land was your own, the field next door belonged to someone else. It was really lonely for one person so, as I worked, I would sing as loud as I could. Someone in the field next door would sing as well; sometimes we

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would sing in dialogue (duichang 對唱). In this way it became a habit.87 Japanese investigators in the early 1930s noted the prevalence of singing in the rice paddy of the Yangzi Delta. Even if the farmer worked in solitary fashion, tending his own plot, he would still sing in the fields. If a neighbor heard, he would join in: “We saw rice and sorghum planted everywhere…The farmers had formed groups of three to five people; they sang during the work with a truly tremendous energy.”88 Just as good singing helped the crops grow, so too did it spark romantic attachments. A young male singer whose voice lacked power and resonance was unlikely to impress the local girls. This anonymous song comes from early twentieth-century Suzhou: When the lover boy sings mountain songs, they sound puny to the ears. His voice is like a knife splitting fine bamboo shoots. He needs to eat the leaves of winter bamboo-shoots and raw eggs, Then his kuo la-la can reach as far as the chamber of the girl he fancies!89 In the late 1950s, Qian Afu recalled the power of song in courting: Third Brother leaves and Fourth Brother comes, Let mountain songs be your go-between. By day let mountain songs serve as wine and food, By night sing mountain songs to win a pretty girl. Singer: Qian Afu, collected 195990 Qian Afu himself won much praise in the Wuxi area for his talents as a singer. His voice was said to be like sticky rice (nuomi 糯米), rich and satisfying. He sang with great emotion (qing 情) and retained the vitality of youth (qing 青).91 There are numerous examples in folk epics where a girl is entranced by the songs of an attractive young man. For example, in the song below,

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a girl is dining at home when she hears a loud male voice. She rushes to the doorway, bowl in hand: When the lover boy sings, his voice resounds like a bell, The young girl stands before the door clutching her bowl of rice. Her feet stuck to the ground, her eyes fixed on the sky; she cannot eat, chew, or swallow. There is the sudden crash of broken porcelain, The bowl has dropped and shattered into eight phoenix-shards. It is the new bowl with a golden edge from Jiangxi Jingdezhen. She curses the singer as a bewitching demon.92 Singer: Wan Zuxiang 萬祖祥 (b. 1927, male), Baimao, Changshu, undated In another version of the same song the mother scolds the entranced daughter: My little devil, what is so good about that boy’s mountain songs? He is singing of nothing but mischief-making, Every line tells of secret love affairs!93 Singer: Xu Ernan 徐二男 (birth dates unknown, gender unknown), Baimao, Changshu, collected 1986 In another song, also from Baimao, a young girl consorting with a young man keeps on giving excuses to her mother about why she is late coming home. Her excuses include going to borrow a farm implement, going to a river to draw water, waiting for the tidal wave to bring in more water to the canal, washing rice, and bundling up the chaff.94 These songs rely on hyperbole for comic effect. The songs of the lover boy are borne aloft by a mighty wind. Blown by the blast, the girl can hardly keep upright. “Just sing three or four songs and be done with it,

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If you sing seven or eight, then I cannot endure it!”95 Singer: Xu Ayuan 許阿元 (birth dates unknown, gender unknown), collected in 1986 in Baimao, Changshu

Sex, Fertility, and Women’s Labor Mountain songs of the delta abound in images of women at labor in the rice paddy. This appears anomalous in that the normative model for gendered labor in late imperial China was that “men plough and women weave” (nangeng nűzhi 男耕女織).96 In actual practice, however, girls and married women regularly took part in rice cultivation. Women’s tasks included plucking the rice shoots, weeding, working the water wheel, threshing, husking, and raking. At harvest time, all men, women, and children were needed to reap, thresh, and bundle up the rice sheaves.97 The broad range of women’s field activity is reflected in mountain songs of the delta region.98 Young girls who worked in the fields were known as “field girls” (tianzhong xiaojie 田中小姐). In songs of the field girls, the principle of procreation that lay behind the orderly process of rice cultivation spilled over as excess libido into everyday toil in the fields. The singer-farmer readily associated the rice shoot maiden preparing for “marriage” (transplantation into another field) with the pubescent village girls ripe for love. In the two songs presented next, we watch as the field girl removes her shoes, rolls up her trousers, bares her legs, and bends over in the mud. In the fifth month, it’s time to plant the rice shoots, The field-girl goes out to pluck the seedlings. She casts off her embroidered slippers on the bank of the polder. Wonderful! A pair of white arms descend into the muddy pool, Wafting the scent of fragrant flowers.99 Singer: Lu Ruiying, collected in 1986 In the fifth month, it’s time to plant the rice shoots,

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China The young girl goes to the field to pluck the seedlings, A pair of shoes left on the banks of the polder, how wonderful! With rolled-up trousers and bare of feet she treads in the sticky mud, Now it smells, oh, so fragrant!100 Singer: Xu Eryuan 徐二媛 (birth date unknown, gender unknown), Baimao, Changshu, song undated

Literati commentators sometimes commiserated with the hard toil of both men and women in the paddy field. Qian Zai 錢載 (1708‒1793) depicts this scene of a wife plucking rice shoots from the nursery while the husband plants them in the paddy field: Her feet submerged in the water, she is sodden up to her skirts Under his rain-cape of straw, his shoulders are soaked as he works.101 In more affluent parts of the delta, such as Yongjia 永嘉 county in Zhejiang, it was not customary for women to take part in rice transplanting. If they did so they could be scoffed at as “cheap goods” (jianfu 賤婦). In Yongjia, young men competed with each other to plant the rice shoots as quickly as possible because expert planters attracted the best brides.102 Both situations reflect the sexualized nature of the transplantation process and the perceived parallels between the growing of rice and human procreation. Women also participated in the irrigation of the paddy fields using water pumps. After the seedlings were transplanted, it was essential to ensure the rice paddy had enough water to nurture the crop. In delta songs the pedal water wheel (jiaota shuiche 腳踏水車) features prominently. The singer-farmer treads continually on the pedals of a large wheel, forcing a large ladle to scoop up water from the irrigation pond and pour it into the rice paddy. Peddling the water wheel is one of the most exhausting activities of the annual round. The singers’ eyes well up with pain and sweat pours off their bodies.103

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In delta songs we often see young, unmarried girls (xiao mei 小妹; literally “young sisters”) atop the water wheel. Standing on the trestle and working the pedals with their bare feet, these young girls were a highly visible and attractive presence to those boating along the waterways. We hear of their beautiful costumes and seductive charms: “Her eyebrows curved as if inviting a lover to come.”104 This is obvious hyperbole, as both men and women wore very simple clothing on the waterwheel.105 Sometimes “embroidered shoes” are mentioned, a synecdoche for a woman’s feet, an erogenous zone in Chinese culture. (These could be either small bound feet or natural feet. Laboring women often retained natural feet for practical reasons). The song below captures the arousal experienced by the boatman as he spies a young girl on the waterwheel: As the boat draws near the stream, the masthead sways. Along both banks are rows of water pumps, A tender young girl works the lover-pedals step by step, Ahead the water rises in a vast white spray.106 Singer: Zhao Xiao’er 趙小二 (birth date unknown, gender unknown), Baimao, Changshu, song undated The word for “pedals” (langtou 郎頭) is homophonous with “male lover” (lang 郎). Erotic double entendres of this sort are ubiquitous in delta mountain songs. As young girls necessarily work outside the home in agricultural labor, they are spied by men deploying their craft on the rivers and canals. The most common boat to feature in these mountain songs is the yuloh (yaolu 搖櫓 or rocking boat), a single-oar boat propelled forward with a sculling motion. The oar or long paddle is known as a lu 橹. On the blade of the oar is a socket that is lodged securely into a pin mounted on the stern of the boat. This pin, known as the “oar-head” (lu rentou 櫓 人頭), allows the oar to pivot freely in its socket. The oar is stabilized by the addition of a rope that connects the tip of the oar to the deck of the boat. The boatman pushes and pulls on the rope in a rhythmic,

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rocking motion to make the oar rock in its socket, thus propelling the boat forward.107 This type of boat is often found in songs in which a young man wants to show off his boating skills to an attractive young woman. In the final two lines of the song quoted next, the singer uses hyperbolic sexualized imagery to display his virility. He can pull the rope so tightly that it looks fit to snap, and he can rock the oar so violently in its socket that the “oar-head” will catch fire. The mooring rope untied, the boat is pushed ahead, The boatman takes up the oar and sculls from side to side. The raw-silk rope is stretched so tight—it’s breaking bit by bit! The oar-head burns as if on fire—just pour on water to put it out!108 Singer: Li Yu’e 李玉娥 (b. 1958, female), Baimao, Changshu, song undated The riverbanks were a prime site for courting and seduction. For example, in the folk epic “Zhao Shengguan,” a girl forms her initial impression of a young man from hearing his powerful voice as it resounds across the waterways: When the lover boy sings, his voice resounds like a bell, His voice wafted by the wind far into the countryside. The girl hears him: ‘From far away it sounds like a parrot calling, From nearby, it sounds like a phoenix!’109 In the story quoted next, the young man spots a pretty girl washing her clothes by the riverbank. He decides to catch her attention by demonstrating his boating prowess. This section is sung in “rapid style” (jijige 急急歌), in which a huge number of syllables are rattled off at top speed in one breath—note the enormous length of the third line. Mastery of the rapid style allows the singer to show off his virtuosity: She twisted the hand towel this way and that, Then rolled up her red trousers but not her skirt.

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Zhao Shengguan sculled the boat. With his right hand he held firm the handle of the skulling pole made of sawtooth oak, then with his left hand grabbed the sculling rope of pure palm coir; his right foot firm on the cypress edge-plank and his left foot on the cedar plank. He sculled once, twice—two by three makes six, three by three makes nine, two by nine eighteen, three by nine twentyseven, four by nine thirty-six; scraping the pole across the water in a straight line, forcing the waves to surge—crash splash! The water gushed over the banks and soaked right up her skirt!110 The young boatman here puts on a spectacular display of boatmanship to attract the girl’s attention. In rocking boats, the long paddle and rope are manipulated in alternate movements to propel the boat forward. Here the young man deliberately makes the boat rock fiercely from side to side by drawing the pole upright through the water, forcing the waves to surge onto the banks and up the skirt of the object of his desire. The singer and audience would find the suggestive nature of this song very entertaining. Mountain songs and folk epics portrayed the common delta practice of women toiling with men in the paddy field and on water pumps. As they worked, they sang similar songs, drawing from the same stock material and sharing the same erotic motifs. In songs of harvest celebration, both men and women showed respect for the feminized rice spirit, whose conversion from bride to mother ensured a good harvest and the survival of the community. This blurring of the gender divide was an affront to the conventional understanding of the division of male and female labor held by the literati and official class. If these educated men considered the issue at all, they would presumably view the toil of women in the rice paddy as an aberration from the normative view that men should plough and women should weave, which was another way of saying that men should toil outside in the fields and women should work inside the home.111 This gendered division of labor featured in Tilling and Weaving pictures that were widely disseminated in albums, ceramics, and fans of the late imperial era.112 Francesca Bray argues that these

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prints provided “a setting in which humans acted out in microcosm the essential interflow of yin (female) and yang (male) energies that sustained cosmic harmony and social order.”113 In this conceptualization, men and women should engage in different complementary occupations rather than sharing the major agricultural work. This notion conjured up by Chinese men of letters ignored the lived reality of both men and women engaged in rice-paddy cultivation in the lower Yangzi Delta region. The notional exclusion of women from rice cultivation also excluded any idea of a feminized rice deity. The following song captures the common situation of men and women working together to turn the pedals of the water wheel. They strip to the bare essentials under the hot sun, disregarding modesty. The women are likened to the legendary women warrior Mu Guiying 穆桂英 and the men to her husband, Yang Zongbao 楊宗保. Both were renowned for their campaigns against northern invaders. The story about their destruction of the enemy’s Heavenly Gate Battle Formation (tianmen zhen天門陣) is one of the highlights of this saga. In the following song, the singer declares that the peddling men and women will smash the Water Gate Formation. Green are the rice shoots in the field. Six people toil on the water wheel. The men, bare-armed, wear hats of straw, The women, in bosom-tops, wear a headscarf. The men in straw hats look like General Yang, The women with bosom-tops look like Mu Guiying. Hei-yo hai-yi—hei hei yo! Men and women both, they smash the Water Gate Formation. Singer: Qian Afu, collected 1959114

Mountain Songs Under Mao Shortly after the establishment of the People’s Republic, rice-paddy songs were elicited and recorded as part of a campaign to create new songs to

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convey new agricultural policies. Some of Qian Afu’s most traditional songs were collected during this transformative period, when the rural population was ordered to vastly increase agricultural output by the adoption of intensive (and generally untested) farming practices. During the Great Leap Campaign, party leaders ordered commune members to carry out close planting and deep ploughing in line with the ideas of Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko.115 Jingles about the new agricultural policy replaced the locally relevant knowledge transmitted over the generations in songs and rituals.116 An example of the latter is the song Qian Afu sang in July 1959, at the height of the Great Leap Campaign, which called for the spaced planting of bunches of a particular size: “Not big, not small, just four or five are plenty / Then the ears will be large and the rice seeds many.” Traditional rice cultivation in the delta depended on “fine-tuned skills” to produce what Francesca Bray describes as “locally successful techniques” specifying the correct amount of water for the paddy, the careful spacing of rice shoot bunches, and the precise application and timing of fertilizer.117 The detailed observations of farmers transmitted through the generations were a crucial component in successful rice production. As Bray observes, “Many of the small innovations that cumulatively contributed to a steady increase in the productivity of Chinese agriculture through the late imperial period were due to peasant as much as landlord ingenuity.”118 During the Great Leap Forward campaign, a millennium of finely honed “locally successful” techniques were jettisoned in favor of an untested model derived from Soviet agronomy. Chinese farming communities complained that the deep ploughing destroyed the topsoil and that close planting ruined the crop.119 Collectives were commanded to build waterworks on inappropriate sites and to greatly increase the production of fertilizer. There was a mad scramble to produce fertilizer from unsuitable waste material.120 Collective members worked day and night on largescale projects that produced little. Meanwhile, the usual maintenance

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works around polders were not carried out by the wearied population. Village cadres competed to announce fictitious bumper harvests. The outcome was China’s worst famine in the modern age.121 The Maoist transformation of the rural workforce reflected a mechanistic model of cultivation in opposition to the teachings of mountain songs, in which the community cooperated in labor and song to transform the rice grain into a virginal seedling, a bridal rice shoot, a pregnant panicle, and finally a golden sheaf of mother-grain.122 As they toiled, the singers called to mind the annual rhythm of the agricultural cycle within a mythological framework that valorized their heroic effort in bringing forth the magical potency of the soil. The fertility and sexuality involved in the act of rice cultivation in the annual round was an integral part of the social interactions of the community, the courting of young couples, and the marrying off of young girls who would in turn produce the next generation. In this way the ancestors would be honored and the villagers prosperous and happy. In this context, the songs of Qian Afu discussed in this chapter, some of which were sung and recorded during the Great Leap Forward Campaign, can only be interpreted as an implicit resistance to the command economy policies of the era. These songs remind us of the rich ecological and mythological understanding that the revolution sought to destroy. In later decades, Qian Afu recalled the sheer madness of the Great Leap Forward. The months of intensive labor were followed not by a hopedfor utopia but rather a devastating famine. At dawn we greeted the sun, and at night we worked by starlight, Ten days and eight nights without sleep. Hard toil, hard toil, more bitter toil. People starved until their bellies swelled. Great Leap Forward, Great Leap Forward, How much we praised the finer points, Talking of good fortune without end! But women lost their periods,

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Men lost their virility. Three generations were burdened with loss. Old and young, we all paid the toll.123 Singer: Qian Afu, collected 1986 The so-called agricultural songs of rural China resist easy definition as either “laboring songs” or as purely “agricultural” songs. The songs are both sacred and secular. The underlying premise is that the domain of human procreation runs parallel with and is integral to the process of crop production.124 The rice plant is feminine in nature. When a tender shoot, she is praised as a beautiful bride-to-be. Once transplanted, she is inseminated with white plumes of water scooped up by waterwheels, whose long pallet-chains look like a dragon’s spine. As the shoots “conceive” and bear golden panicles, she will be celebrated as a pregnant bride. Once harvested, the sheaves will be venerated as the Rice Mother. The sacred and the secular are here combined in a worldview that affirms the life principle of singing, rice cultivation, and human sexuality. Taken together, the agricultural songs and the rituals constituted a “ritual technology” designed, in the words of Georges Condominas, “to perpetuate two continuous kinds of production, or, if one wishes, reproduction: the production or reproduction of the individual, on the one hand, and that of the society on the other.”125 One could add that the invocation of the rice spirit and of the ancestors and deities, as well as the joyful celebration of the mysteries of procreation, afforded a convincing and powerful antidote to a life of unending toil. The “ritual technology” of rice cultivation united the community, the rice spirit, and the ancestors into what Condominas calls “one collectivity” to accomplish the goals of fertility, reproduction, and spiritual well-being.126 This underlying worldview, glimpsed here in the agricultural songs of the paddy farmers, offers fresh insight into why Wu region songs have long been considered vulgar, risqué, erotic, or even obscene.127 Over the centuries, Chinese commentators have constantly noted the double entendres and suggestive imagery of songs of the Wu region. This is not just for the case for those songs that deal explicitly with stories

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of secret passion. As demonstrated here, the agricultural songs do not shy away from human sexuality. For the young girl, male singing is a powerful medium of sexual attraction. Women gaze in distraction as handsome men sing loud and long in song competitions or vigorously thrust their boat paddles. Men are similarly distracted by unmarried girls. At the time of transplantation, they are transfixed as the girls remove their shoes, roll up their trousers, and display their tender feet. While out boating, they gaze at the bare-legged girls on the banks turning the water wheels. The courting among the mulberry trees and by the riverbanks, the ogling of young girls in the fields, or on the water wheels, leading to either marriage or illicit affairs, all finds its parallel in the act of procreation taking place in the fields of rice as the tender rice shoot is plucked out of the nursery bed and “married off” to a paddy field, where she will transform into the mother-flower. Throughout this process, the growing rice plant enjoys the protection of the rice spirit together with the people who accord her reverence. This was the belief system that one finds uniquely preserved in the mountain songs and agricultural rituals of the delta region. In this chapter we have explored the integral connection between the secular and sacred nature of these Chinese rice-paddy songs, a connection shared with other Asian monsoonal civilizations. In subsequent chapters we will see how song material based around crop growth, fertility, and sexual relations was grist to the mill for singers in their extempore composition of the long narrative songs of the delta. Whereas the sacred songs of the rice paddy invoke deities to control the powerful forces of nature, the longer narrative forms explore what happens when the circuits of human emotion break free from the confines of normative social relations.

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Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Wuge wang de ge, 305, lines 5‒8. Zhu Hairong, Hua Baoshan, “Birth,” 27, stanza 1. Pfaffenberger, “Social Anthropology of Technology,” 501. Wei, Taihu liuyu kaifa tanyuan, 1. See Huang, The Peasant Family, 22. Fortune is best remembered for his secret journeys to collect tea plants on behalf of the British East India Company. These were later introduced to India. Fortune, A residence among the Chinese, 337. Fortune, 340. Unattributed, in Wuge yiji in Gu et al., Wuge, 289, song no. 36. The root of the goldthread tree (huanglian shu 黃連樹, coptis japonica) is very bitter and symbolizes pain and suffering. Liu and Chen, The Archaeology of China, 76‒82. Located at Shangshan in Pujiang, Zhejiang; see Liu and Chen, The Archaeology of China, 61‒64, 78‒79. Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 235; Liu and Chen, The Archaeology of China, 82. Liu and Chen, The Archaeology of China, 202. See the Yuejue shu 越絕書 (1st century CE) translated by Milburn, The Glory of Yue, “The Record of the Lands of Wu,” 104, 108. On the history of polder development in the Lake Tai region during the imperial era, see Miu, “Taihu diqu tangpu.” Bray, “Patterns of Evolution,” 11. Wei, Taihu liuyu kaifa tanyuan, 86. The population of the Yangzi valley increased five-fold during this period; see Lewis, China Between Empires, 6. See Shishuo xinyu 世說新語, 33:15, translated in Mather, Shih-shuo Hsinyü, 514. Wei, Taihu liuyu kaifa tanyuan, 87. This system began in the Tang and culminated in the Wuyue era; see Miu, “Taihu diqu tangpu,” 16‒2l; Shiba, “Environment Versus Water Control,” 149; and Huang, The Peasant Family, 32. Shiba, 139. Miu, “Taihu diqu tangpu,” 24; Wei, Taihu liuyu kaifa tanyuan, 89.

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23. Wei, Taihu liuyu kaifa tanyuan, 91; Huang, The Peasant Family, 31; and Miu “Taihu diqu tangpu,” 24‒26. 24. See Huang, The Peasant Family, 31. 25. On new tools of the late Song to early Ming, see Li Bozhong, Duo shijiao, 56–58. Delta songs feature the dingba 钉耙 or harrow, which was used after ploughing to smooth out lumps of soil. It consisted of a multi-spiked crossbeam that was dragged along the ground by an ox in harness. The farmer stood on the crossbeam to drive the ox. A type of rake known as a tang 耥 also features in songs. This was a long-handled stick made of bamboo with a timber “shoe” on one end with iron nails. It was used in the early stages of weeding. For photos of the ba and tang as used in the Shanghai region into the late-twentieth century, see Qian Minquan, Shanghai xiangcun, 14, 17. 26. Hammers, Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, 9, 64‒68. 27. Bray, Technology, Gender and History, 76. 28. Hammers, Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, 4‒5. 29. Hammers, 48‒53. 30. Hammers, 166. Hammers provides the Chinese original as well as English translation of these poems. Lou’s original album is non-extant; scholars rely on later copies. Hammers’ study is primarily based on the scrolls held in the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, which are attributed to a thirteenth-century artist, see Hammers, 165. 31. “The First Weeding” in Hammers, Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, 175. 32. For Chinese text and a slightly different translation, see Hammers, Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, 174. 33. Hammers, Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, 178. On the figure of the woman, see Hammers, 29. 34. Hammers, 172. According to Li Bozhong, during this period ash from the burning of stubble and weeds was left on paddy fields while fertilizer was applied to smaller fields such as the nursery bed for seedlings, Duo shijiao, 58‒59. 35. See Shiba, “Environment Versus Water Control,” 160. 36. According to Mark Elvin, “Overall, though, it was human activities that had converted a regularly fluctuating environment into one of artificial equilibrium that needed an attentive government and continual maintenance to keep it under control” (Retreat of the Elephants, 179). 37. Brook, The Chinese State in Ming Society, 63‒68.

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38. Miu “Taihu diqu tangpu,” 26‒32; Osborne, “Highlands and Lowlands”; and Phillip C. C. Huang, The Peasant Family, 34‒35. 39. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 101‒102. Fei Xiaotong observed that villagers in Kaixiangong 開弦弓, located on the south-eastern flank of Lake Tai, had to travel by boat for two and a half hours to reach the nearest market town (Zhenze 震澤); see Fei, Peasant Life in China, 16. The next village could be reached by a pathway in about twenty minutes. 40. Weitian was historically used to refer to paddy fields constructed on local initiative and yutian to refer to poldered fields that were linked to other fields and water channels in a large-scale alignment. Privately built weitian could sometimes impede the flow of irrigated water within a larger gravity-driven system, see Miu “Taihu diqu tangpu,” 20. In the late imperial era, the two terms were used synonymously to refer to a field bounded by banks on four sides. 41. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 85. 42. Anderson, The Demon Chained Under Turtle Mountain, 73‒75. 43. Zhongguo Luxu shange xuji, 59. On looking at a map of Lake Tai, one can discern a curved horn of water pointing north towards Changshu, a bulge on the western flank as broad as a rhino’s back, two chunks towards the south as thick rhino legs, and a narrow stretch of water extending north towards Suzhou as its dangling tail. The hilly island of Sacred Grotto features in many folk epics (see chapter 3). 44. Ahuja and Ahuja, “Rice in Social and Cultural Life of People,” 66. 45. For an overview of rice paddy songs in monsoonal Asia, see Ahuja and Ahuja, “Rice in Social and Cultural Life of People,” 73‒75. 46. Bray, “Images of Rice in Imperial Chinese Culture,” 421. 47. Bray, 425. 48. Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 260‒264, 632‒649. See also the special issue on rice culture in Zhongguo minjian wenhua 1993, no. 2, vol. 10; and Chen, Zhongguo niao wenhua, 239‒247. 49. Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 261. 50. Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 262; On this ritual see McLaren, Performing Grief, 72, 140‒142. 51. Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 262. 52. Chen, Zhongguo niao wenhua, 240‒241; Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 261‒263, 644‒647. 53. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 228. 54. Ying, “Maque, qingwa,” 89‒92. On the healing properties of rice, see Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 648.

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55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

Ying, 91. Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 636‒637; and Chen, Zhongguo niao wenhua, 243. Jiang, 637. Ying, “Maque, qingwa,” 91. The practice of kai yangmen was known throughout the delta region; see Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 137, 654. It appears to be an ancient practice. Lou Shu refers to separation of the rice stalks to remove mud in Tilling poem no. 8 in Hammers, Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, 173. Joss paper was burned and firecrackers set off; see Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 654. This is a custom of the Wuxi region; see Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 228. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 99. Attributed to a married woman called Mi 糜; see Ying, “Maque, qingwa,” 90. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 99, stanza 1. The original Celestial Master Zhang (Zhang Tianshi 張天師) was Zhang Daoling 張道陵 (35‒157 CE), the founder of religious Daoism. In later ages, Zhang Tianshi referred to a Daoist adept with supernatural powers. In popular prints, the Celestial Master is depicted as riding a tiger and holding a bowl of sacred water; see Laing, Art and Aesthetics, 122‒125. This type of song was also known as liaomai 了賣; that is, singing by two or more people in succession where the second responds rhythmically to the opening line. It was commonly sung during rice planting; see Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 13‒14. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 99, stanzas 2 and 3. Six ke (liuke 六棵) refers to a portion of land in the rice paddy. Wuge wang de ge, 75. Pigsie and his harrow feature in the “Journey to the West” story cycle. In the “Three Kingdoms” story cycle, this infant will grow up to be the heir to the kingdom of Shu. Zhao Zilong is also known as Zhao Yun. Oil cake produced from pressed soybeans was widely used as a fertilizer in the later imperial era (Bray, Technology, Gender and History, 207). Liu Hai is believed to be an official who became a Daoist hermit. He is often depicted together with a golden toad and a string of coins. Zhu Hairong, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 230. Wuge wang de ge, 75. This song was collected from Qian Afu in 1959. Fu Xi and Shennong (the God of Agriculture) and the spirits of the Five Grain are very ancient deities known all over China.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

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73. For Jiangnan village opera (known as shexi 社戲), see Cai, Jiangnan minjian shexi. Operas were performed in public spaces to celebrate the birthday of the presiding deity of the village temple. In Kaixiangong, the statues of local deities were taken from the temples and set up on a temporary stage to view the opera performance; see Fei, Peasant Life in China, 136. On the association between images drawn from opera, New Year prints, and material culture, see Johnson, “Opera Imagery.” On the use of prints in ritual practice, see Gu, Jitan guge, 156‒163; see also Flath, The Cult of Happiness, 36‒52. The God of Wealth, Liu Hai, is depicted sitting on a three-legged toad and Zhao Zilong, with baby Adou 阿斗 tied to his waist, is depicted in battle pose; see Menshikov, Chinese Popular Prints, 63, 65, 129‒130. For a print of Shennong, see Wang Shucun, Paper Joss, 19. Unicorns or kylins (qilin 麒麟) were associated with the birth of sons and occur in numerous New Year prints. When the communist party attempted to reform New Year prints in line with socialist ideology, they met with stiff resistance; see Hung, “Repainting China: New Year Prints,” 770‒810. 74. On the complexities of the two calendars, see Fei, Peasant Life in China, 200‒205. In the cosmopolitan domain, officials sought to promote agriculture by promulgating “monthly ordinances” known as yueling 月令; see Bray, Technology, Gender and History, 208‒209. 75. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 30, final song, stanzas 1 and 2. 76. For an overview, see the collection of articles in Hamilton, The Art of Rice. Examples include Mae Phosop, the Rice Mother of the Isan people of Thailand, Mae Khau, the Rice Mother of Vietnamese Tai communities, and Annapurna, the Rice Goddess of India. In Japan, rice is associated with procreation and is represented as female; see Ohnuki-Tierney, Rice as Self, 56. The Filipino Ifugao people associate the rice plant with female rice spirits, see Aguilar JR. “Rice and Magic,” 301. For rituals to “Old Mother Rice” amongst the Karen people of Thailand, see Rajah, Remaining Karen, 195, 203, 229. 77. The earliest domesticators of rice in the middle and lower Yangzi River zones were speakers of non-Chinese languages such as Austronesian, Hmong-Mien, and Tai-Kadai. They dispersed along the major river systems of monsoonal Asia during the third and second millennium BCE, bringing with them their knowledge of rice cultivation; see Sharma, “Domestication and Diaspora of Rice,” 9. 78. For a study of imperial-era sources, see Chang, “The Origins and Early Cultures,” 70‒77.

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79. Similar rice rituals are found further up the Yangzi River in parts of Hubei and amongst the Tai people of south and southwest China; see Xu Yong’an, “Hubei ge di de qingmiaohui.” 80. Fei, Peasant Life in China, 216. 81. Wuge wang de ge, 74. 82. Low-density planting was an established Jiangnan practice; see Li Bozhong, “Changes in Climate, Land, and Human Efforts,” 469n79. 83. Wuge wang de ge, 15. 84. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 30. 85. Wuge wang de ge, 69, stanza 6. 86. Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, 127. 87. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 134. 88. Record of July 1, 1933, Zhongguo nongcun diaocha ziliao wu zhong, (1) Jiangsu sheng nongcun diaocha, cited in Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, 68. 89. Wuge yiji in Gu et al., Wuge, 289, song 38. It was believed that the leaves of winter bamboo-shoots and raw eggs could improve one’s singing voice. 90. Wuge wang de ge, 66, stanza 3. 91. Wuge wang de ge, 46‒49. 92. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 74, “The lover-boy’s mountain song,” no. 2. 93. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 75, song 3, lines 9‒11. 94. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, “The sun sets behind the western mountain,” 81‒82. 95. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, “My darling sings seven or eight songs,” 119. 96. Li Bozhong argues that both men and women worked in agricultural production before the late Ming (i.e., the seventeenth century). In the later imperial era, the commercialization of textiles led to the growing dominance of the model of “men plough and women weave.” Women from the poorer classes continued to work in the fields, see Li Bozhong, Duo shijiao, 269‒288. 97. See Huang, The Peasant Family, 55‒56; Elvin, Retreat of the Elephants, 169‒170, 210‒211. Fei Xiaotong found that Kaixiangong women assisted with time-critical work such as transplantation, irrigation, and drainage (Peasant Life in China, 226‒227). On women’s field labor in the poorer areas of northern Jiangsu, see Finnane, “Water, Love, and Labor: Aspects of a Gendered Environment,” 678‒681. In the folk epic, “Fifth Daughter,”

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the heroine is the daughter of a landholding family who is forced by her cruel older brother to toil in the fields. 98. See Cheng, “Jindai Jiangnan cunfu shenghuo,” 9‒13. 99. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 43 stanza 5. 100. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 121, stanza 5. 101. Translated by Elvin in Retreat of the Elephants, 210‒211. 102. Xu Yujing, “Yongjia xian shuidao shengchan xisu ji qi wenhua,” 4. 103. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 33, 2nd song, 34, 1st song. 104. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, “Ta che Ajie (zhi er),” 34, stanza 2. 105. There were exceptions. For example, if rain did not fall for a few days, then the young girls would go down to the water wheel in all their finery to beg Heaven to let rain fall and spare them the hard labor of working the water wheel, see Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 276. 106. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 35, “As the boat draws near the stream.” 107. For a description of the Chinese single-oared rocking boat see Maze, “Notes on the Chinese ‘Yuloh,” 55‒57. Maze points out the high level of skill required to keep the oar in its pivot (p. 55). 108. Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 37, “Yao chuan ge.” 109. “Zhao Shengguan,” in Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 236, stanza 1. This folk epic will be discussed in chapter 5. 110. “Zhao Shengguan,” in Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 236 stanza 4. 111. The belief that women should not work with men in the fields continued into the twentieth century despite divergencies in actual practice; see Li, Duo shijiao, 313‒314. 112. Bray, Technology, Gender and History, 224‒228. 113. Bray, 58. The most famous reprint is the one commissioned by the Kangxi Emperor 康熙 (1662‒1722), which contains 23 woodblock prints of the process of rice cultivation together with poems attributed to the emperor himself. See Jiao, Yu zhi gengzhi tu. 114. Wuge wang de ge, 78. On stories and opera associated with the Yang family generals, see Idema and West, The Generals of the Yang. 115. Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 142. 116. Ji, Linguistic Engineering, 65. 117. Bray, “Science, technique, technology,” 332. 118. Bray, 333. 119. For peasant complaints, see Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 39‒40, and Mueggler, The Age of Wild Ghosts, 175‒198. 120. Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 38.

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121. On the directives of Mao Zedong concerning so-called “scientific practice” in agriculture, see Yixin Chen, “Cold War Competition,” 63‒64; on the resulting famine see Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 37‒42. 122. A similar process of state appropriation of agricultural processes was happening in other parts of China. Mueggler observes of the people of Zhizuo in Yunnan: “People in Zhizuo found the state itself replacing ancestral authority as a generative force for production and social reproduction” (The Age of Wild Ghosts, 161). 123. Wuge wang de ge, 178, stanzas 6 and 7. 124. For a Japanese parallel, see Ohnuki-Tierney: “From the perspective of the structure of the Japanese self, rice consumption, polity, rice production, the harvest ritual and human reproduction are all equivalent in meaning” (Rice as Self, 56‒57). 125. Condominas, “Ritual Technology,” 39. 126. Condominas, 40. 127. It should be added that folk songs throughout China universally deal with romances and illicit affairs. See Mu Yang, “Erotic Musical Activity in multi-ethnic China,” and Kouwenhoven and Schimmelpenninck, “‘I prefer a man who is fresh like a jumping fish.’” On erotic material in songs from north China, see Gibbs, “‘Forming Partnerships,” and Gibbs, Song King, 161‒162; on ballads of the Hakka population, see Idema, Passion, Poverty and Travel, 11‒20. The reputation of the Wu area for licentiousness in imperial times was accentuated by the strong courtesan culture of the region.

Chapter 2

The Emergence Of The Lake Tai Folk Epics This chapter explores the reasons for the emergence of delta folk epics. The long narrative songs of Wu-speaking communities in the lower Yangzi Delta are unusual (and possibly unique) among populations regarded as belonging to the Han Chinese. The region had been known since antiquity for its short lyric songs. When did the established lyric song tradition transform into a repertoire of long narrative songs that could be performed over hours or even days? Why did these stories in song become so important to rice-growing communities, and to what extent did they fashion local identities? As early as the twelfth century, Lou Shu observed that during rice-planting the farmers sang loud songs that reverberated across the polders (see chapter 1). During his era, southland rice cultivation was absorbed into the ancient agrarian tropes that correlated a happy and prosperous farming population with the wise and benign governance of the state. When men of letters living on rural estates examined the actual content of farming songs, however, some were appalled by their bawdy and vulgar sentiments.

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This chapter will first treat the early history of Wu-language songs then investigate the impact of song competitions, amateur song troupes, and the book market on the formation of long narrative songs. A separate section will deal with the complex factors involved in the different modes of circulation of delta folk epics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some folk epics were purely local, whereas others were trans-regional. What factors governed their transmission? This investigation shows that transmission could be from village to village, narrowly patrilineal within a family, closely associated with an iconic site, or passed on to another region by a “married off” woman. Songs sung while traveling by boat often enjoyed broader circulation. Environmental and agricultural factors were also important (a flat plain as opposed to a remote hilly area, rice as opposed to commercial crops). Regional competition and local politics shaped the adaptation of song material from one locality to another. Singers were proud of the repertoire fashioned in their home region but also drew strongly from other songs sung across the delta.

Songs of the Wu Region From ancient times, the area of the first Wu kingdom was said to have a distinctive song culture. A collection of songs from the ancient Chu kingdom mentions a type of song called Wu yu 吳愉.1 A twelfth-century collection of songs, the Yuefu shiji 樂府詩集, includes a collection of “Wu melody songs” (Wu sheng gequ 吳聲歌曲) said to date back to the fourth and fifth centuries CE. These are brief lyrical pieces sung by singer-courtesans to the accompaniment of stringed instruments.2 The songs extant today were collected and arranged for the entertainment of the court and literati. While these early Wu regional songs could not be described as folk songs, they do share certain attributes with the shan’ge collected from delta farming populations in the modern period. For example, “Wu melody songs” commonly adopt the voice of a young woman and deal with love affairs and erotic exchange. Some songs can be sung antiphonally in the question-answer format common to folk

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songs in general. Most importantly, they deploy the Wu idiom of the region and delight in erotic double entendres (for example lian 蓮/戀 for lotus blooms and for love).3 These are all well-known attributes of Wu songs sung in the lower Yangzi Delta in the twentieth century.4 One of the categories in the “Wu Melody Songs,” the ao nong ge 懊侬歌, comprising songs of love longing by a young girl, are highly reminiscent of the ao lang 熬郎 type of song which typically begin romance stories in twentieth-century Wu folk epics.5 Apart from the songs of the courtesans, very few Wu-language songs were recorded before the seventeenth century. An exception is a quatrain sung by Qian Liu 錢鏐 (852‒932), the first king of the Wuyue kingdom, a rare period of independence for the lower Yangzi Delta region. On return to his hometown after victory in battle, Qian Liu sang a song of victory in archaic court language but was met with incomprehension from the audience. When he broke into a song in his native idiom (Wu yin 吳音), he was greeted with jubilation.6 For gentlemen of the propertied classes, the songs of the happy toilers in the paddy fields offered an assurance of a good harvest. In the following poem, Fan Chengda 范成大 (1126‒1193), a noted official and poet who owned an estate near Suzhou, captures the farmers’ sense of urgency as they toil through the night, desperate to finish threshing their newly harvested grain before the impending autumn rains. We are left with the impression that their song and laughter, together with the pounding flails, will ward off the threatening storm: Midst song and laughter, comes the soft rumble of thunder The flails ring out all night, until the sky turns bright.7 Shen Hai 沈海 (jinshi 1466) from Heyang 河阳, Changshu, to the north of Lake Tai, marveled at the loud singing that rang out from one polder to another, and even from village to village. As the farmers transplanted the rice shoots, one group would sing a line or two, and another group would respond.

48

Memory Making in Folk Epics of China Fine rain blurs in the mist, turning day to dusk, The songs of farmers ring out, one after the other, across the fields. One group sings in the eastern village; the western village responds in kind, Voices on the southern bank carry as far as the northern ridge.8

In the second stanza, Shen Hai refers to these songs as akin to “the songs of flourishing grain” and “songs for throwing sticks,” known in ancient times in the Yellow River region. The “songs of flourishing grain” (maixiu ge 麥秀歌) refer to a prince who wept out a plaintive song on seeing fresh ears of wheat grain growing in the ruins of the destroyed court of the Shang dynasty.9 “The songs for throwing sticks” (jirang ge 擊壤歌) relates to a story about happy farmers under the rule of the mythic sageking, Yao 堯.10 Shen is here seeking to honor southern rice cultivation by placing it within the northern canonical paradigm of a happy peasantry and a flourishing state. This was an agrarian model that dignified the south in the tropes of cosmopolitan culture but largely ignored the actual beliefs and practices of rural populations. Shen’s contemporary, Ye Sheng 葉盛 (1420‒1474), a high-ranking official from Kunshan in Suzhou prefecture, observed that the people of the Wu region sang songs known as shan’ge for their own enjoyment while ploughing or traveling by boat.11 Lu Rong 陸容 (1436‒1494), an official from Taicang in Jiangsu, offers this insight into the content of the songs: “In the Wu Yue region the people love singing mountain songs; most of them deal with nothing other than passion between men and women.”12 The scholar Lu Shiyi 陸世儀 (1611‒1672), also from Taicang, appreciated the way that singing promoted work efficiency but was concerned that the “obscenity” of the lyrics damaged public morals. The solution was to teach the farmers songs that conveyed lofty sentiments: The songs sung while planting are really marvellous. As the farmers gather in groups in numerous fields there is a hubbub of noise. If they’re not gossiping, then they’re bantering with each other. Even if you strictly prohibit this it cannot be stopped.

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However, the cacophony ceases when the singing begins. The farmers respond to the rhythm as they attend to their tasks; as everyone works together, the matter proceeds rapidly. The song lyrics, however, are obscene and detrimental to public morality. I plan to compile a volume of ten-stanza songs in the Wu style so that they can give vent to their feelings in noble and refined sentiments. In this way, the farmers hard at their toil will be like the filial youths who learn morality [as in the Confucian Analects], and all matters to do with agricultural affairs will be expedited.13 Lu Shiyi was known for his promotion of Neo-Confucian principles as opposed to the new focus on emotion and spontaneity that was sweeping through intellectual circles in the late Ming.14 Lu’s views were at considerable variance from those of his near contemporary Feng Menglong 馮夢龍 (1574‒1646). Feng’s anthology, Shan’ge 山歌 (Mountain songs), based on the songs of Suzhou and environs, is an outstanding example of a song collection based on a Chinese regional language.15 This anthology offers important clues to the development of the folk epics of the Lake Tai region and will be discussed in more detail in the next section.

The Song Anthology of Feng Menglong Feng’s Shan’ge anthology comprises the kinds of erotic songs sung by courtesans in the pleasure quarters of Suzhou. The songs contain an abundance of Suzhou speech forms with occasional glosses to assist the reader. They are generally very short, with most comprising a single four-line stanza. Scholars have debated the extent to which Feng drew from actual folk songs. It is assumed that some songs were revisions of folk songs, whereas others were composed in imitation of popular songs.16 As we discuss here, the songs in the opening section relate strongly to the songs of the rice paddy. This is not surprising, as the women who sang these songs in the brothels came from the poorer commoner families of Suzhou and the rural hinterland.17 Lower-class

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families trained their daughters to sing and entertain in order to sell them into brothels.18 Sometimes husbands set up a prostitution business by pimping their wives.19 The distinctive song style of these courtesans caught the attention of various men of letters, some of whom admired the vigorous, sonorous style despite its perceived “vulgarity.”20 Feng Menglong collected his songs not just from urban Suzhou but also from rural populations in Heyang 河陽 and Baimao 白茆 in Changshu, in the northern hinterland.21 According to a contemporary ethnomusicologist, some of the songs in Feng’s Shan’ge collection can still be sung in traditional Baimao melodies.22 Contemporary shan’ge singing still relies on stanzas of four lines, as in the time of Feng Menglong. Of critical importance, Feng’s Shan’ge and Lake Tai songs collected in the late twentieth century share a similar repertoire of images, themes, motifs, and formulaic song material. Feng Menglong claimed that his collected songs were derived from or equivalent to the songs of the rural population of his own day. Mountain songs are those improvised and sung as if coming straight from the mouth by farmers and rural youth. Members of the gentry and scholar class do not [stoop to] speak of these. 言田夫野豎矢口寄興之所為, 薦紳學士家不道也.23 One can interpret jixing 寄興 as jixing 即興, to improvise, to sing extempore, without prior composition.24 Shikou 矢口 means to say without thinking, to come straight from the mouth. To a highly educated man like Feng Menglong, the rapid and fluent way that common people could pour out entrancing folk songs, seemingly without preparation, appeared totally authentic and without artifice.25 He was amazed that unlettered farming people could master so many songs and sing them with such skill. Feng was perhaps unaware that oral traditions are acquired through considerable effort and that the most proficient singers master a set of stereotypical material (half-lines, lines, stanzas, song-styles, and stock motifs in metrical form) that enables them to compose extempore.

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While the performance sounds as if it is entirely spontaneous, “coming straight from the mouth,” it is in fact a learned form of verbal artistry that stems from long practice and familiarity with a particular oral tradition.26 Feng’s Shan’ge anthology abounds in the type of thematic material and stock imagery found in the typical shan’ge recorded in the twentieth century.27 We find here homely images drawn from rice cultivation, farm labor, and boating: transplanting rice shoots is like impregnating a woman (1.32B);28 women step seductively on the water wheel (1.44B); the boat mast is a phallic symbol, and boat poling likened to sexual intercourse (2.51, 3.89, 6.192); fire on the boat symbolizes desire (1.4D); embroidered pouches, food boxes, and boat cabins serve as metaphors for the female organs (1.4D, 6.153, 6.173); women’s breasts are likened to steam buns (6.181); and so on. I add further that Feng and his Suzhou readers were apparently familiar with the basic narrative framework of stories of illicit love affairs of the kind found in contemporary Lake Tai folk epics. Feng’s anthology comprises brief songs that appear to be separate lyrics without a narrative framework. Nonetheless, if one follows the sequence of the songs as arranged in chapter 1 of the Shan’ge collection, then a storyline emerges that has surprising parallels with the narrative tradition of shan’ge prevalent in later eras. In delta folk epics, the central protagonist in a typical story of illicit passion is a young, unmarried woman. The story follows a set of well-defined stages, each with a particular suite of songs and stock material that the singer can readily extemporize. Zheng Tuyou has summarized the stages of siqing narratives as follows. In the first stage (aolang 熬郎, the girl’s longing for a lover), the young woman makes the first move, and the couple falls in love. There is a secret assignation (youhui 幽會), one or more scenes of love making jiaohuan (交換), sending off the male lover after a rendezvous (song lang 送郎), an interrogation of the woman by the senior women of the family (funü panwen 婦女盤問), and finally, the severing of the relationship (duan siqing 斷私情).29 If the girl falls pregnant, she may seek an abortion; if

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she gives birth, the infant could be drowned. The songs end with the injury or death of the young lovers. A very similar structure is apparent in the sequence of songs in the opening chapter of Feng’s Shan’ge. In the latter case, the woman concerned can be an unmarried girl, a prostitute, or a married woman. The first stage is falling in love, which happens in stanzas 1‒7. The idea here is that a single smile or a glance can cause you to fall in love, and your life will be transformed forever. These opening stanzas deal with smiles, glances, and expressions of longing for love. In stanza 3A a young girl is embroidering a romantic motif, a pair of mandarin ducks, when she spots a likely young man on his boat in the bay. As she sees him, the girl pricks her finger with her needle. As the young man sees her, his boat overturns.30 This reminds one of the opening stanzas of the folk epic “Zhao Shengguan,” in which an unmarried girl doing the washing by the riverbank spots a good-looking man on a boat. Similarly, in “Fifth Daughter,” the young girl is struck dumb when she sees a good-looking laborer in the fields (See the appendix). Songs 8‒14 express a longing for love in the voice of a young woman. Song 9 is simply entitled “Ao 熬” (Painful longing). Next comes the secret assignation and lovemaking (Shan’ge songs 15‒19). This stage is known in folk epics as “beginning a love affair” (jieshi siqing 結識私情), a term found in Shan’ge song 29.31 The lovers try to hide their scandalous affair. Subsequently, we find the deception of the mother (man niang 瞞娘) or of the elder sister-in-law (man saosao 瞞嫂嫂). In “Fifth Daughter,” the singer devotes a long, amusing section to the clever way that the girl manages to outwit her sister-in-law, at least for a short time. In Shan’ge we find the same theme in Songs 19 to 23. Song 20 is entitled “Deceiving the Mother” (man niang). A song in a later chapter refers to a man forcing himself on a young girl in a boat (Shan’ge, song 107). These songs reflect

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the situation of unmarried girls living with their parents rather than those of the young women sold to brothels by their families. Subsequently the mood of the story turns dark. In the next stage, the couple’s affair is exposed; the girl endures physical punishment at the hand of her family. Song 24 of Shan’ge is entitled “My Mother Beats Me” (niang da 娘打). A typical song session in modern shan’ge renditions is “The Fornicators are Caught” (zhuo jian 捉奸), a term that also occurs in Shan’ge in Song 29. Feng’s Shan’ge collection differs from erotic songs in general in that it deals with the real-life consequences of sexual encounters in the premodern era. Love making results in pregnancy, a topic dealt with in a suite of seven songs (Shan’ge song 32A to E, entitled “Pregnancy” (yun 孕). This is followed shortly after by infanticide, as in Song 32E: “Wrapping him in a straw mat, I cast him away into the pond full of lotus flowers.”32 The woman has intimations of death, see Shan’ge Song 28A: Our adultery will be discovered, just as by polishing a coffin, the wood appears. And the old geomancer will talk about a new grave wherever he goes.33 She is enveloped by a sense of utter desperation, as in Song 31: “We have no way of escaping, like fish in a golden vase.”34 At the culmination of the implicit story in Shan’ge there is a sense of sorrow and futility: The secret love that binds us surpasses even Heaven. But we have no son or daughter to burn incense for us after our death.35 Similar sentiments are found in folk epics. For example, in “Fifth Daughter,” once the affair is exposed, the young girl is ordered by her older brother to choose to either cut her throat or hang herself. Grim

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denouements, including abortion or infanticide, can be found in the folk epics Bai liujie 白六姐 and Bao Liujie 鲍六姐.36 In brief, chapter 1 of Feng’s anthology contains a clear sequencing that closely parallels the songs of illicit passion sung by singers such as Lu Amei and others who inherited their repertoire from nineteenth-century singers. This incipient storyline makes explicit the consequences of the affair, including at the very least, rejection and betrayal by the male lover, and at worst, injury, abortion, or infanticide. These songs of the paddy fields could easily be adapted into a song of complaint by young women in the houses of pleasure. If they dared to take a private lover, they faced the prying eyes of the Madam and possible physical abuse. From this evidence, one can say that Suzhou audiences in the time of Feng Menglong were familiar with the typical siqing storyline. It was not necessary for the singer to recount the full narrative because the entire story could be conjured up by the singing of a single lyrical stanza or a sequence of stanzas. This shadowy plot line is largely invisible to the modern reader, who is tempted to find instead bold expressions of freedom in love from a seemingly emancipated woman. For example, Oki Yasushi has argued that the women in the songs of first two chapters appear to be “common women” who were “bold and assertive in searching for love… oblivious to obstacles such as parents, husbands, neighbors, rules, and social order,” while those in later chapters “describe sad women as objects who are used when needed, but later thrown away and forgotten.” 37 Paolo Santangelo observed the “subversive” nature of the song lyrics and stated that “the female image is riddled with contradictions.”38 However, these seeming contradictions make sense when considered within the framework of the typical siqing framework in which the female lover goes through a sequence of events from falling in love with the “wrong” person to consummation, exposure, and social opprobrium. At each stage, the singer gives intense expression to the corresponding emotion: longing for love, erotic desire, frantic attempts to escape one’s fate, and the grief of final separation.

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Booklets of stories in shan’ge style probably circulated in the late Ming, although none are extant. A song booklet entitled “Liu Erjie” 劉二姐 is mentioned in a seventeenth-century collection of fictional tales, Huanxi yuanjia 歡喜冤家.39 An imprint of “Liu Erjie” from the very late imperial era is preserved in the Suzhou Library. It comprises 1,500 lines of verse and deploys many features of mountain songs such as folk sayings and matching couplets.40 As we discuss further in this chapter, this tale of secret passion continued to be sung into the late twentieth century. Mountain songs influenced the emergence of a type of folk opera known originally as “playing the flower drum” da huagu 打花鼓 or “planting the rice shoots” chayang 插秧. Da huagu was performed by a male-female duo who sang rice-planting songs and popular ditties to the beat of a drum. Originating in Fengyang, Anhui province, during the Ming era (1368‒1644), the da huagu was spread by itinerant players throughout the Jiangnan region. Over the generations it developed into a more elaborate form known as “flower drum plays” huaguxi 花鼓 戲, in which the performers adopted the set roles of regional operatic performance. The erotic content of the plays, the participation of women, and the itinerant nature of the performance offended the authorities. The Kangxi Emperor 康熙 (r. 1662‒1722) issued a ban on the performance of “planting songs” yangge 秧歌 in 1671 on grounds of immorality.41 Bans notwithstanding, folk opera continued its association with mountain songs. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, performers of a prosimetric form of folk opera known as tanhuang 彈簧 drew stories and song material from rural shan’ge.42

The Market for Song Booklets In the late imperial era, shan’ge began to appear in manuscript and printed texts for an appreciative readership that included the less educated classes. In the nineteenth century, printed shan’ge booklets were sold in Suzhou and elsewhere in the delta region. We know this from the series of prohibitions against song imprints enacted by successive regional

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administrations in the aftermath of the ruinous civil war with the Taiping forces. The Taiping movement emerged in south China but by the early 1860s it had conquered large swathes of south China, including the Jiangnan region. The township of Suzhou itself was sacked and pillaged by forces on both sides in the aftermath of the occupation.43 After the Taiping movement was put down by state and foreign forces, the ruling dynasty carried out strenuous restoration efforts. An official called Ding Richang 丁日昌 (1823–1882), who had played a substantial role in repressing the Taipings, became governor of Suzhou. Ding believed without a doubt that a major cause of the disastrous civil war was the extravagant culture that preceded it, including song performances, dances, opera, and frivolous books. Now catastrophe has overrun Heaven and Earth; the region has suffered warfare and successive pillaging. The song halls and dance pavilions of former days lie abandoned and choked with weeds. This is due to the vicissitudes of fortune and the immorality and decadence of popular custom.44 From 1868 Ding carried out a relentless campaign to curb the “excessive” practices of the region, including processions of statues of the gods, Taoist and Buddhist ritual activities, cults to female deities, pilgrimages to distant temples, and the performance of folk theatricals and erotic songs.45 Ding also prohibited the publishing of erotic novels like the Jin Ping Mei, tales of banditry such as The Water Margin, and even a novel much loved by the elite, Dream of the Red Chamber.46 In the discourse of orthodoxy, these novels, known throughout the empire, could be called “the usual suspects.” However, Ding additionally banned texts based on performance arts in local circulation, including songs sung in the rice paddy, in the entertainment pavilions, in boats along the waterways, and in the brothels of Suzhou. This went far beyond standard practice in previous prohibitions.47 Ding’s list of banned “licentious song booklets” (yinci 淫詞) included staples of shan’ge singing such as “Five Watches of the Night,” “Thirty-six Songs of the Wharf,” “Twelve Months

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of the Year,” “Songs of Illicit Passion,” “Rocking the Boat,” “The Eighteen Gropes,” “The Beautiful Girl takes a Bath,” and stories about locally known figures such as Xue Liulang 薛六郎, who abducted his wife’s younger sister.48 Ding’s comprehensive ban on the most popular and ubiquitous performance traditions of the delta was unprecedented in its scope and severity. Nonetheless, Ding’s bans, and those of successive administrations throughout the Qing period, had little impact on the circulation of shan’ge in oral transmission and in song texts.49 Song booklets retained their popularity well into the early decades of Republican China. A report by Chong Jiu published in 1924 captures the atmosphere of the night stalls of Suzhou, set up beneath dim kerosene lamps: Machine workers and children gather around. Some sing the songs softly to themselves; others stand entranced as they flip over the pages and gaze at the illustrations. These book stalls do not have the pretentious airs of the aristocracy, and song books are not as obscure and hard to comprehend as the canonical works. So it is that these tiny book stalls are much more crowded than the bookshops.50 In the same report we learn that the booklets comprised songs very familiar to the broad public: “just about everyone can sing these.”51 Chong Jiu goes on to present a number of examples, many of them stock material in contemporary shan’ge songs: “Sending off the Lover through the Five Watches of the Night,” “The Twelve Month Flower Song,” and “Mosquito Bite.”52 Gu Jiegang and his cousin Wu Limo 吳立模 collected several hundred song booklets from the street stalls of Suzhou. For Gu and Wu, these “vulgar” song booklets were valuable because they reflected the preoccupations of the broad mass of the population: “China has always lacked written records of the lives of the multitudes, but these items [song booklets] are the most intimate and faithful representations of their lives.”53 From the song lists produced by Chong Jiu, Gu Jiegang, and Wu Limo, it is evident that these were mostly short songs, the kind

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of familiar stock material that could be readily be assembled into longer songs by a skilled singer. The influence of changben booklets on song traditions will be further discussed in chapter 5. The prevalence of song booklets meant that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, even illiterate singers could be influenced by songs circulating in manuscript and print. Qian Afu, for example, learned many songs from a fellow worker in his bakery who had purchased numerous shan’ge booklets from street stalls: “He would look into such a booklet and then teach me a song, one verse after another.”54 Another singer and collector, Zhou Fulin 周福林 from Wujiang, attended a private school in the early twentieth century. He used to borrow song booklets from his teacher and copy them out at home.55 This is somewhat surprising, as the song manuscript he presented to song collectors was quite salacious. This anecdote reveals that the copying down of song material was part of literacy practices in the early twentieth century. Over the final centuries of imperial rule, the longer form of song narrative became more prominent in the life of the rural population. Apart from the popularity of folk opera and the availability of song booklets, two other factors were important in the widespread circulation of the long song narratives at this time: song competitions that placed a high value on the length of the song and the employment of teams of amateur singers to accompany workers in the fields.

Song Competitions Song competitions were run in conjunction with religious and festival celebrations in market towns from at least the sixteenth century. In some cases, spectators could win money by betting on the outcome of the song competition. Shen Defu 沈德符 (1578–1642) refers to “betting on songs” (du ge 賭歌) in his poems about the Moon Market in Suzhou.56 In the eighteenth century, silk weavers gathered at the market town of Shengze 盛澤 in Wujiang County to watch song competitions and

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gamble on who would win: “On the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month [the festival of Guanyin], several thousand hired weavers from the four districts…gather by the Eastern Temple and the Shengming Bridge to gamble on mountain song competitions and to extemporize new songs. The hubbub continued until dawn.”57 At village level, where open land was lacking, competitions were often held on timber pavilions built over a river or canal. In 1959, Jiang Bin, who became a famous scholar of the popular culture of the delta region, attended a song competition by the waterways in Baimao, Changshu. This competition was based around a form of singing known as dui ge 對歌—that is, the first singer asks a question, and the second singer responds appropriately to the song line. The singers would stand on opposite banks of a river or water channel while they sang loudly to each other. This antiphonal song would continue until one side was unable to sustain their role. It was an evening with a white moon and crisp breeze. I could see heads bobbing on both banks; the conductors’ pavilion was set up with bright lanterns in the middle of the river. On the breadth of the dark water floated boats from the four directions. After a while, a voice rang out from the loudspeaker on the conductors’ pavilion. The prelude was given in the form of a mountain song. After that, songs rang out from both banks of the river; their questions and answers flying back and forth throughout the evening. I felt deeply moved.58 There used to be a song pavilion at Xiamu Lake in Taozhuang. This is close to where Lu Amei, noted for her rendition of “Fifth Daughter,” was born and acquired her repertoire. In this story the hired hand, Xu Atian, falls in love with the daughter of his employer. Jiang Laibao 蔣 來寶, who was said to be a descendant of Xu Atian, used to attend the song competitions at Xiamu Lake during the summer months. Here he would have the opportunity to listen to tales about Xu Atian.59

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In her rendition of “Fifth Daughter” Lu Amei refers to a song festival held at Sanbai Lake (sanbai dang 三白蕩) in the Luxu 蘆墟 area, the region that Lu moved to after marrying. The occasion is the festival of Fierce General Liu (Liu Mengjiang 劉猛將), widely believed to have saved the region from locusts a thousand years earlier.60 At this point in the story, the young daughter of a landowning family has just spotted Xu Atian, the new hired hand. She recalls that he was the one who wowed the crowd at the recent mountain song competition: Fifth Daughter glided along on two feet, her two eyes glancing at him, She saw the hired hand and thought to herself, “Last year at the Fierce General Festival at Zhuangjia Polder, at the mouth of Sanbai Lake, he sang mountain songs so well that the crowd on the banks stood still as a mountain. The boats were packed tight like the ocean; people were so crushed that they could not get away; boats could not pole away; there was not even space to bow to the Buddha.”61 Singer-farmer Bao Laohu 包老虎 (b. 1910) recalled that song competitions continued into the 1950s: Let me tell you, we really could sing a lot of mountain songs. In the early years after Liberation, we often had young people from over a score of villages who, after the evening meal, would scull their boats to Luxu to take part in song competitions. At that time the song competition would go on for half a month, or even one month. They would sing a stanza then we would sing a stanza. One stanza would match the next stanza. Whoever could sing more stanzas than the other would be counted the winner.62 Competitions generally began with “courteous songs” (keqi ge 客氣 歌), but after a few days, rival teams sought to outdo each other with

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increasing ferocity. Singers would curse and insult each other, even to the point of resorting to fisticuffs and brawls.63 Both short and long songs would be sung at song competitions. In the song presented next from Hongxi 洪溪, we are told that the long songs should be packed in a newfangled “foreign” suitcase, whereas the shorter ones require only a hempen bag. Perhaps this is an indication of the greater importance of the long songs in deciding the winner of the competition: The wall gate opens to the south, like the character for “eight” [ba 八]. If you want to sing mountain songs, then you must arrange a date. Return home, fold up your long songs and put them in the portmanteau. As for the short songs, just put them in a hempen bag.64 Singer: Wen Yuzhen 聞玉珍 (b. circa 1907, female), Hongxi, Jiashan County, collected 1983.

Song Troupes The late imperial era saw the development of amateur song troupes (shan’ge ban 山歌班) comprising farmers with good voices and familiarity with shan’ge singing. In some parts of the delta, troupes were employed at times of peak need, for example, during the seasons of rice transplantation, harrowing, and weeding.65 According to singer-farmer Lian Dagen 廉 大根 from Huangdai (north of Suzhou), “mountain song troupes could sing long narrative songs or short ones, and the songs could be about anything: love, history, names of places, local scenery.”66 Song troupes were more prevalent in large-scale flat plain rice cultivation zones, and it is these very same areas that saw the development of longer narrative forms. An interesting example of the influence of environment over song types is the case of the song-cycle “Zhu San and Liu Erjie” 朱三與劉二 姐, which is associated with two distinctly different places—Fuyang 富陽 in northern Zhejiang and Songjiang 松江 in eastern Jiangsu province.67

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According to Wang Zheng and Zheng Shuoren, only singers in Songjiang were capable of singing a relatively full form of the story.68 The key point of difference was that in mountainous Fuyang it was harder to make a living from rice cultivation. There were fewer people employed in rice agriculture and no need for a song troupe to assist with this work. Fuyang people grew grain for subsistence but relied on paper making to earn a regular living. Songjiang, on the other hand, consisted of a well-watered plain very suitable for intensive rice agriculture. Songjiang landlords employed troupes to perform for a series of two-hour sessions over the course of the working day. In Xinbang 新浜 village in Songjiang, for example, the folk epic comprised eleven sections with many alternative choices for each stage, allowing for song sessions of variable length in line with specific work periods.69 Local politics was also very important in the adaptation of this song tradition. The chief protagonists of “Zhu San and Liu Erjie,” the young lovers and the landlord, were believed to be real people who had lived in the region. The young man was said to be a paper maker from the poor county of Fuyang who had left his village to work for a landlord in the wealthy Yuhang 余杭 region. When the daughter of the landlord fell in love with him, they eloped and fled to the borderlands of Yuhang. The young man was sued by the landlord for the abduction of his daughter. The Fuyang and Yuhang administrations tussled over who should try this case. Eventually the Fuyang man sought help from a fellow villager who had contacts in the Hangzhou city government. The Hangzhou magistrate presided over the trial and the young couple were allowed to get married.70 The people of Fuyang gloated over their victory and created a song relating this story. Seeking to avoid the wrath of Yuhang people, with whom they traded, they changed the names of the central protagonists, as well as the birthplace of the male lover, who was now said to come from Suzhou. In the late twentieth century, this song was still very popular in Fuyang but was hardly sung at all in neighboring Yuhang.71 This example provides an illuminating insight into the complex reasons

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for the prevalence or absence of narrative songs in a certain region, as well as the reasons for their refashioning by subsequent generations. Singer-farmers expressed many reasons for the development of song troupes. Some believed that singing helped the farm hands to put forth their best effort; others said that the landlords liked to demonstrate their generosity to the people who worked their land. There was a common belief that singing could ward off insect infestations and weeds, help the crops to grow, and at harvest time, assist the fans of the winnowers to catch the wind.72 Troupes varied in size. A small troupe comprised six to eight members; a large troupe could have twelve or more.73 Some troupes journeyed around the district in search of employment. For example, Nanqiao 南橋 troupes traveled around the region during the busy season of the year. Troupes competed for the attention of employers and would even fight and brawl with rival troupes.74 Apart from singing in the fields, troupes were invited to perform for special occasions such as birthdays for elders, building a house, and harvest celebrations.75 In the Suzhou region, the term shan’ge ban was not used, but there was a great deal of communal singing in the fields. Mountain songs were commonly sung while working the water wheels and irrigating the rice paddy. It was widely believed that singing allowed the worker to feel happier and work harder: “If they were required to work the water wheels for three mu [half an acre or 0.2 of a hectare] of rice paddy then they might even be able to water five mu…this was because their spirits were lifted.”76 Singers were provided with sugared tea to assist their labors, and the landlord or a supervisor would often sit in a chair on the edge of the fields under a parasol enjoying the singing.77 Practiced singers developed notions of the structure and artistry of shan’ge singing. An individual narrative song was understood to be divided into tao 套 (thematic topics) that were in turn subdivided into smaller units known as zhi 只 (scenes or episodes). For example, ao lang (the girl’s longing for a lover) is a tao comprising several events. The

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length of the tao was flexible, depending on how much time the singer was allotted to perform. The singer needed to master both short and long versions of the ao lang theme and adapt as required. A longer narrative song would require the stringing together of a set of tao. Each tao and zhi lasted a certain interval of time. This allowed the troupe to work out how to perform a song over a session of one to two hours. Once the singer grasped the material of numerous tao and zhi, it became easier to prune or expand as required.78 On this evidence, the longer narrative form was basically a combination of numerous shorter songs with impromptu adaptation and elaboration. Lu Amei considered her longer songs as a “gathering up” of shorter songs (chang longlai 唱攏來), which she identifies in terms of their tao: “Atian comes looking for work,” “Sending Off the lover,” “Embroidering Shoes,” “Sending a Towel,” and so on. A lot of mental preparation was required to master the repertoire: “With mountain songs you have to eat it all up and then spill it all out.”79 Her father had taught her the basic principles of creating long narrative songs: “First remember the basic core of the story, then remember how the story ends. In the middle ‘eat a little’ [elaborate the story]. Hold in your memory the names of the characters, have at your fingertips the ‘Twelve Month of the Year Song.’80 If you run out of songs then just come up with some of your own.”81 Specialization of roles was also crucial in helping the singer perform over a two-hour period. The strongest singer led the group; other singers repeated aspects of the leading line or chimed in at the end of each stanza. For example, in a team of six one singer sang the first line (touge 頭歌), another followed on (mai 賣), two sang “the waist” (yao 腰, middle part), and two more sang the final line.82 Schimmelpenninck noted that the lead singer required “an excellent memory” and that troupe members “depend entirely on the leader’s command of the texts.”83 She also observes that troupe singing was “very loud…with brilliant falsetto parts for some of the voices.”84 Troupes relied heavily on a lead singer; other troupe members did not need to master a large repertoire of song material. This

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explains why in the 1980s and 1990s, folklorists found a large number of rural people who could sing short mountain songs but very few who could sing the longer narrative forms. Rural communities developed different forms of shan’ge singing in line with their agricultural practices and local conditions. Song lines developed across the paddy fields and waterways in line with the agricultural environment, the prevalence of song troupes and competitions, and personal factors such as the marrying out of a woman from one community to another. Individual folk epics had highly variable zones of circulation. The reasons for this variability will be addressed in the next section.

The Circulation of Folk Epics Narrative song-cycles were sung all over the lower Yangzi Delta region before the contemporary era, from the Lake Tai region in the west to the hinterland of Shanghai in the east; however, the core area of their origin and development was the Lake Tai region.85 The folk epics discussed in this study are drawn from the counties bordering Lake Tai in Jiangsu province from Wuxi in the north to Wuxian along the eastern flank of Lake Tai, including the Lake Fen region and south of Lake Fen to Jiashan County in northern Zhejiang. This region comprises a linguistic zone of mutual comprehensibility known as the Northern Wu-language region, which is in turn divided into three distinct language regions.86 The other five Wu-language zones are all found in Zhejiang province and are not intelligible to Northern Wu speakers.87 Within the Northern Wulanguage zone one finds significant variations in pronunciation, tonal range, and vocabulary.88 This is very important to an understanding of the zone of circulation of shan’ge, both long and short, as comprehensibility is the essential foundation for the dispersal of shan’ge beyond their site of origin. For example, the folk epic “Zhao Shengguan” never became a nationally known tale because it did not cross the non-Wu-language

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border. Even within the Lake Tai region, the extent of language variation could set up a barrier to broader circulation. One can identify three main circulation zones for Lake Tai folk epics. The first zone is restricted to one or two villages, the second is limited to closely adjacent regions, and the third crosses multiple regions of the delta. An example of a folk epic that is barely known outside one or two village communities is “Hua Mountain Lifter,” the story of a legendary rebel from the final years of the Ming dynasty. Hua was believed to have lived by the banks of Yacheng 鴨城 Lake in Dongting 東亭, Wuxi, located to the north of Lake Tai. The key singer of this story, Hua Zurong (b. 1927), claimed that he was a descendant of Hua Mountain Lifter. He was taught this song in his youth by male members of his family and performed it every year in his home as part of the annual ancestral rites. In imperial times the Hua family performed the song in strict secrecy as it was regarded as dangerously subversive. The excerpt below comes from an interview with Hua Zurong in 2003 as recorded by Zheng Tuyou: Zheng: “Hua Mountain Lifter” was taught to you by your paternal grandfather. At that time, were you given particular instructions? Hua: Yes, I was told not to pass it on to outsiders; if you did this you could lose your head. In this period, it was strictly forbidden; you couldn’t just sing it blindly.89 “Hua Mountain Lifter” only came to public notice in the 1980s when Hua Zurong began singing it together with Zhu Hairong and close friends (see chapter 6). This folk epic is centered around Mount Hou (Lion Roar Mountain 吼山), where the hero died after a siege by imperial forces. Mount Hou is a set of low hills located in Chaqiao 查橋, ten kilometers east of Wuxi town. It has been a sacred site for almost two thousand years.90 It is thus understandable that this lineage-transmitted folk epic was known only in the Dongting area. In this case, ancestral prohibitions and the importance of a sacred hilltop site have set the boundaries for its restricted circulation.

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The folk epic “Shen Seventh Brother” is another example of a song tradition that has strong ties to a particular locality. Most texts of “Shen Seventh Brother” come from the Wuxi Dongting region, which remained largely rural into the early twenty-first century. Folklorist Qian Shunjuan reported that the song also circulated in Baimao in nearby Changshu. If so, this folk epic could be categorized as one enjoying a restricted circulation in both core and adjacent regions.91 The hero of this song is also associated with a sacred mountain, in this case Xi Shan 西山 or Western Mountain, regarded as the highest of the seventy-two mountains of the Lake Tai region. Tales of secret passion circulated broadly across the delta region. Very often the same story was attached to protagonists with different names and home locations. “Zhao Shengguan” is an example of a cross-regional folk epic. Zhao is a merchant who falls in love with a young woman he meets while journeying along the waterways. This song has been related with variations in Suzhou, Wuxi, Luxu, Shanghai, and Jiashan. Another folk epic with a broad circulation is “The brother-in-law goes to fetch the younger sister,” which relates the story of a man who replaces his wife with her prettier, younger sister. In the case of “Fifth Daughter,” short versions comprising about twelve stanzas are known today in many districts close to the region of Lake Fen, a tributary of Lake Tai. By the late twentieth century, only Lu Amei, who married into Luxu, could sing the long narrative version. Overall, the tale of illicit or private passion is the only type of story that was universally in circulation in virtually all regions of the delta before the establishment of the People’s Republic. It is the most fundamental of all the story types and probably the most ancient. Elements drawn from the siqing repertoire could easily find their way into any number of tales that appear to be about something else entirely. For example, the tale of “Chen the Tiler” (Chen Wapian 陳瓦片) is about a young farmer who manufactures tiles from an old kiln for some extra money. A local wealthy landowner, based on the historical figure of Hua Cha 華察

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(1497‒1574), confiscated Chen’s land in order to build a huge tomb for himself.92 Now destitute, Chen has nowhere to live except the brokendown kiln, where he ekes out a meager living making tiles. He decides to leave his home region to better his condition. In the second half of the story, Chen is offered a post as keeper of accounts in a nearby township. The lady of the home takes a shine to him. She sings of her love-longing in a style known as the “Five Watches of the Night” . This is followed by a “Twelve Months of the Year” song, in which the first line of each stanza refers to the relevant flower for each month of the year. In this song the older woman attempts to interest the young man in the delights of romantic love, each stanza slightly more explicit than the other: “In the first month the plum blossom opens wide its buds / I go with you to see the patterned lanterns...In the tenth month the hibiscus bloom as if in spring / By the pond we see the ducks and drakes twine their necks joyfully.” However, Chen refuses to be diverted from his goal of setting himself up in a new business.93 At the next stage of the story, he saves a pretty young girl from drowning, and this time, he is more susceptible to feminine charms. A typical siqing type of tale then takes over the story until the finale, when Chen gets his revenge on Hua Cha. Erotic material is excluded from certain folk epics such as “Hua Mountain Lifter,” in which the main protagonist resolutely refuses to sleep with his warrior wife until he has successfully routed government troops. One finds a similar situation in “Shen Seventh Brother.” Shen, a hunter-gatherer, learns how to cultivate rice from a magic bird-woman in Sacred Grotto (Dongting 洞庭), an island in Lake Tai. The attraction between the Shen and the pretty bird-woman calls for the inclusion of love making. Contemporary singers, however, are circumspect in their treatment of this story, as it might impinge on the dignity and heroism of the leading male. For this reason, they generally choose to leave out what happens between Shen and his pretty bird-woman after sundown. Mountain songs, both short and long, were a significant part of the life of delta singer-farmers before the contemporary period. Together with

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the rituals of rice cultivation, this was an expressive culture that belonged largely to the common people and expressed their beliefs and concerns. Songs were important not just because they could entertain and lighten the burden of hard toil but also because they helped the crops grow, enlivened festival occasions, and related stories that mattered to their community. The development of song troupes and song competitions strengthened social cohesion as singers were encouraged to master a common repertoire of shared stock material while allowing scope for creative adaptation. Folk epics projected a sense of identity based on the strength and dignity of ordinary individuals, even those involved in scandalous love affairs. A common tiler could take on a propertied magnate, and as we shall discuss in the next chapter, a local man could be celebrated together with a mythic hero from cosmopolitan culture.

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Notes 1. The term “Wu yu” is mentioned in the song, “Calling Back the Soul” (Zhao hun 招魂) in the Songs of Chu (Chuci 楚辭; orig. 4th century BCE). See Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 12‒13. Wu songs of antiquity are often linked to “the airs of Yue” (Yue yin 越吟), referring to the songs of the neighboring state of Yue (modern day Zhejiang Province). 2. For a translation, see Birrell, China’s Bawdy, 2008. 3. For these features, see Birrell’s discussion in China’s Bawdy, particularly 16, 23, 25‒28. 4. On the continuity of aesthetic features from ancient Wu songs to those of the contemporary era, see Jiang Bin, “Wuge yanjiu tigang,” 141‒174; esp. 150‒154. Wu-language songs, in common with other Chinese poetic forms, contain couplets where the first line contains a metaphorical image, and the second line elaborates on the meaning of the image. This feature in Wu songs is known as the Wu style (Wu ge 吳格). For examples in the shan’ge tradition, see Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 195‒ 197. 5. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 14, 213‒216. 6. Gu et al., Wuge, 662‒663. Qian Liu was born in humble circumstances in the region of Hangzhou. The territory of the Wuyue dynasty comprised what is now Zhejiang Province and southern Jiangsu Province. 7. Fan Chengda, Fan Shihu ji, 27:375. For a slightly different translation, see Hargett, “Boulder Lake Poems,” 128, stanza 44. Stanza 42 alludes to the coming autumn rain that threatens to drown the crop before it is safely stored in the granary. 8. Qian Lucan, Changshu zhi, juan 9, 15b‒16a.; cited in Yu Yongliang, “Feng Menglong,” 120‒121. 9. See Sima Qian 司馬遷 (145‒87? BCE), Shiji 史記, juan 38, Song Weizi shijia 宋微子世家, 21, 38. 10. See Ouyang, Yiwen leiju, juan 11, 7. Jirang was a type of game where pieces of shaped wood were thrown on the ground at targets set at increasing distances. The idea here is that the field laborers had leisure to play games and sing songs. 11. Ye, Shuidong riji, juan 5, 59, cited in Gu et al., Wuge, 612. 12. Lu Rong, Shuyuan zaji, juan 1, cited in Gu et al., Wuge, 612.

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13. Lu Shiyi, Sibian lu jiyao, juan 11, 9. For another translation of part of this passage, see Oki, “Women in Feng Menglong’s ‘Mountain Songs,’” 135. The expression xiaodi lixing 孝弟力行 in the final line refers to youths who should first learn moral behavior before studying the polite arts, see Confucian Analects (Lunyu 論語), in Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 1, book 1, section 6. 14. For extensive discussion of the new validation of the “vulgar” and vernacular in songs of the unlettered, see Lowry, The Tapestry of Popular Songs, 142–183. She cites the case of Song Maocheng 宋懋澄 (fl. 1612) who observed that the “Songs of Wu” were about romance, fables, and scenery, ibid., 180. 15. Shan’ge was published in the early 1600s; see Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, 6; and Lowry, The Tapestry of Popular Songs, 249. 16. Oki points to four main origins for the songs: songs of the villages, songs of the cities, songs of the pleasure quarters, and imitations by literati (Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, 10‒20). 17. The late Ming era saw the emergence in the Jiangnan area of a class of commercial prostitutes known as tuji 土妓 or “local prostitutes” who offered their services in their homes (Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China, 224). The more highly trained type of entertainer-courtesan was known as mingji 名妓. Dorothy Ko notes that courtesans “invariably hailed from humble families” (Teachers of the Inner Chambers, 253). Judith T. Zeitlin notes the importance of courtesans in “absorbing folk tunes into urban culture through popular song and disseminating them across the country” (“The Gift of Song,” 23). 18. Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, 264‒265. 19. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China, 232, 252‒253. 20. Xu, “Courtesan vs. Literatus,” 452‒453. Courtesan singing included inserted and repeated syllables, a feature of folk songs of the Wu region. Singing and theatrical culture became elevated in the Ming period as part of a regional identity of “Jiangnan exceptionalism”; see Cass, “The Theater and the Crowd.” 21. Yu Yongliang believes Feng collected folk songs from Changshu when visiting his literati friends such as Qian Qianyi 錢謙益 (1582–1664); see Yu Yongliang, “Feng Menglong,” 120‒122. 22. Wang, “Feng Menglong ‘Shan’ge’”, 101‒108. 23. Shan’ge, vol. 5. Xu shan ge 敘山歌, 9. 24. Jixing 寄興 has been interpreted as “expression of intent” (Lowry, The Tapestry of Popular Songs, 162) and as “spontaneous expressions” (Wu

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25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45.

Memory Making in Folk Epics of China Cuncun, “It Was I Who Lured the Boy,” 322). Oki translates it as “adlibbed” (Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, 5). Feng was particularly fascinated by the quality of “true or genuine sentiment” (zhenqing 真情) that he perceived in mountain songs. See discussion in Lowry, The Tapestry of Popular Songs, 162–165; see also Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, 5‒6, 31‒32. Bauman, Verbal Art as Performance. On the formulaic material (taoshi 套 式) acquired by contemporary shan’ge singers, see Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 177‒239. On erotic imagery in delta shan’ge, see Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, 163‒174. The numbers here refer to individual songs by chapter and can be readily found in the translation of Oki and Santangelo. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 213‒225. Here I cite Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, 72. Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, 100. Oki and Santangelo, 109. Oki and Santangelo, 100. Oki and Santangelo, 106. Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, Song 33, 110. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 60‒61. Oki believes this is because the songs in the first two chapters reflect village songs, whereas the later songs reflect the influence of the pleasure quarters and literary imitations; see Oki’s “Introduction” in Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, 22, 24. Santangelo, “Secret Loves,” in Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, 32, 48. The story is set in the year 1640. See discussion in Lowry, The Tapestry of Popular Songs, 272‒273; and Xihu Yuyin Zhuren, Huanxi yuanji, 146‒147. This is according to Wang and Zheng, Minjian xushi shi, 140‒145. For details, see Chen, “Forbidden Fruits,” 55‒57; and Ding, Zhongguo gudai, 287‒288. For more details, see McLaren, Selling Scandal. Tanhuang can be written in various ways. Tan can be a 灘, 攤 or 彈 and huang can be 黃 or 簧. There is no consensus on what the term means. Some argue it refers to performing a story through speech and song. Jen, The Taiping Revolutionary Movement, 381‒385. Ding Richang, Fu Wugong du 撫吳公牘, juan 2, 5, cited in Lű, Ding Richang, 141. See discussion in Lű, Ding Richang, 140‒141.

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46. Commentators criticized Ding’s bans on the grounds that any link between “immoral” books and social disorder was simply risible. Even government officials had copies of the Dream of the Red Chamber in their offices; see Lű, Ding Richang, 143, citing The North China Herald, June 2, 1868. Jonathan K. Ocko also notes that the bans enjoyed only temporary success and drew criticism from many quarters (Bureaucratic Reform in Provincial China, 50). 47. Penalties for the printing of so-called “lewd” songs had eased in the early part of the nineteenth century except for the entertainment of Manchu bannermen. However, post-Taiping Suzhou was an exception to the general relaxation of the prohibition; see Chen, “Forbidden Fruits,” 52. 48. For the full list of banned erotic song booklets (xiaoben yinci changpian 小本淫詞唱片), see Wang, Yuan Ming Qing sandai, 145‒148. For further analysis, see Che, “Qing tongzhi Jiangsu chajin ‘xiaoben changpian mu’ kaoshu” in Che, Su wenxue congkao, 149‒182. On Ding’s proscriptions, see also Ocko, Bureaucratic Reform, 49‒51. 49. See Stefan Kuzay’s study of shan’ge booklets relating to courtesan culture; the booklets are held in the Hugo Lund Collection at the University of Helsinki, Finland (“Life in the Green Lofts of the Lower Yangzi Region,” 286‒314). Fan Wang has noted that the trade of books in boats throughout the Jiangnan region facilitated the circulation of prohibited books (“The Distant Sound of Book Boats,” 32). 50. Chong Jiu, “Suzhou de changben”, in Gu et al., Wuge, 701. 51. Chong Jiu, 701. 52. Chong Jiu, Gu et al., Wuge, 702‒705. 53. Gu and Wu, “Suzhou changben xulu,” in Gu et al., Wuge, 683. Gu and Wu also argued for a broad consonance between shan’ge as an oral tradition and changben as a written tradition. Shan’ge could be based on changben and vice versa. Any differences were due to gender and education. The songs of women and children were full of “natural charm” as opposed to the more “rational” song booklets produced by semi-literate men, ibid. 54. Cited in Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, 60. 55. At the time of interview, Zhou Fulin was 91 years old, see Wuge yichan jicui, 826. The manuscript he presented was “Going to fetch the little sister” (see chapter 5). 56. Shen, Qingquantang ji, juan 7, poem no. 8 in the suite Yueshi qu 月市曲 (Moon market songs), 36a–37b. 57. Shenghu zhi 盛湖志, juan xia 卷下, Fengsu 風俗, Qianlong era (1736– 1795) ed., cited in Fan, Ming Qing Jiangnan shizhen tanwei, 290.

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58. See Jiang Bin’s preface in Zhongguo Baimao shan’ge ji, 1. 59. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 165. 60. On the cult surrounding Fierce General Liu, see Hamashima, Ming Qing Jiangnan nongcun shehui, 49‒62; and Berezkin, “Baojuan (Precious Scrolls) and Festivals,” 123‒124, 139. On this festival, see Wu, “Shenmiao jieyu.” 61. Wuge yichan jicui, “Atian Goes to Seek Work,” 201, stanza 24. 62. Reported in 1986; see Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 379. 63. Zheng relates cases from Baimao in Wuyu xushi shange, 168. 64. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 78, 1st song, stanza 2. 65. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 140–149. 66. Cited in Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Song, 282. 67. See Wang and Zheng, Minjian xushi shi, 140–154. 68. Wang and Zheng, 150. 69. Wang and Zheng, 152. 70. One of the juicy details in the story is that the young woman gave her lover some of her underwear to kneel on when arraigned before the magistrate. This was noted and reported to the magistrate who then decided this was not a simple case of abduction (Wang and Zheng, 142). 71. Wang and Zheng, 143. 72. Yuan, “Jiti yanchang,” 170‒171. 73. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 143. 74. Zheng Tuyou, 144. 75. Zheng Tuyou, 148. 76. Zheng Tuyou, 145. 77. Zheng Tuyou, 146. 78. Zheng Tuyou, 159‒160. 79. Zheng Tuyou, 241. 80. This style of song was often used for ballads; see chapter 4. 81. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 241. 82. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 27. See also Schimmelpenninck Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, 276‒287, 399‒403. There was considerable variation in role specialization across the delta region. 83. Schimmelpenninck, 284. 84. Schimmelpenninck, 278. 85. The five major locations are Wuxi, Nantong, Suzhou, Shanghai, and Zhejiang (Jiashan and Fuyang); see Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 46‒68.

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86. Wang Ping, Wujiang shi fangyan zhi, 3. The main sites discussed in this volume (Suzhou, Wuxi, Jiaxing, and Huzhou) belong to the central region within the Northern Wu language zone. 87. Wang Ping, 10. 88. For detailed tables of vocabulary variation for the Wujiang townships of Tongli, Luxu, Shengze, Zhenze, Taoyuan, and Qidu, see Wang Ping, chapter 7. On the linguistic features of Northern Wu, see Simmons, Chinese Dialect Classification. 89. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 289 90. In earlier texts, the name appears as Mount Hou (堠, literally Watchtower Mountain). It is believed that locally revered figures such as Wu Taibo (legendary founder of the Wu kingdom) and the Three Mao Lords (Sanmao gong, 三茅公, Daoist adepts) spent time at Mount Hou. Today it is a popular public garden with various temples and historical sites. 91. Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 40‒41. 92. On Hua Cha, see Shih, “Peasant Economy and Rural Society in the Lake Tai Area, 1368‒1840,” 44, 70. 93. See the transcript of “Chen Wapian” by singer Tang Quangen 唐泉根 (born c. 1920, from Wuxi Dongting) in Minjian wenyi jikan (1989) no. 1, 210‒223, and no. 2, 230‒256. For the “Five Watches of the Night” and the “Twelve-Month Songs,” see no. 2, 234‒235, 237‒238.

Chapter 3

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs The folk epic “Shen Seventh Brother” is an intriguing example of a local oral tradition in dialogue (or dispute) with a canonical myth from cosmopolitan China. How did the land of marshes and wilderness transform into a waterscape of polders, canals, and rice paddies? What is its relationship to the dryland economy of the Yellow River region? In this chapter we will discuss the tale of a local man who, it is claimed, brought sedentary agriculture and singing to his people in ancient times. This tale developed in tandem with a central myth of cosmopolitan culture, the story of Wu Taibo, who supposedly brought the civilization of the Yellow River to the “barbarous” Yangzi River region three millennia ago.

The “Barbarous” South Taibo is celebrated in two iconic sites near Wuxi: the Taibo Temple and Taibo Tomb. According to the Shiji 史記, Taibo was the son of a clan leader who became the founder of the great Zhou dynasty in the 11th century BCE. He was not favored by his father to inherit the throne,

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which was given instead to his young brother Jili 季歴, the father of the future King Wen 文王. Taibo then fled with his brother Zhongyong 仲雍 to the land of the “Jing barbarians” (Jing man 荊蠻), where it is claimed that “they tattooed their bodies and cut their hair [in the fashion of the barbarians], showing that they were unsuitable [for the throne] in order to give place to Jili.”1 The account goes on to relate that the local population accepted Taibo’s governance because he was “just” and hailed him as Taibo (literally Great Earl) of Wu (吳泰伯).2 In this canonical tale, it is related that a princeling of the rising Zhou dynasty wins over a population of non-Chinese people in the distant south through a demonstration of his moral superiority. We are also told that the two brothers accepted stigmatized southern customs such as tattooing (only used on criminals in the north) and cutting their hair short in the local fashion. However, later accounts take us away from this vision of northerners adopting the foreign customs of their new home to that of a culture hero bringing northern civilization to the primitive southlands. For example, a text dating back to the first century CE claims that Taibo was a descendant of Hou Ji 后稷 (the God of Millet).3 It is claimed that under threat of invasion, Taibo built inner and outer walls around his place of settlement within which people ploughed fields.4 In effect, this passage claims that Taibo set up a sedentary way of life in the region. Later accounts based on oral traditions claim that Taibo constructed China’s first man-made water channel, Bodu River 伯渎河. It is also said that he transformed the traditional reliance on fishing, hunting, and a single grain harvest, to one where the population used an ox-drawn plough to produce two grain harvests a year and introduced other reforms such as water channels, pottery vessels, and dwellings of tiles and bricks.5 As Mark Lewis has pointed out, Chinese literature from the first millennium CE depicts Jiangnan “as a land of swamps and jungles, diseases and poisonous plants, savage animals and even more savage tattooed tribesmen.”6 The story of Taibo’s early settlement provided the

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 79 regional population with a reassuring link with the “civilized” northern dynasties. In his discussion of the Taibo story, Wang Mingke has argued that borderland elites sought ancestry from the prestigious Huaxia 華 夏 culture of the north, and Huaxia culture in turn offered the status of lineal descent, and hence legitimacy, to borderland rulers.7 Taibo remained an important part of Jiangnan literati identity well into the last centuries of the imperial era. Local customs and rituals largely concurred with the canonical myth that Taibo brought northern civilization to the primitive delta region. For example, Taibo was regarded as an agricultural deity (tianshen 田神) responsible for crop fertility. He was celebrated for his yielding of the throne to his younger brother (known as “the three yieldings,” as he supposedly renounced the throne of Zhou three times).8 It is also said that he taught the locals how to use paper rather than write on stone and to wield a writing brush rather than a stick. He educated the locals through the medium of song at a site known as the Taibo Song and Dance Mound (Taibo gewu dun 泰伯歌舞墩). For this reason, he is also claimed to be the original ancestor of mountain songs (shan’ge laozu 山歌老祖).9 Despite the visible manifestation of the cult of Taibo in the Meicun 梅村 region and the numerous legends about his life, Taibo is not the focus of a folk epic that celebrates his life and achievements. It is a local man, known simply as Shen Seventh Brother, who is celebrated as the founding hero who transformed a foraging community with a precarious food supply to a sedentary society made prosperous by rice cultivation. Singers relate that it is Shen from the banks of Lake Tai, together with an immortal maiden, who introduced both rice agriculture and mountain songs to the region. And yet, the presence of Taibo remains a palpable presence by his very absence in this folk epic. For example, singer Qian Afu begins his song with the very same premise of a primitive south that one finds in the myth of Taibo: In the wasteland south of the river, in the land of Jing Man, We wore skins for clothes, dwelt in shacks, and plucked berries

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China from the wild. Seventh Brother and Sister passed down to us the art of growing rice and keeping livestock. They taught us sacred rules and song-making—how hard was their toil! Singer: Qian Afu, “Shen Seventh Brother,” collected 198010

Qian Afu does not mention Taibo in his version of the folk epic, but he does recount the same notion of a primitive food-gatherer society that is transformed through the introduction of rice cultivation. This is not because he is ignorant of the alternative myth. In a song collected in the 1960s, he sings of “Taibo and Zhongyong, the two brothers / Who cut their hair and tattooed their body to fulfil their father’s wishes.”11 When Qian Afu and other singer-farmers speak of “Jing Man,” this does not refer to “barbarians of the Jing region” as in ancient Chinese records but rather to the two original settlements set up by Taibo.12 Zhu Apan 朱阿盤 (b. circa 1924) and Tang Jianqin 唐建琴 (b. 1957), in their adaptation and elaboration of Qian’s version, attempt to weave the two myths together so that Shen appears after Taibo in a genealogy of culture heroes that goes back to the distant founding of the cosmos: Heaven and Earth, the Qian 乾 and the Kun 坤 [male and female principles], emerged from primal chaos, The Yellow Emperor and Shennong [God of Agriculture], came down into the world. On both banks of the Yellow River the five grains were sown, But the area around Lake Tai was still uncultivated land. Taibo and Zhongyong crossed the Yangzi River, They opened up the land of Lake Tai in Jiangnan, and transformed Jing Man. Seventh Brother and Seventh Sister taught us how to grow grain and passed on mountain songs, The wild swamps of Jing Man became a fine land of rivers and mountains.13

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 81 In this rendition, Taibo and Zhongyong are credited with transforming the wilderness, but it is still Seventh Brother and his wife who taught people how to grow grain and sing mountain songs. What, then, is the relationship between the cosmopolitan myth of Taibo, so powerfully exhibited in the Taibo Tomb and Temple, and the folk epic “Shen Seventh Brother,” transmitted orally in the same region? For Jiangnan literati, the story of Wu Taibo provided an assurance that, despite the acknowledged “barbarian” origins of the indigenous people and its late inclusion in the Chinese empire, the region had subsequently become a model of civilized behavior. As Shang Wei has pointed out, Jiangnan scholars tended to have a “sense of inferiority” about their tattooed, short-haired, fish-eating ancestors that was assuaged by the exemplary behavior of their claimed ancestor, Wu Taibo.14 The Manchu emperors of the last dynasty also found the story of Taibo’s loyalty to the dynastic heartland very congenial. They provided funds to renovate the site and offered sacrifices at the temple; one emperor dedicated a tablet in his honor.15 Yet a paradox lies at the heart of the story. The earliest telling portrays Taibo as adopting the ways of the barbarians and being accepted by them as their leader. In later accounts, Taibo is transformed into an emissary from an advanced civilization who transformed local society and set up a kingdom that would in time be embraced by the greater Chinese polity. In other words, Taibo’s original accommodation to native norms, as outlined in the Shiji, was overtaken by the image of Taibo as the bringer of northern sedentary civilization to a barbarous land. Another contradiction was Taibo’s agricultural credentials. The north is known for millet and dryland grains but not rice. Rice had been cultivated by populations south of the Yangzi River for thousands of years. Taibo could not have introduced rice to the region, and he is an unlikely source for songs of the rice paddy. Perhaps the story of Shen Seventh Brother can be understood as a local reflection on these paradoxes and contradictions. The basic tale probably derived from a suite of folk stories bearing no relationship to the story of Taibo. However, the transmission of this folk epic occurred in tandem

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with the transmission of stories about Taibo, who was hailed as the first of the kings of the state of Wu. Was the development of this shan’ge narrative based on an impulse to reclaim the process of history-making from the state by constructing a hero whose life experience resonated more closely with the understandings of rice-farming communities? Did the singer borrow aspects of the familiar tale of Wu Taibo to add moral gravitas to the story of the local hero? In other words, was the development of the story of Shen Seventh Brother in part a response to the stories associated with the long-standing cult to Wu Taibo? Different populations articulate their own histories and stories in highly specific ways and in specific forms of discourse such as “stories, songs, historical narratives, riddles, proverbs, analogies, and figures of speech.”16 For the singer-farmer, narrative songs were a form of history telling. As with many other oral traditions, a sense of connecting with the ancestors was a probable factor in the development of this folk epic.17 An important motive for telling stories from the past was “the task of making sense of the present.”18 For the rural population of Wuxi Dongting, a local man like Shen Seventh Brother was a more credible “ancestor” to the rice-growers than a scion of the distant Zhou dynasty. Further, surely only a southerner could establish rice cultivation in the region. Rice grain itself was sacred; it must have come from a mystical land. The site that commended itself to locals was Sacred Grotto, which had been a site of religious activities for close to two millennia. The folk epic does not reject or subvert the cosmopolitan myth of Taibo. We know this because it “remembers” past historic situations in which the people of Lake Tai were regarded as primitive by the people of the Central Plains. However, the singer-farmer counters this with the claim that sacred knowledge derives not from the civilization of the Yellow River region but from the mystical world of Lake Tai itself. This folk epic addresses two central questions: How did mankind learn to grow rice? What is the origin of mountain songs? According to the singer-farmer, it was a local man aided by a bird-woman spirit

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 83 who taught their community how to grow rice and how to sing the appropriate song of the rice paddy. The major female protagonist, Golden Bird, is an immortal maiden from a distant, mystical land. She violates the laws pertaining to immortal beings by falling in love with a common man and fleeing with him to his home on the shores of Lake Tai, where together they instruct the villagers in the art of rice cultivation and its attendant ritual songs. At a more abstract level, one can say that this story line personifies the transformation of the rice shoot maiden into the married-out bride (the transplanted seedling) and then into the Rice Mother that takes place during the annual round (see chapter 1). In other words, the underlying story line of the folk epic exhibits the process of rice cultivation as imagined by the singer-farmer. The agricultural songs incorporated into this folk epic demonstrate the “ritual technology” that integrates farming practices with ritual and song. This folk epic can thus be understood as a form of commentary on and exegesis of the fundamental tenets of rice cultivation as perceived by the singerfarmers—the “marrying off” of the rice seedling from nursery bed to the rice paddy followed by the insemination of water to ensure it can conceive golden sheaves. “Shen Seventh Brother” also draws on a folk imaginary of the delta that reflects perceptions about the historic conversion of the forest, swamps, and marshlands of the lower Yangzi Delta into a land of waterways, irrigation ponds, and paddy fields. These events first happened in deep antiquity; however, the reclamation of swamps and upland for rice paddy was an ongoing process in the delta even in the late imperial era. In this story, Shen Seventh Brother is required to drain swamplands and cut down trees, reeds, foliage, and bamboo thickets to make paddy fields, something the singer-farmer was familiar with from reclamation projects in recent memory. To do this, he needs to conquer a wilderness of thick woodlands, cliffs, and mountains, and to ward off locusts, scorpions, poisonous spiders, cunning foxes, tigers, and lions. In the face of these perils, he vows to be as courageous as the heroes of the past:

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China I will learn from Pan Gu 盤古 how to split Heaven from Earth, From Nüwa 女媧 how to smelt rock and fill in the hole of Heaven, I will endure endless trials. I will cross mountains like Yu Shun 虞舜 and till and sow the soil. Like Xia Yu夏禹 I will split mountains, divert rivers to the sea, and control the waterways to save the multitudes.19 Singer: Qian Afu

The folk epic also draws on notions of the enslavement of a common man to grow rice for the governing class. According to Chinese records, rice polders were established by the royal family and noble classes of the first Wu kingdom in the fourth to fifth centuries BCE (see chapter 1). These overlords may have encountered resistance of the kind envisaged by James Scott, who argues that the establishment of rice agriculture is associated with the rise of an oppressive state and enslavement of the local population.20 However, we are also told that Shen broke free from enslavement, fled from the island paradise, and brought rice grain back to his people. Subsequently Shen Village became a self-sustaining community that enjoyed the fruit of its labor. The singer has no nostalgia for the days of foraging and gathering wild berries. On the contrary, it is the reliable rice crop that can protect against starvation, heal the sick, and allow people to thrive and prosper. The singer is also aware of the unremitting toil involved in the annual round of rice cultivation. In mountain songs this drudgery is idealized in terms of filial devotion to parents and the community. As explained in this folk epic, what makes the harsh toil tolerable, and renders the crops more fertile, is collective singing during rice cultivation. This chapter will explore the function of this folk epic in story-making for its receptive community. The first topic will be the chief singers of this folk epic and the likely oral and written influences on its transmission into the twentieth century. The chapter will then proceed to introduce stories of great importance to the singer-farmer: the supernatural trials endured by the hero, the importance of songs to crop fertility, the role of

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 85 birds in rice growing and song-making, and the feminized rice spirit as personified in the figure of the Golden Bird. The final section will return to the issue of the encounter between north and south as exemplified in the rival claims of Taibo and Shen Seventh Brother.

Singers of “Shen Seventh Brother” The most noted older generation singers of this song-cycle are all from the Dongting region to the east of Wuxi. One outstanding singer was Qian Afu, who was born to a poor family known for their repertoire of songs. By ten sui (Chinese years), he could sing many quatrains and eight-line segments. By around the age of thirteen he had mastered the “four pillars and one central beam”—that is, the five most popular longer songs of the region, including “Shen Seventh Brother.”21 At the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to a dumpling shop. One of his fellow-workers taught him many mountain songs while at work. Qian Afu never had the opportunity to attend school and remained illiterate throughout his life. At home we had a tiny plot and poor fields, Our land was laid waste by the ravages of war. My stomach would gurgle “the empty city trick,” How on earth could I go to school?22 During the Cultural Revolution, Qian was singled out for his singing of so-called “feudal” songs. However, in the 1980s, he began to win the revitalized song competitions and became known as a “song king.”23 Zhu Hairong was also very familiar with “Shen Seventh Brother.” During his childhood, parents would tell the story of Shen’s trials and filial devotion to enjoin their children to work hard in the fields and be obedient to their parents.24 When children were first taken down to the fields to work, they were told to behave just like Shen Seventh Brother. I remember that when I was around ten years old, my father led my two brothers and myself down to the rice paddy to transplant

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China the seedlings. My older brother planted them slowly and in a crooked line. Our father then sang this song: When you build a house, make sure the foundation stones are firm, When you plant rice, take great care when planting the seedling. In building a house, learn from Carpenter Lu, When planting rice learn from Seventh Brother.25

Zhu further related that his aunt owned a small boat and would supplement her income by ferrying villagers along the waterways to market. As she worked the paddle, she would sing the story of Shen Seventh Brother: The bamboo pole pushes away from the riverbank, I rock the paddle as we depart from the bay. As we cross the bay towards the great lake, I sing of myriad brave men. Of all the vast multitudes of heroes, Shen Seventh Brother is the bravest. He climbed up the mountain to get the grain, enduring a thousand dangers, He climbed down the mountain to pass on the grain, enduring ten thousand trials.26 Dongting villagers regard the story of Shen Seventh Brother as the oldest of the long narrative songs in their repertoire. An elaborate version of the tale could take days to perform.27 The eight-hundred-line version by Qian Afu discussed in this chapter must be a highly compressed version of the longer form. How did the singer-farmer put together such a long narrative in song? It appears likely that he or she would draw from ritual songs of the rice paddy, folk stories, songs of praise to deities, and stories of secret passion. The oldest sections are likely to be the rice-paddy songs, as the story proper arises from and explicates the mysteries of rice cultivation. These songs were sung at specific times in the annual round. Examples of typical rice-paddy songs were “Plucking the Seedlings,” “Transplanting the Rice shoots,” “The Weeding Song,” and “The Hulling Song.”28 The singer also drew from folk stories about birds

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 87 engaging in song competitions, tales about the fearsome Celestial Master of Sacred Grotto, and legends about the origin of natural landmarks such as Turtle Head Isle. Another likely source was the song of praise sung in temples to venerate heroes who have now become gods. The latter type of song is known to folklorists and students of Chinese religion as zange.29 Regional zange include the song of Fierce General Liu and Gu Yewang 顧野王 (519–581), a scholar-official who sacrificed his life trying to defend Songjiang from a tidal wave.30 Singers of this folk epic were also familiar with manuscript booklets known as xianggao 香誥 (Incense Admonitions, henceforth “incense texts”) associated with annual pilgrimages by villagers to Daoist temples on the hilly massif to the east of Wuxi.31 These pilgrimages took place in the middle of the third lunar month and culminated in a celebration of the birthday of the Dongyue 東嶽 (Eastern Peak) deity on the twentyeighth day.32 Incense texts comprise stories about deities and virtuous individuals that were copied out in advance of the pilgrimage then recited during the ceremony in the temple. The goal was to “Repay Debt to One’s Mother” (bao niang en 報娘恩), for the pains of childbirth and nurture. Many incense texts focus on the observance of filial duty toward one’s mother.33 The story of Shen Seventh Brother saving his mother from destitution relates to stories of gratitude to one’s mother. Echoes of the songs of praise to deities can be found in the opening of the folk epic, which hails Shen as the bringer of rice cultivation, as well as in the description of the Daoist Sacred Grotto, the recitation of the ten virtues of Shen Seventh Brother, and the enumeration of the evil deeds of the villains. In the example discussed next, Shen the farmer is placed third in a hierarchy beginning with Ancestor Shennong (God of Agriculture) and Zhang Liang, who is also hailed in some parts of Jiangnan as a song-maker. It is claimed that Shen outshines the twentyfour filial sons celebrated since antiquity. This placing of the hero in a hierarchy of deities and venerated individuals is typical of songs of

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praise. Similar hierarchies of the gods can be found in popular prints used on ritual occasions. By the banks of Lake Tai, Green Dragon towers high. At the feet of Green Dragon lies Shen Village of Song. Beyond the Village of Song is nothing but wilderness. The people of Man, hungry and cold, live here in endless misery. In the village there resides a handsome young man. He is a fine apprentice of Ancestor Shennong, a worthy teacher of Zhang Liang, a filial saving star who outshines the twenty-four filial sons.34 This fine young man, who is he? He is Shen Seventh Brother, the older brother of the myna bird, his name known far and wide, Shen Seventh Brother, a man of extraordinary character! With strong feet and tireless hands, day after day he climbs the mountain ranges seeking food. In gathering seeds from trees and plants he is a living treasure, devoted to his mother, kin, and neighbors. As he journeyed along, he would pluck food and hum a song or two. Of fishing and field songs, he knows an infinite number, As for mountain songs, he knows them all. He was the first to sing on top of mountains, And so, he became the very first singer of mountain songs.35 Singer: Qian Afu Shen is introduced as a man of exceptional diligence who would sing as he gathered food from the forests and hills of Green Dragon Mountain. This story also provides the singer with a way of explaining the origin of the term “mountain songs.” Another resource available to the singer-farmer was the inexhaustible repertoire associated with songs of secret passion. This type of story was always of great interest to the audience and could be lengthened or shortened in line with the talents of the singer and the demands of

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 89 the listeners. In this folk epic, the singer draws on a common motif of narratives of illicit passion: the comparison between the faithful female lover and her promiscuous rival. In “Shen Seventh Brother” the conflict is between two sisters, the elder and the younger, known respectively as Sixth Sister (Liuniang 六娘) and Seventh Sister (Qiniang 七娘). When Shen is enslaved in Sacred Grotto by a Daoist magician, Sixth Sister uses a hundred wiles to seduce him. She shape-shifts, appearing as a wild tiger and a fierce dragon to attack Shen before turning back to her human form in the nick of time to “save” him. But Shen exercises fine judgment and resists the wiles of this “false Bodhisattva.” He does, however, fall in love with the magical Bird-Woman who turns out to be Seventh Sister. The Bird-Woman offers constant support to Shen as he endures myriad tribulations in his quest to find rice grain for his community. This folk epic also draws on legends about Celestial Master Zhang, known for his magical powers and ability to exorcise demonic forces.36 He commonly featured in village festival parades and opera throughout the delta.37 In this folk epic, the Celestial Master dwells on the island of Sacred Grotto.38 He is depicted as confused and capricious, all too ready to listen to the slander of his henchman and evil daughter. When Seventh Daughter abandons her immortal dwelling for a human lover, he decides to punish her. This story echoes an earlier play where the Celestial Master sends into lunar exile a female flower spirit who dallied with a mortal man.39 In brief, “The Song of Seventh Brother” draws on a diverse set of resources: songs sung in the annual round of rice cultivation; stories about the Celestial Master and the magical world of Sacred Grotto; tales about filial piety (especially care of one’s mother) associated with a regional cult; and stories of secret passion. In this way the song could be long or short in line with the talents of the singer and the demands of the audience.

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The Textual Transmission of “Shen Seventh Brother” Ding Richang’s prohibition of printed song booklets in the mid-nineteenth century included one entitled “Shen Qige shan’ge.”40 This imprint is nonextant, but it is possible that the banned booklet was a more erotic version of the tale known as “Shen Seventh Brother steals grain and wins a lover.”41 Stories about Shen were related in prose as well, particularly when parents were instructing children. In addition, manuscript and print versions in standardized verse were available. In the 1980s a retired worker named Zhu Yongchang 祝永昌 (born c. 1920) reported that he had copied down a song version from a manuscript dated 1886. This version comprised 2,185 lines in mostly regular lengths of seven syllables.42 Schimmelpenninck came across a song rendition of Shen Seventh Brother sung by singer Lu Ada 陸阿大 that also consisted of uniform lines in regular septasyllabic verse.43 These versions may derive from the song booklets compiled in standardized format sold in market towns. Further singer transcripts and manuscripts relating to “Shen Seventh Brother” were collected in the Wuxi region in the 1970s and 1980s.44 On this evidence, one can conclude that this tale enjoyed a broad circulation in various mediums: as a long narrative song (with some versions more erotic than others) and as a song booklet (manuscript and imprint). Zhu Hairong first sought to elicit episodes from the “Shen Seventh Brother” song-cycle in the 1950s. At the time of the promulgation of the new marriage law in the 1950s, Zhu in his role as cadre sang material from “Shen Seventh Brother” at a public meeting to promote the notion of love-based marriage as opposed to arranged marriage.45 In the late 1970s he collected the version sung by Qian Afu discussed in this chapter. As this appeared to be highly compressed, folklorists and later party leaders called for the collection of the “full” song. In the early 1980s Zhu compiled a composite version of 2,300 lines, drawing from the songs of Qian Afu, Zhu Apan, and Tang Jianqin.46 This time he edited and reshaped the material to provide a strong narrative that would please the audience (and the authorities):

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 91 The masses particularly like to hear a shan’ge with a definite beginning and ending, with heroes and villains clearly delineated, and with a satisfactory finale. I prepared this arranged version with these requirements in mind.47 In addition, he excised extraneous detail, repetition, and material that was “not healthy enough” (that is, erotic material).48 The text edited by Zhu can be termed a “readable text” for a national audience. In this chapter I will draw from both the transcript of Qian Afu and the composite manuscript arranged by Zhu Hairong. One could say that Qian’s version is more characteristic of a single singer while the composite version offers insights into how songs can be elaborated and invigorated over time by multiple singers.49

The Trials of Shen Seventh Brother The tale begins with the portrayal of an enchanted wilderness where mountains are sleeping dragons, and flowers share their joy with mankind. Towering high, Dragon Mountain soars up to the clouds, Silken strands of white tufts entangled around its waist. Sinuous and curving, curving, and coiling, three twists, nine turns, bending round and round, Like Nine Dragon Peaks—once fast asleep, then suddenly aroused. South of the river in the third month, the flowers are blooming. On Dragon Mountain the jasmine blossoms are yellow and gold, the magnolia blooms are silvery white, the pink azaleas open their mouths to laugh, and the embroidered ball rolls in jubilation. In myriad colors and shapes, the fresh flowers inlaid like jewels midst the forests of cedar and pine, Like brilliant stars scattered profusely on a slabstone of green.50 Singer: Qian Afu

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Although Shen and his family live in a lush wilderness, they can only make a precarious living from gathering food. The villagers face starvation from a succession of natural disasters: Leaves withered on the trees, cabbage was dry as grass, They filled their bellies with tree bark and grass stalks. Seventh Brother helped his old mother, who was starving to the point where she was falling this way and that, her eyes a-blur, Men and women, villagers and kin, all starving, like tiny birds bursting forth from their shells, sticking out their mouths and stretching out their necks.51 Singers: Qian, Zhu, and Tang After the drought follows a deluge of rain. There is a fierce tornado, wild storms, and floods: A wild wind roaring huhu, like a tiger’s howl, Fierce rain, gushing like a dragon’s whine, With a hula sound, the rain like the Milky Way in the Heavens, the dams collapse, Suddenly Heaven and Earth crack open like very Chaos [hundun 混沌] itself.52 Singers: Qian, Zhu, and Tang After the floods comes pestilence: In Shen village, ice covered snow and frost covered ice. Drought was followed by flood, after the flood came plague. From every hearth and home came piercing wails, Day and night the dead were borne away and buried.53 Singer: Qian Afu The community learns of Sacred Grotto, where the immortals grow rice and raise animals to provide a reliable source of food. Shen goes on a quest to gather this new knowledge and bring it back to his people. On his journey through swamps, jungles, and mountains, he survives

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 93 numerous trials from insects and wild animals. During these tribulations he is aided by a golden bird with supernatural powers. Lake Tai, broad and vast, formed by the Heavenly Waters,54 Sacred Grotto, peaks towering up, home of the immortal spirits. At Sacred Grotto one can grow the five grains and raise six types of livestock, find herbs to heal, and thus sustain one’s life. In generations past, how our forebears longed to see this sacred site!55 Singer: Qian Afu After he arrives in Sacred Grotto, the golden bird teaches Shen the art of growing rice. Shen then finds himself enslaved by Celestial Master Zhang, the ruler of Sacred Grotto. He is subjected to the seductive wiles of Zhang’s daughter, Sixth Sister. Shen constantly sings of his longing to return home to care for his aging mother. Sixth Sister hears him singing and is captivated. She uses magical tricks to get his attention, but he resists her advances. Wang Ba 王八, the malicious henchman of the Celestial Master, accuses Shen of insulting Sixth Daughter, who is his secret lover. The befuddled Celestial Master believes this slander and orders Shen to undertake a series of seemingly impossible tasks involving the conversion of wilderness into land suitable for cultivation. Pluck all the fruit in the eastern forest, Drain all the water from the southern pond, Clear all the reeds and grass from the western slope, Chop down all the bamboo thickets on the northern cliff. Only when these four things are done will I let you return.56 Singer: Qian Afu Shen is very diligent: Just as the loach fears not the depths of a muddy pond, And the green pine fears not the height of a mountain, Seventh Brother rose early and returned at dusk, working hard to till the fields. As he toiled, he learnt how to sing mountain songs.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China “The five grains are precious, they preserve our lives, I’ll learn all the skills of ploughing, weeding, reaping, planting. One day I’ll return home with grain and sacred knowledge, Then at every village at the foothills of Dragon Mountain by Lake Tai, people will smile with delight.”57 Singers: Qian, Zhu, and Tang

With secret supernatural intervention, Shen manages to complete this mission. He sings a song of thanks to his unknown benefactor. Suddenly the golden bird appears to him and transforms into the beautiful Seventh Sister, who turns out to be the youngest daughter of Master Zhang. Instantly attracted, they arrange a secret rendezvous. However, at the appointed time, it is the lascivious Sixth Sister who comes to his chamber, watched with dismay by the villainous Wang Ba. Subsequently, Shen flees Sacred Grotto, bearing with him a magic parasol from Seventh Sister to protect him on his journey. Sixth Sister and Wang Ba continue to harass him. They set up barriers of wildflowers, slippery moss, a thicket of brambles and vines, and even a giant serpent. Shen sings out to Seventh Sister, who sends a spirit army to assist him. Eventually, Shen manages to return to his home village. He opens the parasol and out wafts a beautiful scent. It is Seventh Sister, who has secretly accompanied him on his journey. The villagers urge them to marry immediately but Shen wants to cultivate the land before thinking about marriage. The pair begin the hard toil of clearing land, cultivating rice, and raising livestock. As they work in the rice paddy, they teach the villagers the appropriate song for each stage of the process: transplantation, weeding, and hulling. Back at Sacred Grotto, Sixth Sister charges her younger sister with leaving the land of immortals for a mere commoner. Master Zhang decides to punish Seventh Sister by destroying the rice crop. He sends a wild storm to erupt over Lake Tai, and a swarm of locusts appears over the rice paddy. Seventh Sister tells Shen to take the parasol and summon wild ducks who can eat the locusts. The next trial is the wild oxen who invade the fields to eat the rice shoots. Seventh Sister makes a rope from plants and tells Shen to place it through the nostrils of the oxen and train

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 95 them to work the water wheel to irrigate the crops. Subsequently the wild ducks remain in the ponds; the oxen turn the water wheel and draw the plough. This part of the folk epic explains how farmers learned to deal with natural disasters and how wild animals became domesticated. The evil plans of the villainous duo are foiled by another strong woman: Zhang’s wife, the Old Mother of Sacred Grotto. She derides her husband for his stupidity in trusting Sixth Sister and Wang Ba. Accompanied by the Old Mother, the Celestial Master travels to the land of Shen Village. In a desperate attempt to destroy the couple, Sixth Sister and Wang Ba use black magic to set the rice paddy on fire. Shen is severely burned trying to save the crop: Seventh Brother threw himself into the sea of fire; his hair was alight, his clothes fell to rags, his flesh was scorched. He rolled over the fields, beating out the flames. As his skin peeled and his flesh burst, he gritted his teeth. He clenched his teeth and steeled his heart.58 Singer: Qian Afu Seventh Sister summons a spirit army with the magic parasol to extinguish the flames. On arrival, the Old Mother takes charge of proceedings. She sings a song of praise about the ten good deeds of Shen Seventh Brother, including his talent at singing mountain songs, his filial care of his mother, and his battle to safeguard the community. Then she turns to Wang Ba and condemns him for his ten evil deeds. Wang Ba flees to the top of a mountain. Hurling himself from the summit, he falls into Lake Tai, where he turns into a turtle and forms the site known today as Turtle Head Isle (Yuantou zhu 黿頭渚), a peninsula outcrop on the northern shores of Lake Tai. Meanwhile, Sixth Sister weeps tears of shame. She bashes her head against an iron tree and turns into a ghost forced to weave cloth night after night to pay for her iniquities. Her spirit is trapped in another landmark of the area, Turtle Mountain (Wugui shan 烏龜山), located a short distance from Turtle Head Isle. In the Chinese tradition, demons are commonly captured in lakes or stone formations

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close to water.59 In this way the folk epic offers a satisfying punishment of the demonic villains and explains the origin of striking landmarks in the local environment.

Bird Song, Human Song, and Rice Cultivation The folk epic also draws on a pool of stories told in the delta about how birds, oxen, or supernatural figures steal grain from the gods and teach human beings how to grow rice. One story from Dongyang relates that human beings did not know how to grow rice, which was only found in Heaven. Immortal Seventh Maiden, the daughter of the Jade Emperor, took pity on the starving people and stole some grain for them to plant. Other stories involve the interception of birds, sparrows, and mice to beg for rice from the deity.60 In another story, drought destroyed the rice crop, and there was no grain to plant the following year. An ox took pity on humankind and released golden grains from the heavenly granary, letting it fall like rain onto the soil.61 In this folk epic, it is an immortal bird-woman who teaches a common man how to grow rice. This latter story draws upon the common motif of an immortal maiden who falls in love with a mortal man and flees her utopian world for the secular one.62 Bird motifs are of great importance in this story. Seventh Brother sets off for Sacred Grotto through a land bearing an abundance of sensuous flowers and congregations of singing birds. Like humankind, the birds enjoy song competitions: The hundred flowers compete to flaunt their beauty; the hundred birds display their talent in song. Large and small, birds of every color and pattern come to listen. From far and near, with a querulous clang and clatter, all a-bustle, Flowers, grasses, bamboo and trees, roebucks, cats, deer and rabbits, insects, and the myriad shelled creatures, all halt their steps and prick their ears to hear.

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 97 The sparrows, siskins and titmice chirping out “chi chi cher cher,” blow flutes and strike drums as the noisy prelude begins. With a loud “chip chop chop,” the white-naped bulbul let out a screech that terrified the sparrows, who all a-twitter, fled back three steps, halting their clanging cymbals and beating drums. Singer: Qian Afu63 The skylark flies up with the oriole, whose melodious sounds are like a chiming bell or a sonorous lute. Meanwhile a bumptious magpie pushes his way forward and bursts into strident song. A myna bird (bage 八 哥, whose name means “Eighth Brother” in Chinese) wearing the “black buttoned jacket” of an official and “red boots” takes the stage.64 The crested myna, common to eastern China, is known for its ability to imitate the sounds of human speech and thus communicate the seven emotions of mankind. This ability greatly impresses the audience: Clearing his throat, he spoke as well as sang, teaching the magpie a lesson: “You can only cackle, cher cher cher; you don’t understand the seven emotions of joy, anger, sorrow and love.65 From now on you will be a tireless harbinger of good fortune.”66 Now the myna could speak as well as sing, in words both fine and proper. So, all the birds agreed that the first prize should go to the crested myna. However, the competition is interrupted. A strange figure emerges from a deep thicket: Who could have known, an astonishing sight, a young man coming out of the forest with a wicker basket on his back and at his waist an axe to cut firewood.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China When he opened his mouth, mountain songs, long and short, gushed forth like gurgling spring water from Dragon Mountain.67 Singer: Qian Afu

The sheer eloquence of human singing forces the myna to admit defeat. He honors Shen with the title “Seventh Brother” to show the latter’s seniority. This story draws on a popular folk motif known as “the hundred birds,” in which birds enact the hierarchies of the human world. For example, congregations of birds mimic the hierarchies of officialdom or of funeral mourners.68 The most important bird in this story does not take part in the singing competition at all. Perhaps this is because this bird is female and thus not part of the conventional hierarchies. She is the mysterious golden bird who will assist Shen Seventh Brother through his trials and teach him how to grow rice: The Golden Bird calls out to him, “Seventh Brother, you wait a little.” Seventh Brother turned his head to listen, He couldn’t guess what would happen next— In the twinkling of an eye, it was like a hatchling turning into a duck in front of his very eyes! Golden glimmering raw grains of rice fell to the ground. As the magic grains fell to earth they blossomed and bore grain like gold, The snowy white grains of rice were perfectly round like a set of pearls.69 Singer: Qian Afu The Golden Bird does not relate to the hierarchical One Hundred Birds motif found in the singing competition but rather to an even more ancient idea—that is, the notion that people learned how to cultivate rice by observing birds in the fields. It is likely that early populations in the delta would have noticed that wild rice grew densely in areas populated by water birds. A record in the Yuejue shu 越絕書 relates that birds

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs 99 swooped down to fields of wild rice, carried grain in their beaks, dropped it into the soil, and came back to weed the crop.70 A more naturalistic explanation is that people observed that when sparrows ate insects and grass stalks they loosened the soil, making it suitable for the cultivation of rice.71 At any rate, veneration of birds as custodians of the rice crop can be traced back to the Neolithic age in the lower Yangzi Delta. Ancient vessels belonging to Hemudu culture, located in the coastal region of Yuyao 余姚 in Zhejiang, depict intriguing bird patterns that appear to be associated with rice cultivation. In one ivory carving, two birds appear to be holding up the sun. On a shard of pottery, two birds face each other, gazing at a plant that looks like rice shoots.72 The later civilization known as Liangzhu, which prevailed over the Lake Tai basin and north-eastern Zhejiang, was noted for bird symbols on jade ornaments and weapons.73 In the dynastic era, people from the central plains claimed that the ancestors of the Yue people were birds.74 Early in the first millennium CE, a further notion arose of so-called “bird fields” (niao tian 鳥田)—that is, fields favored by birds—as the best site to grow rice. According to the Yuejue shu, the renowned flood myth hero Great Yu (Da Yu 大禹) visited Kuaiji 會稽 (modern Shaoxing in Zhejiang province) on his journey around the country to divert and channel China’s waterways. The local people built a massive tomb and large coffin for him as a sign of respect. In gratitude, the Great Yu bestowed “bird fields” so that they could grow rice.75 In the lower Yangzi Delta, rituals have been performed in honor of birds well into the twentieth century. For example, the population of Wuxi used to perform the Lantern Dance of the Hundred Birds to ensure a good harvest. People put on bird-shaped masks and carried lanterns with images of birds such as ducks, cormorants, egrets, and pelicans.76 The golden bird of this folk epic reflects a long tradition that birds are guardians of the rice crop. On arrival at Shen’s village, the immortal golden bird turns into a good farmer’s wife. Shen and the bird wife teach the villagers how to grow rice. In the segment below, the rice shoots are personified as a young bride who will be “married off” to another field,

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plucked out of the nursery bed and transplanted to the rice paddy. In this way, the folk epic dramatizes and explains to the singer-farmers the parallel between crop fertility and human procreation. The brother and sister here refer to Shen and his bird wife. The precious grain has fallen to the ground and has grown into rice shoots. The brother and sister lead the mother and neighbors as they sing out the “Longing for Rice Shoots Song.” “Tiny rice shoots, you understand the feelings of mankind. When you greet the wind, you shake your heads, your faces wreathed in smiles. Precious shoots! We urge you to grow three inches in a single night. We await the happy time when we can marry you off to another field.” The sister tossed the sacred rice seedlings as evenly as the heavenly maiden scattering nectar from flowers, The brother worked the bunches with his fingers, arousing the lotus flowers to open up their buds.77 Their hearts at ease, their hands moved quickly as round after round of songs rang out. “The Rice-transplanting Song” was sung again and again, The rice shoots grew mature and conceived ears of grain. The brother and sister wept warm tears like broken lines of pearls cascading down. Leading the mother and villagers, they walked from the eastern edge to the western bank, from the north to the southern corners, carefully inspecting the rice crop. “The Song of Longing for Son-seeds” rang out like triumphal drums in the Palace of Content.78 Singer: Qian Afu

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs101 The folk epic proceeds to introduce other rice paddy songs. When a sea of wild grass appears in the field, the bird wife explains that these are weeds and must be removed. She bids him make a hoe from wood and a basket from bamboo: “Weed and hoe and weed and hoe, hoe and rake until the weeds are gone.” With this, the weeding song is introduced.79 The mysterious bird-woman plays a central role in “The Story of Shen Seventh Brother.” We see her gradually transform from an immortal being living in a Daoist paradise to the wife of a farmer who toils in the rice paddy. At a deeper level, she is implicitly recognized as the spirit of the tender rice shoot who is “married off” from the nursery bed into the paddy field that will then conceive “grain-sons.” The folk epic evokes key aspects of rice cultivation as understood by the singer-farmers. We learn about the magical qualities of rice and its mysterious origin in faraway Sacred Grotto. The folk epic also suggests that human songs originated from birds, who compete in song competitions much like their human counterparts. Taken as a whole, the story “explains” how the wilderness of jungles, forests, swamps, bamboo, snakes, wasps, and wild animals was transformed into orderly hamlets, rice polders, and water channels through human toil. The message here is that human virtue and disciplined effort can ward off disaster and starvation. Filial piety, with a focus on devotion to one’s mother (the father never appears), is seen to bring about spiritual and material reward. It is two strong women, the bird-woman and the Old Mother, who instruct their male kin and ensure the survival of the community. We also learn that singing the appropriate song is essential to ordering the process of rice cultivation and ensuring crop fertility. This folk epic thus provides an elaborate and convincing narrative within which the everyday labor of rice cultivation and the origin of mountain songs could be interpreted and legitimated.

The Local and The Cosmopolitan The concurrent transmission of both the folk epic of Shen Seventh Brother and the cult of Wu Taibo allow for an exploration of the relationship

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between the local and the cosmopolitan in the construction of originary culture heroes. As discussed earlier, Wu Taibo’s physical presence in the city of Wuxi has been manifest from ancient times to the present.80 The rites and music for the seasonal ceremonies to Taibo, together with the claimed genealogy that placed Taibo at the head of the kings of the ancient Wu kingdom, were set out in a regional record composed in the early eighteenth century.81 In the late imperial period there was a revival of a regional identity that deployed the shadowy figure of Taibo to represent the “civilized” south as an integral part of the imperial project. It is thus intriguing that the same region should sustain dual myths of origin— one related almost entirely in oral transmission and the other recorded in esteemed written records and the subject of official veneration for the past two thousand years. How do locals understand the relationship between these two myths of origin? Contemporary singers are aware of both culture heroes and sometimes mention both Shen Qige and Wu Taibo in the same song. In these cases, we find a conflation of the two heroes as original transmitters of rice cultivation and of singing. Both are known for their exemplary moral behavior: Shen is the archetypal filial son, and Taibo is willing to yield up the throne at his father’s command. Taibo holds a secure place in public perception as the first King of Wu, at the head of the Wu dynastic genealogy. For his part, Shen, a local man, is placed in a genealogy of ancient sages and heroes. He is an apprentice of Shennong, a teacher of Zhang Liang, and even more filial than the twenty-four paragons of filial piety. He is also “the older brother” of the myna bird, placing him in a lineage of avian song-making. Both heroes are commemorated for their good deeds that benefited their communities through the generations. Both are objects of veneration; indeed, some say that Shen Seventh Brother is the minor deity of the locality, and Wu Taibo is the major deity of the locality.82 The fuzzy boundaries around the exact identity of deities and their ability to take on a range of names is a common feature of Chinese spiritual beliefs.83 In this case, status and social class are important factors in the division between Shen, the local culture hero, and Taibo, the scion

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs103 of the royal house of Zhou. Literati and officials appreciated Taibo as a distinguished ancestor who linked them to the cosmopolitan empire, but he seems remote and unknowable to the singer-farmer, who finds in Shen Seventh Brother a paragon of field labor and filial piety that he can teach his children to follow. Singing of Shen Seventh Brother was a perpetual reminder of the benefits that accrue to descendants from the virtuous toil of past ancestors and a model of what still must be done to ensure the receipt of similar benefits in future. “Shen Seventh Brother” was a folk epic of considerable regional importance in the pre-contemporary period. One could say that this folk epic does not ignore the Taibo myth of northern sinification of the south but rather responds to it with a local variant that made more sense to the singer-farmer. In other words, as an “epichoric” performance art, this folk epic existed in tension with and indeed drew from a mythic paradigm manifest in cosmopolitan culture. When questioned, the singerfarmer can say that one is simply a manifestation of the other. With its focus on locality rather than on empire, it reflects the communal identity of rice paddy farmers of the delta region in pre-socialist China and asserts their values of diligence in agricultural toil and resilience in the face of natural disasters. As in other notable traditions, the singerfarmer imagines an ecosystem that distinguishes between wilderness and cultivated land. The natural world is full of dangerous animals and demonic forces that must be conquered and transformed through the power of human effort.84 The island paradise of Sacred Grotto reflects a utopian world where the dependable rice crop saves the people from starvation. Through the character of the Golden Bird, the folk epic asserts the prime importance of the female rice spirit, whose name continued to be evoked in the agricultural songs of the rice paddy.

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Notes 1. Sima Qian, Shiji, juan 31, 1445‒1448. For this translation, see Wagner, “The Language of the Ancient Chinese State of Wu,” 162. Sima Qian regarded the Wu region as belonging to the “southern barbarians (yiman 夷蛮). These southern people, also known as Yue 越, were a non-Sinitic possibly Austronesian people residing in the region that became later known as Jiangnan; see Clark, The Sinitic Encounter, 7, 21‒22, 90‒91. Tattoos and short hair were characteristic of populations south of the Yangzi River; see Henry, “The Submerged History of Yuè,” 5. 2. Wagner, “The Language of the Ancient Chinese State of Wu,” 162. In Record of the Land of Wu (Wudi ji 吳地記, 9th century), Taibo and Zhongyong gather herbs for their father when he becomes ill, thereby demonstrating their filial virtue. The people of Wu were so moved by Taibo’s integrity that they decide to make him their ruler; see Milburn, Urbanization in Early and Medieval China, 68. This early Wu kingdom may have actually been located in modern day Shaanxi Province not in Jiangnan. The first work to locate Taibo’s kingdom in the south was the Shiji; see Millburn, Cherishing Antiquity, 20‒21. 3. Zhao Ye, Wu Yue Chunqiu jiaozhu, 2. 4. Zhao Ye, 10. The same text claims Taibo was buried in Meili 梅里, to the south of modern-day Wuxi (Zhao Ye, 13). Archaeological research has failed to identify the site of this claimed settlement, see Cui and Zhang, “‘Shij’ ‘Taibo ben Wu’ shuo zhiyi,” 72‒76. 5. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 118. 6. Lewis, China Between Empires, 13. 7. Wang, “Huaxia hua de lichen,” 313‒343. 8. The notion of “the three yieldings” of Taibo (san rang tianxia 三讓天下) comes from The Confucian Analects, Book 8. Wagner argues that Confucius drew on a legendary tradition here (“The Language of the Ancient Chinese State of Wu,” 163). Wang Mingke believes that the story of “the three yieldings” was based on the story of Wu nobleman, Ji Zha (季札, 6th century BCE), who was offered the kingdom of Wu three times but refused it (“Huaxia hua de lichen,” 328). “The three yieldings” of Wu Taibo is a central notion in the novel, Rulin waishi 儒林外史 by Wu Jingzi 吳敬梓 (1701‒1754); see Shang, Rulin waishi, passim and 244.

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs105 9. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 116‒119. Needless to say, these events could not have taken place three thousand years ago. Paper was first used in China in the early years of the common era. 10. Wuge wang de ge, 305. 11. “Jiangnan wenhua Taibo tou,” in Wuge wang de ge, 53. 12. Tradition holds that both were located in the region of Meicun, southeast of Wuxi. 13. Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 91. 14. Shang, Rulin waishi, 234. On northern distaste for the southern practice of tattooing, see Milburn, Cherishing Antiquity, 12‒13. 15. Shang, 240. 16. Briggs, Competence in Performance, 98. 17. Briggs, 99. 18. Briggs, 99. 19. Wuge wang de ge, 309. In Chinese mythology, Pan Gu created the universe with hammer and chisel, while Nüwa is a serpent-tailed woman who repaired the canopy of Heaven, and Yu Shun is a renowned sageemperor (Yu refers to his fiefdom); Yu is the mythic flood hero who controlled the waterways and became the first ruler of the Xia dynasty. 20. Scott, Against the Grain, 40. 21. Wuge wang de ge, 16‒17. 22. Wuge wang de ge, 18. “The empty city trick” (kongcheng ji 空城計) refers to the famous trick played by Zhuge Liang on an invading army in the “Three Kingdoms” story cycle. Here it simply means that his stomach is empty. 23. Wuge wang de ge, 28‒29. 24. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 270. 25. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 270. Carpenter Lu (Lu mujang 鲁木匠, also known as Lu Ban 鲁班) is venerated as the patron deity of carpenters. 26. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 270. 27. Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, 76. 28. The version of Hua Zurong was noted for its inclusion of numerous songs of the rice paddy; see Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 42. 29. Zange were generally performed in ritual contexts by semi-professional ritual specialists; see Gu, Jitan guge. 30. The story of the Fierce General is narrated in “Liu wang” 劉王 in Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 473‒498. For the story of Gu Yewang, see “He chao

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31.

32.

33.

34.

35. 36.

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wang” 喝潮王, Zhongguo Luxu shange xuji, 497‒515. For more on the Fierce General, see chapter 2. See Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 276‒296. This religious activity is attested in a 1919 report on Wuxi customs, see ibid., 276. The term gao 誥 is commonly used in Daoism to refer to revelations from the deities. It also came to mean songs of praise to the gods. This deity was originally associated with Mount Tai in Shandong, but by the later imperial period, Dongyue Temples were widely dispersed across the empire. Dongyue was the lord of the underworld. For details, see von Glahn, The Sinister Way, 170‒173, 177. This might have been due to Buddhist influence. On Buddhist tracts that elaborated the trials of the mother during pregnancy and infant nurture, see Idema, Filial Piety and its Divine Rewards, xvii. For a ballad on this topic, see “The Ten Months of Pregnancy” in Idema, Heroines of Jiangyong, 27‒31. Green Dragon is the vernacular name for what is now Hui Shan 惠山, located to the west of Wuxi on the banks of Lake Tai. Shennong is a sage king and mythical founder of agriculture. The historical Zhang Liang 張良 (d. 189 BCE) was a military strategist who attempted to assassinate the first Qin emperor. He assisted Liu Bang 劉邦 (d. 195 BCE) in establishing the Han dynasty. Once Liu Bang became emperor, he did away with the leading generals who had assisted his conquest. Zhang Liang decided it would be prudent to retire from court and dedicate himself to Daoist practices. Yuan plays and Ming stories recounted the story of Zhang Liang’s encounter with the emperor and decision to pursue the Dao. The reference to Zhang Liang in this song, however, relates to a different story related in eastern Jiangnan. In this tale, Zhang Liang is hailed as the ancestor of mountain songs. The story goes that after many years of warfare, Zhang Liang returned to his home village and attempted to seduce a young girl in the field with his songs. She turned out to be his own daughter. For this story, see Zhao Xian, “Wu di geyao zhong de ‘Zhang Liang yu shan’ge.’” The twenty-four most filial sons (actually twenty-three sons and one filial daughter-in-law) figured in stories of filial piety that were in continuous circulation during the last millennium. Wuge wang de ge, 307. For stories about the magic arts of Zhang Daoling, the original Celestial Master, see Werner, Myths and Legends of China, 138‒142. Successive Daoist patriarchs adopted the title. In Jiangnan the Celestial Master

How People Learned to Grow Rice and Sing Mountain Songs107

37. 38.

39.

40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45.

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

was a respected figure in charge of regulating local cults and canonizing deities; see Goossaert, “The Heavenly Master,” 229‒230. Cai, Jiangnan minjian shexi, 39. This island is generally known as Dongting xishan 洞庭西山, often shortened to Xi Shan 西山. An elaborate cave-grotto associated with centuries of Daoist activity is located on the northeastern side of the island; see Hahn, “The Standard Taoist Mountain,” 152‒153. In the zaju 雜劇 play attributed to Wu Changling 吴昌龄 (fl. 1314‒1320), Zhang Tianshi duan fenghua xueyue 張天師斷風花雪月, the male lover pines away of love sickness. Celestial Master Zhang punishes the female immortal by imprisoning her in the moon and heals the lovesick male. Wang, Yuan Ming Qing sandai, 147. Zhu Hairong discusses this more erotic version in Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 273. The negative portrayal of the Celestial Master in this folk epic could have been another reason for the prohibition of this tale by Ding Richang. Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 40. Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, 122. For a list, see Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 40‒41. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 271. Levi Gibbs has observed the difficulty Chinese officialdom had in legitimizing folk songs dealing with illicit love affairs in the context of the new marriage law, see “‘Forming Partnerships.’” Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 89‒168. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 274. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 274. For Qian Afu’s version, see Wuge wang de ge, 305‒343. Wuge wang de ge, 305. Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 98. Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 99. Wuge wang de ge, 307‒308. According to legend, Lake Tai is vast because it originated in an outflow from the Milky Way (in Chinese, Heavenly Waterways [Tianshui 天水]). Wuge wang de ge, 308. Wuge wang de ge, 315. Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 112. Wuge wang de ge, 337. Andersen, The Demon Chained Under Turtle Mountain, 15‒21, 71‒75.

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60. For examples, see Chen, Zhongguo niao wenhua, 3‒8; and Chen, Dangdai minjian xinyang, 24‒25. A similar story is told about Pan Hu 盤弧 who steals rice grain from Heaven. He is killed by the Heavenly army, but a kindly sparrow scatters the bag of grain to his descendants who plant it in the fields; see Wang and Zhou, Zhejiang minsu gushi, 171. 61. Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 705. 62. The story of Shen Seventh Brother has interesting parallels with the well-known tale of Dong Yong 董永. Dong is renowned for his filial piety. He indentures himself as a farm laborer to raise funds for his father’s funeral. A heavenly immortal is so impressed by his filial devotion that she falls in love with him and pays off the debt for his father’s funeral by weaving copious amounts of cloth. Sometimes this maiden is said to be the seventh daughter of the Queen Mother of the West (another parallel with the Seventh Daughter of the Celestial Master of this folk epic). For a study of this tale, see Idema, Filial Piety. 63. Wuge wang de ge, 305‒306. 64. Chinese myna birds often have dark plumage, yellow-orange bills, and yellow legs. 65. The remaining emotions are fear, hate, and desire. 66. The magpie (xique 喜鹊) is traditionally regarded as an omen of good fortune; see Chen, Dangdai minjian xinyang, 74‒77. 67. Wuge wang de ge, 306. 68. In a bianwen 變文 text dating back to the Tang dynasty (618‒907), the birds represent various official posts in the imperial hierarchy; see Wang Zhongmin, Dunhuang bianwen ji, vol. 2, 851‒854. A chantefable tale of the fifteenth century presents a funeral procession of birds in line with their ceremonial roles in the proceedings; see McLaren, Chinese Popular Culture and Ming Chantefables, 120‒121. 69. Wuge wang de ge, 309. 70. Milburn, The Glory of Yue, 224 note 10. 71. Chen, Zhongguo niao wenhua, 17. 72. For illustrations, see Chen, Zhongguo niao wenhua, 2, 20. 73. Chen, Zhongguo niao wenhua, 72‒73. 74. Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 537. 75. Milburn, The Glory of Yue, 224. 76. On the bai niao deng hui 百鳥燈會, see Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 542. 77. This line appears to refer to “opening the door of the rice shoot”, where the bunches of rice seedlings are loosened around the roots, see chapter

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78. 79. 80.

81. 82. 83. 84.

1. The rice seedlings are here referred to as “lotus flowers” to signify their feminine attributes and magical properties. Wuge wang de ge, 328‒329. Wuge wang de ge, 333 A shrine was first built to Taibo on the site of his former residence at Meili in 154 CE; see Tan, Wuxi Xianzhi, 12, 891. Taibo was granted the title “King of three yieldings” (san rang Wang 三讓王) by Emperor Ming of the Jin dynasty 晋明帝 (r. 323‒325); see Milburn, Cherishing Antiquity, 183n21. The temple was destroyed at the time of the Ming conquest. It was restored in the late fifteenth century (Tan, Wuxi xianzhi, 16, 891). There were successive restorations in subsequent centuries. The most recent rebuilding took place in the 1980s. The oldest artifact in the temple in the present day is a stone archway built in 1092. An inscription by the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736‒1795) acclaims Taibo for his “three yieldings.” The Meili zhi (梅里志), see Tan, Wuxi xianzhi, 18. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 269. On the lack of “doctrinal and theological rigidities” in popular religion, see von Glahn, The Sinister Way, 8. Haruo Shirane argues for two main constructions of nature in Japanese civilization, one defined by the nobility and court and the other by commoners and farmers. The latter group perceive actual nature (wilderness) as dangerous, violent, and “saturated with deities” who require propitiation (Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, 14, 114). For an Indian example, see Wenzel, “Epic Struggles over India’s forests.”

Chapter 4

Songs of Secret Passion The Song of “Fifth Daughter” The majority of the known long narrative songs of the lower Yangzi Delta are about illicit love affairs. The most striking aspect of these stories is that they present erotic encounters followed by persecution of the lovers and, usually, a tragic end. The tales are replete with scenes of abuse, violence, suicide, infanticide, and death. These folk epics are thus an intriguing combination of songs celebrating passionate love followed by songs dramatizing the downfall of the young lovers. The harsh punishment meted out to the young people is usually carried out by senior kinsfolk rather than by the local magistrate. The stories fascinate the listener with their combination of stolen erotic pleasure and a gripping denouement of betrayal and violence. The fact that the protagonists of these stories were believed to be real people who had lived just a few generations ago in a nearby bayside community lent these stories believability and poignancy. In some areas such as Luxu, the siqing songs would be sung with an air of lamentation, with a slow falling tone at the end of the line, to indicate mourning.1 Singers did not always sing about the more tragic aspects of the narrative. Lu Amei, for example, had reservations about singing the sad finale of “Fifth Daughter,” but

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the tragic end was always understood as implicit by both the singer and their audience. It did not require explicit enactment.

The Ghostly Presence As with the tales of heroic individuals, the folk epics of secret passion provided a poetic and mediated way to commemorate deceased people —in this case, local men and women who gave way to their impulses and subsequently faced social opprobrium, punishment, and death. Why are the lovers doomed to an unhappy end in shan’ge narratives? What is the reason for the words of ill omen regularly voiced by the singer and the air of lamentation that hangs like a pall over the second half of the story? The most obvious reason would appear to be the social norms regarding marriage in pre-contemporary times. The young lovers of these stories fall foul of family-enforced moral codes (jiagui 家規), with punishment falling most heavily on the chief female protagonist.2 Chinese scholars attribute the sad tenor of these tales to the harshness of life in “feudal” society and the constraints of the marriage system, which required the approval of both parents and the negotiations of a matchmaker. Betrothals were often made when the bride and groom were very young. As an agreement sealed with monetary payment or gifts, these betrothals were regarded as secure contracts. However, these well-known contextual factors do not provide an explanation for the mode of lamentation that is so ubiquitous that it appears to be a generic requirement in the siqing repertoire. It also neglects the “mental text” of the singer, which involves his or her emotional engagement with the complexities of the story and the key protagonists.3 One aspect of this “mental text” is the belief that those who have suffered an untimely death linger in the area as a ghostly presence whose story should be honored. This is an ancient belief with a long history in the Wu region. Several accounts from the Six Dynasties era (420–589) give an account of a type of song known as Midnight Songs (ziye ge 子夜歌), in which female ghosts sing songs of unrequited love.4 The songs were said to be

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alluring but steeped in melancholy.5 Why were these songs attributed to the ghosts of beautiful young women? It was widely believed that women who died due to ill treatment by their families could turn into avenging ghosts who wreak havoc on the community. The mysterious Midnight Songs alerted the community to their grievance. It was then necessary to build shrines to propitiate their offended spirits.6 Delta populations passed down stories of maltreated women and their mysterious appearance after death. One example is the legend about the Dragon Lady of Hong Mountain (Hongshan 鴻山) near Wuxi who was believed to be a child-bride abused by her parents-in-law. One day she collapsed beneath a pine tree. Sap from the tree ran into her mouth, and she conceived a white dragon son. Every year the dragon son returned to bring autumn rains, thus ensuring a fine harvest for the Hongshan community. A shrine was built in her honor.7 Another example is an early nineteenth-century woman, Chen Third Daughter. Chen’s father discovered her in a secret love affair and had her drowned in a river. When her ghost began to appear, the local people set up a shrine to offer sacrifices to her. However, local authorities did not take favorably to the “illicit” cult. In 1826 the statue in the shrine was torn down and taken away by boat. According to Qian Yong 錢泳 (1759–1844), thousands of spectators begged the authorities to “pardon” the statue.8 In spite of the loss of the shrine, Chen Third Daughter continued to be venerated in sacred songs and rituals well into the contemporary era. In the late twentieth century, a sacred text (shenshu 神書) about Chen Third Daughter was in use by ritual specialists in Lake Tai fishing communities.9 In the latter, Chen falls in love with a young scholar named Xu Wen. Her father wrongly suspects her of a love affair and has her drowned to preserve the family honor. After her death, her aggrieved soul became a malignant ghost (ligui 厲鬼), causing disturbance to the local community. In this case, the ongoing commemorative practices of the community have taken the place of the statue torn down by officialdom in the 1820s.

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The singers investigated in this study and their fellow villagers held very similar beliefs. Fei Xiaotong, in his famous study of one Lake Tai village, observed that if the daughter-in-law is unhappy in her husband’s home, “she may take a more desperate course: committing suicide. According to popular belief she then becomes a spirit and exacts revenge; furthermore, her own parents and brothers will seek redress, sometimes even destroying part of her husband’s house.”10 Lu Amei, the best-known singer of the long narrative form of “Fifth Daughter,” believed that the spirit of Fifth Daughter lingered in the region: Speaking of Fifth Daughter there really was such a person. The events happened at Fangjia Creek. When I was a child, I heard the story from my grandmother. I, myself, have seen Fifth Daughter’s combs and personal possessions. Xu Atian 徐阿天 [her lover] lived at Yaojia Dam. He was a fine figure of a man, tall in stature, his clothing clean and tidy. In summer he wore a red pointed straw hat; he was a real character! To be a long-term hired hand you needed great skill. If you weren’t good, people would look down on you. As for the really talented hired hands, the landlords greatly respected them. If Atian did not like you he would not work for you, even if you offered more money. When Atian went to the Yang household to work, it was really because he’d fallen for Fifth Daughter….The two of them were just like lumps of coal in the fire; once hit they burnt fiercely.11 After her death, the spirit of Fifth Daughter remained in the region as a spectral force. She could easily be offended if someone related the scandalous events of her life. For this reason, Lu Amei was reluctant to narrate the story of her death: “Fifth Daughter doesn’t want people to tell her story because then she’ll lose face.” Fifth Daughter could take revenge on those who offended her: “If you don’t get chest pains then your belly will hurt. People who continue to sing this song are becoming fewer and fewer. I don’t dare sing it rashly.”12 Neighbors believed that the premature death of Lu Amei’s daughters was due to her known association with the song of Fifth Daughter:

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If you sing of the scandalous events surrounding Fifth Daughter, she will get angry. At worst she could make you sleep for over a score of days, or at best, you could be sick in your heart. Of those who listen to the story of Fifth Daughter right to the end, there’s not even one who doesn’t get heart pain. Why is that? It’s because Fifth Daughter’s angry qi [氣 life force] blows into the hearts of those listening to mountain songs…Lu Amei raised seven girls, but they were all taken away by Fifth Daughter. Amei now prays to the Buddha because she fears Fifth Daughter will cause trouble.13 The views of Lu and her neighbors point to the broader faith system that shaped the transmission of the folk epics of secret passion. It helps to account for the constant words of foreboding that we hear from the singer throughout the performance and tells us why, after the shortlived erotic encounter, the story plummets into a world of suffering and lamentation. And yet the stories relate little of the actual death: it is alluded to but not enacted in the narrative. In contrast to the usual elision of the death scene, mourning and funeral rituals are elaborated in considerable detail (or alternatively, the lack of them is pointed out by the singer-narrator). For example, in “Fifth Daughter,” the villainous sisterin-law is worried that, after her death, Fifth Daughter will come back to seek revenge on her family. She decides to bury her corpse under a chinaberry tree to ensure her soul cannot come back to haunt the family. Precisely because there is no chief mourner to ensure safe passage of the soul in the afterlife, her lover, Xu Atian, attempts to take on this role. He tries to steal her spirit tablet from the Yang family home, an action that will bring about his own death. In the story of Zhao Shengguan, when the young man dies, the rituals of mourning are carried out in elaborate fashion by his lover, Miss Lin (Linshi 林氏), instead of by his betrothed. In the story of Xue Liulang, when the brother-in-law uses deception to abduct the younger sister of his wife, his wife hangs herself from the rafters. The funeral is passed over quickly and the husband marries the younger sister. The spirit of the elder sister returns as an avenging bird to prey upon the younger sister. These stories thus allow the singer-farmer

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and the community to dramatize their fears that transgressions of social norms will lead to catastrophe and death. The audience is reminded that aggrieved ghosts can linger unless accorded the appropriate rites.14

Kinship Relations in Songs of Secret Passions The secret passion type of folk epic is structured entirely around kinship relations. Individual characters play out roles determined by their position within the family. The guniang 姑娘, for example, is an unmarried daughter. When one finds two sisters in a family, they will be known simply as “fourth daughter” or “fifth daughter.” One can presume here that the older daughters have been married off or are deceased. It is the responsibility of her parents (or, if these have died) of her elder brother and his wife (known as “elder sister-in-law” saosao 嫂嫂) to ensure the chastity of the guniang before marriage. The family seniors need to ensure that the guniang is married off in a timely fashion (that is, by late adolescence). Sometimes the parents or older brother fail to do this because of the cost of a dowry, which was a considerable burden on family resources. The consequence of failure to marry off the adolescent daughter might well be a love affair bringing dishonor on the family. The husband of the elder sister is known as the “elder brother-in-law” (jiefu 姐夫). The younger sister of the wife is known as ayi 阿姨. This can be a sexually charged relationship if the brother-in-law is dissatisfied with his wife and has taken a liking to the younger woman. The singer-farmers know the characters not as individuals but by kinship roles. For example, they will relate the story of the love affair of such-and-such daughter, or how the husband of the older sister goes to “fetch” (that is, abduct) the younger sister. In these song-cycles, women are rarely given individual names, although sometimes we learn their family name. The singer will speak of “Lin Second Sister” (Lin erjie 林二 姐) or “Bao Sixth Sister” (Bao liujie 鮑六姐). However, the central male protagonist is generally given both a family name and a mingzi 名字 (corresponding to the English first name)—for example, Zhao Shengguan,

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Xue Liulang, or Xu Atian.15 The use of kinship terms as a structural element in siqing stories implies that an individual can be easily replaced with another who can fulfill the same kinship role—that is, one’s wife can be replaced by her younger sister, and a betrothed woman can be replaced as bride by someone else. In “Fifth Daughter” the saosao tries to put herself in the place of her younger sister-in-law in the affections of the handsome hired hand. Familiarity with these conventional kinship roles means that the singer-farmer and the audience already understand the internal dynamic of family relations in the delta—the uneasy relationship between the older brother and his wife with the younger sisters he must support and marry off; the difficulty of maintaining the chastity of the unmarried girl as she leaves the home to work in the fields or to wash her clothes by the riverside; the critical importance of preserving the family honor.

The Rural and the Urban in Songs of Secret Passion The love stories explore a wider social dimension than the agricultural songs discussed in chapter 1 and the story of Shen Seventh Brother discussed in chapter 3. A source of conflict in many of the tales is the inequality in class status of the young lovers. For example, some of the characters are rice-paddy farmers (e.g., the hired hand, Xu Atian), but Zhao Shengguan is from a wealthy merchant family in Suzhou. Fifth Daughter is described as coming from a property-owning family residing at Fangjia Creek, but she is abused by her older brother and forced to work in the paddy fields. In earlier versions of the Xue Liulang story, both lovers are portrayed as coming from landowning families. In later versions, Liulang is portrayed as a rice-paddy farmer of modest means. Miss Lin, who fell in love with the young merchant, lives on the banks of a canal in Linping 臨平 township, an important stopover on the long boat journey between Suzhou in the north and Hangzhou in the south of the delta region. As well as going beyond status boundaries, the stories cross between rural and urban areas. Even hired hands have the

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opportunity to travel occasionally to market towns. When Xu Atian falls in love with Fifth Daughter, he travels to Wujiang town at the time of the Duanwu festival to purchase a bolt of blue cloth to give to his beloved.16 Fifth Daughter tells Atian she has good scissors from Hangzhou, but he should buy quality embroidery needles from a workshop in Suzhou. Fifth Daughter stitches the thirty-six beauties of Suzhou on a handkerchief for her beloved.17 Whereas the singer-farmer was well aware of the attractions of market towns, and the splendor of major urban centers such as Suzhou and Hangzhou, the moral norms applied to the protagonists of these stories remain those of the rice paddy. This is unremarkable as tales of secret passion were often sung by shan’ge troupes and farmers engaged in collective labor. It is while weeding the rice paddy that Fifth Daughter first hears the mesmerizing mountain songs of Xu Atian. The singer draws explicit links between the weeding of the rice crop under the hot summer sun and the beginning of the love affair: “If the rice paddy is not weeded, then it will not grow long / If grown up girls are not wed then babies will not grow” and “If the rice paddy is not weeded then it will not bear grain.”18 When Xu Atian sets off by boat to rescue Fourth Sister, the singer begins with these words: “If you want to eat rice then you must first select the seeds / If you want to cross Lake Tai then you must first hoist the sail.”19 One also finds allusions to “the black dragon sipping water.” In agricultural songs this refers to the “dragon-spine” pump used to irrigate the rice paddy; in embroidered love tokens it refers to lovemaking.20 Rice-paddy songs typically align the growing of rice, considered as a carefully timed sequence of activities, with the equally disciplined process of marrying off a young daughter. The sexuality of youth, like the rice seedling in the nursery bed, requires the selection of seeds, transplantation of the seedlings, and careful weeding to fulfill its destiny of ordered procreation. Excess libido, which is the entire raison d’être of the siqing genre, comes into fundamental conflict with the norms of rice cultivation.

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The Ballad of Fifth Daughter We turn now to the song-cycle revolving around Fifth Daughter, which circulated for generations in a short ballad form and as a long narrative song. In the contemporary era, most singers knew only the ballad form, which was related within a poetic style known as “The Twelve Month Flower Song” (huaming shan’ge 花名山歌). Each month has a traditional flower association—for example, the first month of the lunar new year, when the weather is still cold, would be the plum flower; the second month the apricot; the third month the peach; the fourth month the rose or peony; and so on.21 Song booklets about Fifth Daughter in Twelve Month Flower Song style circulated in early twentieth century Suzhou.22 The original ballad version is attributed to the tailor who made the funeral shroud for Fifth Daughter and then told her story as he made his rounds.23 While this cannot be confirmed, it would have been an easy matter for an accomplished singer to convert the traditional twelvemonth format into the story of a love scandal about a known individual. The twelve-month patterning allows the singer to tell a “complete” tale from beginning to end in a succinct format comprising one stanza of four lines for each month of the year. The constant iteration of each successive month of the year, together with the associated flower, reminds the listener of time passing in not just the annual round but also in a human life span, which begins in the spring of youth and ends in the winter of death. In this way, the twelve-month matrix reinforces the narrative drive of the song, propelling it inexorably toward the destined end. The tale begins on a joyful note but builds gradually to a disastrous climax. Below I present excerpts from “The Ballad of Fifth Daughter” as sung by Zhang Juemin 張覺民, (b. 1950), whom I met in Luxu in May 2011. Zhang is a registered transmitter of shan’ge who performs costumed presentations on festival occasions. In the first month the plum flowers begin to bud, from the Yao home on the east bank came a handsome young man called Xu Atian,

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China Xu Atian came from a family with no food to eat, he came to the home of Yang Jinda on Fangjia Creek to work as a hired hand. “Talking about working as a hired hand, you’re not offering me much money!” Fifth Daughter made eyes at him and brought out a bowl of tea for him to drink, “If any money is lacking, I will make it up.”24

We can see here that the narrative style slides imperceptibly from thirdperson narrative (the first two lines) to dramatic voice as first Xu Atian and then Fifth Daughter give voice to their thoughts. The listener familiar with this story understands that Xu Atian has come to seek work from a local landowner. The stingy Yang offers him a paltry payment. Yang’s younger sister, Fifth Daughter, takes a liking to the handsome young man and tries to entice him to stay. The second stanza introduces the female protagonist as a pretty eighteen-year-old girl who is not yet betrothed. The third stanza deals with the beginning of the love affair, which takes place under cover of public festivities: In the third month the peach trees are covered with red. At the Zhuangjia polder, people are bustling around hither and thither. From the east and west banks come men and women, young and old, wearing red and green, parading green and red, all coming to look, While Fifth Daughter and Xu Atian pretend to be ill and remain inside. The fourth to sixth stanzas relate their budding love affair. They engage in a secret rendezvous in the rice paddy. Fifth Daughter treats Xu Atian with delicious food, and they dally together in the summer’s heat. In the seventh stanza, word has got out about the amorous pair: “Men and women were gossiping all the time / Men and women mucking around together, what sort of behavior is this!” By the eighth month the lovers confess the futility of their affair: “Other people can get married and

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live together until old / But we had a secret affair and will not long enjoy good fortune!” In the ninth month, as the oranges mature, Xu Atian decides to grab his belongings and flee. In the next month, tragedy overtakes Fifth Daughter: In the tenth month, as the hibiscus buds in late autumn, Yang Jinda gathered up a knife and a skein of rope, “If you die by the knife then your blood will gush forth; if you die by the rope then your hair will stand on end.” Fifth Daughter, her hair all disheveled, bare feet dangling down, Hung herself from the rafters with a skein of rope. In the eleventh month, as the plum and narcissus bloom, the relatives gather for her funeral, but Xu Atian fails to arrive. In the twelfth month, as the yellow winter flowers bud, Yang Jinda sets off by boat to buy a fine coffin and colorful shroud. This should complete the annual round. However, if the story is not considered to be at an end, then the singer can always add extra stanzas. In his rendition, Zhang Juemin adds in a thirteenth month, when, he tells us, “not a single flower bloomed.” In this stanza, Xu Atian comes back in disguise as a peddler and circles around the Yang family. He looks for an opportunity to steal the spirit tablet of his beloved but dares not cross the threshold. He then returns home with nothing to put on his altar, sobbing for his “little sister.” This concludes the song. The melodic form and body language of the singer reinforce the emotional intensity of this tragic tale. When performed solo, the singer adopts a mode known as diluo sheng 滴落聲 (the sound of water dripping down). The idea here is that the singer imitates the sound of a burst of rain falling quickly into the eaves and then dripping down slowly and steadily. This is the preferred song mode for weeding the rice paddy.25 The musical effect is that the first line of each stanza is sung in high falsetto concluding with the drawn-out resonant “wu-a-hei-hei” typical

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of songs from the Wujiang region.26 Subsequent lines of the stanza are lower in pitch and more doleful in tenor. The same ballad can also be performed in melodic modes adapted for more than one performer and for different types of agricultural work.27 The singer takes on the voice and mannerisms of each character. For example, in the video recording of Zhang’s performance, we see him begin with a smiling face as he describes how the young lovers meet and fall in love. His voice and posture changes as he expresses the outrage of local gossipers followed by the angry demands of Yang Jinda. He concludes on a sorrowful note with the sobs of Xu Atian. In Zhang’s presentation the mode of lamentation is particularly pronounced, both in his expressions and in the musicality of the song.

The Folk Epic of Fifth Daughter In the contemporary era, Lu Amei (1902‒1986) was identified as the only one able to sing an elaborate version of this story. Lu was born in Fenyu xiang 汾玉鄉 region of Jiashan 嘉善, on the southern banks of Lake Fen in modern-day Zhejiang province. She married a man from Luxu on the other side of Lake Fen, in this way bringing a longer, more elaborate song for the first time to Luxu. She claimed that she learned this from her father, Sun Huatang 孫華棠, a noted local singer, who in turn learned it from a man called Yang Qichang 楊其昌, who lived during the xianfeng (咸豐) era of the last dynasty (1851‒1861).28 In the early 1980s, folklorists visited Lu Amei numerous times over twelve months to elicit and record her version of the song-cycle. Around two thousand lines of song were collected. We know from the dates recorded for individual song segments that she did not tell the story in chronological order. Lu was not literate and spent the latter part of her life as a cleaner in a school in Luxu. However, she was a talented singer who had spent her childhood fully immersed in the shan’ge tradition. Her version of “The Song of Fifth Daughter” relates a gripping story, full of colorful language, comic wit, and rich emotional power. Much of her

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song-cycle is drawn from stock material known to scholars as taoshi 套 式 that belonged to the pool of resources used by delta singers. Taoshi material includes dialogic songs where courting couples test their wit in an exchange of question and answers (duige 對歌); songs about embroidered love tokens that evoke a language of intimacy (“Embroidering a Shirt” xiu hanshan 繡汗衫); songs about secret rendezvous (sihui 私會); and erotic songs about lovers bathing together (rong yutang 焐浴湯).29 This mode of composition is described by singers as “mixing shan’ge” (tiao shange 調山).30 In the hands of Lu Amei, a master singer, this familiar material become part of an engrossing and multifaceted story that she had long reflected on and recreated with a passion in a song of epic length. On examining transcripts of Lu Amei’s rendition, one finds that each separate song session tells a micro-story that ends at the climax, leaving the listener agog to know what happens next. I will now discuss the various strategies deployed by Lu Amei to build up dramatic tension throughout her performance. Throughout this chapter I will refer to the original transcript compiled in a mimeographed booklet gifted to me by Zhang Fanglan on a visit to Luxu. The same material (with the exclusion of certain episodes) was included in a “strungtogether text” in the anthology, Wuge yichan jicui. Both will be cited here for the convenience of the reader. There is a further version of this folk epic in the “arranged” anthology of ten folk epics compiled by Jiang Bin. The latter has undergone considerable editing and contains a finale not found in the original transcripts.31 I begin here with Lu Amei’s treatment of an early encounter between the hired hand and Fifth Daughter. This was the very first session recorded by folklorists Lu Qun 盧群 and Ma Hanmin 馬漢民, who traveled from Suzhou to see her in April 1981. In Lu’s retelling, this first meeting of the young lovers comprises 30 four-lined stanzas. Here is how she introduces Xu Atian: In the first month the plum flowers blossom, it is New Year. From the Yaojia Dam at Dong Creek comes forth a strapping man

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China called Xu Atian, Atian comes from a poor home with no food to eat, He journeys to the home of Yang Jinda at Fangjia Creek to work as a hired hand. (stanza 1)32

The first line is reminiscent of the “Twelve Month of the Year Song.” Many folk epics begin at New Year, a time when the community seeks renewal and good fortune. The place names are very familiar to the singer and audience. Both villages are located on either side of Lake Fen. In the second stanza, Lu refers to the yuanxiao 元宵 festival, which was the climax of traditional New Year activities. It was important that auspicious symbolism heralded the start of the coming year. In violation of this celebratory spirit, the singer intimates that this New Year will bring misfortune to the hired hand. This is the first of a growing crescendo of comments of ill omen by the singer: At the time of the Yuanxiao festival, on the fifteenth day of New Year, comes the beating of drums and clashing of cymbals. On the sixteenth day of the first month Xu Atian comes out with his belongings in a bundle to seek work. Everyone thinks he is off to visit his kinfolk, No one realizes that he is like a wild bird about to fly straight into a bamboo basket. (stanza 2) She then describes his journey of 36 li (around 12 miles) around Fen Lake, with its “inlets as numerous as the feet of a centipede.” The Yang family home is described as a grand mansion with tall poplars at the front, black lacquered doors, ornate screens, and eaves with finely carved tiles. The first person the hired hand encounters is the lady of the family, the wife of Yang Jinda. In this story she will be the evil saosao who betrays the young lovers. In Lu’s version she is described as having designs on the handsome hired hand. The mistress peered at him again and again, She saw that he was handsome; her heart went aflutter. She thought he would make a fine and proper lover, his manly

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style so fine. “A shame if this fine piece of timber falls into the Yang family to be treated like firewood.” (stanza 9) In the next scene, Yang Jinda makes an initial offer of payment in rice to Atian for a promised year of labor. His wife offers even more. Atian understands the mistress has designs on him and turns to go, but Yang encourages him to remain with protestations of friendliness. When Fifth Daughter makes an appearance, Atian is overwhelmed with her beauty: Atian saw a young girl come running out. It was just like when at the sixth month, the lotus flowers burst forth from the water. Her face was fair with a touch of red, both fair and red, so very pretty, all my life I’ve seen no one like her! But I’m just a hired hand, don’t think wild thoughts! (stanza 21) Having followed the thoughts and emotions of Atian, the singer now turns to the inmost thoughts of the saosao, who sums up the situation: He’s even keener than a young cat on seeing a golden carp, Turning this way and that, getting a good look at our little sister. (stanza 22) She decides then and there to destroy their love match: On a bamboo raft one can journey across the seas and oceans, But I’ll take their bamboo raft and smash it in an instant! (stanza 23) The singer now turns to Fifth Daughter, who recalls that this young man is the amazing singer who transfixed the audience at the most recent festival. She notices his tattered shoes and decides to make some for him; women made shoes out of cloth as love tokens for men they favored. Atian gazes at her as well and notes that her hands are full of chilblains. He surmises that she has been put to hard labor around the house:

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China She’s supposed to be a maiden from a rich family worth a thousand pieces of gold, And yet it looks like she must reel silk, weave cloth, rinse rice, and wash vegetables. (stanza 27)

The saoso then speaks ill of Fifth Daughter, implying that she has an unfortunate temperament. Fifth Daughter views this with consternation: The fire [of love] in the stove has just been lit, But sister has taken a bucket of cold water and put it out. (stanza 29) This session concludes dramatically with Fifth Daughter revealing the fierce competition between the two sisters-in-law: “Just as the bamboo shoots are sprouting, you trample on them with your feet” (stanza 30). Another session relates the beginning of the love affair. In Lu’s rendition the meeting takes place in the paddy fields at the time of the sixth lunar month, when the sun is hot, the fields lush and green. The farm laborers are squatting down to weed painstakingly around each bunch of rice shoots. Fifth Daughter toils with them: “Fifth Daughter bent down low; her hands scalded like scorched rice in the wok.” She suddenly hears the “wu hei hei” of a resonant mountain song and stands transfixed by the sight of the handsome singer, with his broad-brimmed hat and robust build. She tosses some weeds at him as if by accident. The other field hands expect that he will curse her, but instead he notices her smiling dimples and understands it as a love token. The stage is now set for the drama to come: When a daughter grows up, she doesn’t listen to her parents anymore, She had fallen in love with a pole-bearer boy! (stanza 21)33 In the third month of the New Year the farmers begin ploughing the fields. Atian gets up at the crack of dawn to dredge the field by the banks of Lake Fen. In the bitter cold, his feet slip on the frozen planks of the dredging boat. Yang Jinda decides that his younger sister should bring Atian some

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food so that he can work without cease. This was a fateful decision, as it takes the young girl away from the confines of her home. On seeing Fifth Daughter, Atian is overjoyed. He bursts into loud resonant mountain songs. Fifth Daughter is entranced: “My sweetheart sings mountain songs with melody and tune, like water constantly flowing, just like the ancestor of mountain songs, Shen Seventh Brother!” She brings Atian a special meal of rice with red-cooked pigs’ trotters but fears people will notice: “If my brother hears this, he won’t let me send food to Atian in future, and he will be left hungry, his belly sunken and shrivelled.”34 Atian in turn gives her some blue cloth from which she makes a shirt. He realizes that she has been mistreated by her older brother and his wife and that they are both orphaned and alone in the world. Another song session, known as “Embroidering the shirt” (xiu hanshan 繡汗衫), allows the singer to deploy embroidered patterns to capture the intimacy of romantic love. As the saying goes, “the phoenix entering the peony on the coverlet [that is, love making] depends on the skill of the one who embroiders it.”35 Xu Atian gives her a gift of four handkerchiefs embroidered with peonies, lotus buds, persimmons, and dragonflies, all part of a complex visual code of romance. Here is Fifth Daughter’s response to the second handkerchief: Fifth Daughter gazed at the second handkerchief, She saw a lotus flower blossoming, And said, “The lotus flower blooms when the root is deep, The lotus root from the pond has a fresh sweet flavor and the tendrils are long like a skein of silk.” Atian heard this with delight, He praised her, “When my sister opens her mouth what she says brings such good fortune! The lotus flowers always bear seed pods. I will pluck the seedpod and give it to little sister to taste.36 In successive stanzas, Fifth Daughter demonstrates that she understands the messages encoded in the embroidered symbols. She observes the inseparability of green leaves from the peony, the bitterness of pome-

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granate when not ripened by the sun, and the fickleness of the dragonfly compared with the fidelity of the lotus-flower root. After the exchange of love tokens, the young couple make secret vows to each other. Xu Atian looks forward to a wonderful future: “You and I…like the swallows who fly in and out of the roof beams, our mouths bearing mud, bit by bit, little by little, we’ll build a new nest for us to spend our lives in happiness.”37 Several song sessions narrate the physical relationship of the young lovers. One portrays Xu Atian coming at night. He bears weapons, as if he were a robber trying to break into a fortress. Unable to find a breach in the fortified walls, he opens some slats on the roof and climbs down a rope to get inside. Fifth Daughter warns him her brother and his wife are right next door. Next follows sessions of love making conveyed in a metaphorical language of desire and tenderness (see the appendix for two more examples). In one song session, Fifth Daughter is presented as luring her lover to bathe with her: The sun sets glowing red on Western Mountain. Fifth Daughter takes up a bucket of water to bathe. “My bucket of water is warm and hot.” She placed a cover on it to await her lover.38 In successive stanzas she takes off more and items of clothes. Finally, just as she’s washing her bosom, Xu Atian appears and the two bathe together. Qian Shunjuan reports that Lu Amei only sang erotic episodes of this type after repeated urging. Before she began, she went to her room to kneel before the Buddha to ask for pardon.39 Lu Amei’s version contains a major subplot, the story of Fifth Daughter’s older sister, Fourth Daughter (Si guniang 四姑娘). After the death of their parents, the two sisters are left to the tender mercies of their elder brother. He neglects their well-being and sets them out to work in the fields: “Our family home is cold and bleak, all we hear is the sound of the older brother issuing commands to us as if we were

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oxen in harness working in the fields” (stanza 6). The singer reports that “young girls need rice to reach maturity” (stanza 2), but the brother only allows them coarse grains: “We two sisters cast outside smell fragrant food in the kitchen; we can only clench our small fists into our eyes, tears pouring down and our hungry bellies rumbling” (stanza 4).40 When Fourth Sister suddenly vanishes, the older brother and saosao report that she must have drowned in Lake Fen. It turns out that while rinsing caltrops by the riverside, she was abducted and taken by boat to a distant southern province. In fact, the brother and saosao have sold her off to avoid the expense of an arranged marriage, which required an expensive dowry for the bride. “By the riverbank I felt the water surge and heard the swish of a boat, Just as I raised my head, two hands grabbed me and pushed me to the stern of the boat. Cotton wadding was stuffed in my mouth; I could not scream out.”41 Meanwhile, the cruel saosao has now discovered the secret affair. She goads her husband until he is utterly infuriated with Fifth Daughter and decides to force her to kill herself: He put this question to her: “Life or death, this choice will be up to you—if you don’t break off your affair, then you may hide away at midday, but by midnight you’ll have to meet the God of the Underworld!”42 It is at this point that Fourth Sister returns to the Yang family. She was sold into marriage to a man in Guangdong province. After brutal treatment at the hands of her husband and mother-in-law, she manages to escape. As she approaches the mill shed, she finds her younger sister just about to hang herself. Fourth Sister saw someone with her hair all disheveled, From the second rafter hung a rope of thick hemp,

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China On the rope was a noose as big as a basin. The noose as big as a basin was waiting for a good person to put their neck into it!43

The original transcripts of Lu Amei’s song sessions contain three times more material on the topic of the saosao than one finds in the edited or “strung-together” version of this folk epic. She sings in great detail about the saosao’s earlier love affairs, her cruel treatment of Fifth Daughter and Fourth Daughter, and the way she bullies her husband into complying with her harsh demands. This more extensive treatment allows her to portray the saosao as an evil demon who brought disaster on the young lovers.44 The editors of later versions have largely ignored this treatment, possibly because they preferred to place the blame for the ultimate catastrophe on the older brother and “the feudal system” he represented. This is one example where the folklorists have ignored the “mental text” of the singer in favor of a version that seemingly better represents the cultural heritage of the region. In song sessions dealing with post-erotic encounters, the general tenor of the folk epic is one of foreboding and lament. The singer does not flinch from recounting numerous horrors and the pain and anguish of the key protagonists. In one song session, Atian goes to the mill shed where Fifth Daughter has been imprisoned to force her to take her own life. He sees the knife on the floor and the rope hanging from the rafters. His beloved appears with disheveled hair, bare feet, and a wan face. He avows his fidelity: “Atian is not like the grass floating on top of the water / I am like the old water nut plant of Wuzhen whose roots are deep.”45 In another song we learn of Atian’s inner anguish as he seeks to cross the water to reach his beloved: “Xu Atian’s heart beat wildly / He was like the leaf of a tree, tossed by the waves.” He gazes at the people on the shores of Lake Fen as they return to their homes: “Now I’ve been cast out—I’ve no kin to turn to and can think only of Fifth Daughter.”46 When Fifth Daughter and Atian flee by boat, the scene is described in very ominous terms: “That murderous thick mist spreading like a big

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net, so thick that I cannot see clearly!”47 They look back and see a fiery glow at Fangjia Creek. However, it appears to be not the brick and tiled residence of the Yang family that is on fire but a tiny outhouse. This turns out to be the mill shed, where Fourth Daughter has set fire to herself so that Yang Jinda and his wife will believe it is Fifth Daughter who has died.48 The singer then describes the travesty of mourning enacted by the callous older brother and his wife: Fifth Daughter’s spirit has gone to the Western Heaven, I have avoided throwing away a barrel of money to some other home [as a dowry].49 His wife wails histrionically to impress the neighbors: “She slapped her buttocks and tried to throw herself into the fire” (stanza 5). The body is unrecognizable, “cooked dry like charred rice crust.” The saosao hits on an idea to ensure her spirit cannot return to seek revenge. She will bury the corpse beneath the bitter chinaberry tree: The tree roots will hold down her yin soul so that it cannot move away She will be tied down in hell as surely as to the stone wheel in the City God’s Temple; there she’ll be ground like prawn sauce, with no way to sweep up her corpse! (stanza 8). Lu Amei concludes her story with a tale of Atian trying to steal the spirit tablet (lingpai 靈牌) of Fifth Daughter.50 She is now deceased (we are not told how) and her spirit tablet is held inside the Yang residence. It is the time of Qingming, the traditional occasion for commemoration of the dead of one’s own family. Xu Atian resolves to risk capture by going to visit her grave site to carry out ritual care of his beloved (see the appendix).51 At dawn he sets off for the home of the Yangs, determined to obtain the spirit tablets so that he can continue the mourning rituals in his future life: “Fifth Daughter gave up her life for me / So how can I let her spirit tablet remain with her enemies?” (stanza 15). At the Yang residence he throws himself over a low wall but finds to his horror

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that he has jumped into a lime pit: “Xu Atian became a man made of lime” (stanza 19). Yang Jinda hears his cries and is initially terrified by the man in white: “He thought it was Fifth Daughter’s ghost coming back to get revenge by taking his life!” (stanza 22). As usual, his wife is braver than her husband. Realizing it is Xu Atian, she has him tied up and taken by boat to the court in Shaoxing. Here is he is charged with killing Fifth Daughter and cast into the cell for those condemned to death.

Lamenting the Dead Lu Amei depicts this community’s failure to provide an appropriate ritual of mourning and burial for those who were violently put to death. Unlike Chen Third Daughter, who is honored in a sacred text recited by certain Lake Tai communities, Fifth Daughter is offered a travesty of a funeral by her blood relatives and an aborted rite of mourning by her beloved. For this reason, according to the neighbors of Lu Amei, the spirit of Fifth Daughter still lingers in the area as a spectral member of the audience: “Fifth Daughter’s angry qi blows into the hearts of those listening to mountain songs.” “Fifth Daughter” represents one of the five broad story types found in folk epics of secret passion. Zheng Tuyou places the story of Zhu San and Liu Erjie discussed in chapter 2 into this same category of tales in which lovers have an affair in violation of social conventions and come to a bad end. In one version of this story, the pregnant Liu Erjie is kicked to death by one of her own relatives and Zhu San commits suicide by knocking his head against a stone stair.52 Another example of this type of story is “Houlang and Erniang” 侯郎與二娘 sung in Shanghai County and parts of Zhejiang. In this narrative song the parents refuse to allow this marriage because their dates of birth are not auspicious. The male lover dies of illness and his lover commits suicide.53 The brutality enacted on the bodies of the young lovers, often by their own kinsfolk, is one of the hardest aspects for a modern reader to

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understand. The songs of seduction, courting, and lovemaking contrast strongly with the equally elaborate descriptions of the persecution and downfall of the young couple. In contemporary China, tragedies in love are generally understood as the doomed struggle of young lovers in a “feudal” society to pursue freedom in choice of a partner. Here I propose that the overarching frame of lamentation, apparent in the story material and the performance mode, calls for a broader perspective. One can regard the songs of secret passion, with their tragic endings, as the antithesis of the agricultural songs calling for blessings from the ancestors and deities. As discussed in chapter 1, the latter celebrate the orderly procreation immanent in the “marrying off” of the rice shoot maiden into the prepared paddy field, thus ensuring a favorable harvest. The tales of secret passion, by contrast, lament the harsh punishment, death, and loss of fertility attendant on disorderly sexual conduct that violated the norms of the rice-cultivator community. This helps us understand why the singers of songs of secret passion do not generally provide a happy ending and family reunion of the sort found in popular theater and storytelling.54 One could make a further observation. The songs of secret passion allow the singer and the community to experience the delights of transgressive love while offering reassurance that the natural social order will in the end be reasserted. At the same time, the singer and the audience are reminded that if the brutality exercised by senior kin was excessive, then the victimized young woman might be pushed into the liminal space of a ghostly force whose power may linger long in the village. It was this combination of erotic passion and cruel punishment, followed by the prospect of spectral retribution, that explains why these songs of private passion fascinated delta singers and their audiences over many generations. One can interpret the elaborate structure of lament, mourning, and funeral rites found in this and other folk epics as a reminder to the community of the obligation to placate the spirits of the aggrieved dead. In this way, the songs of secret passion (when told to the bitter end) deal with an outbreak of violence through a poetic act of mourning and commemoration.

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Notes 1. This is according to members of the Luxu Cultural Bureau interviewed in May 2011. Luxu singer, Ke Jinhai 柯金海 (b. 1946) sang “Fifth Daughter” for us in the original plaintive style reminiscent of funeral laments. 2. See Yang, “Changge jiu wen ge gen shi,” 76‒81; and Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Songs, 174‒178. 3. According to Honko, the mental text is “a pre-textual frame, i.e., an organized structure of relevant conscious and unconscious material present in the singer’s mind” (Textualisation of Oral Epics, 23). 4. Hu, “From Singing Ghosts to Docile Concubines,” 849. 5. “The Ziye song is a tune of the Jin era (317–420). At that time there was a woman called Ziye who created this song style. The melody is excessively sad and melancholy” (Yuefu shiji 樂府詩集 juan 44 citing the Tang shu 唐書 Yuezi 樂志; see Wuge yichan jicui, 13). Midnight Songs were sung in later centuries by courtesans; see Xu, “Courtesan vs. Literatus,” 412. 6. An example is The Maiden of Blue Creek who was venerated in fifthcentury Jiangnan; see Hu, “From Singing Ghosts,” 850. Anthony Yu discusses cases of maltreated women who became ghosts and venerated deities after death (“‘Rest, Rest, Perturbed Spirit,’” 221). See also Zeitlin, The Phantom Heroine,” 10‒11. Female suicide could constitute an “aggressive act”—that is, an act of revenge that brought loss of face to those who were implicated in her death. Fiction and drama commonly depicted the return of the wronged woman as a malevolent ghost; see Theiss, Disgraceful Matters, 203‒209. 7. Jiang, Wu Yue minjian xinyang minsu, 644. 8. Qian Yong (1759‒1844), Lüyuan conghua, vol. 2, 417‒418. Qian came from Jingui 金匱 (modern Wuxi). This anecdote is cited in Qian, Jiangnan minjian, 18‒19. 9. Gu, Jitan guge, 30, 205‒207. 10. Fei, Peasant Life in China, 65‒66. 11. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2, 257. 12. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2, 257. 13. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2, 271. Interview with a neighbor of Lu Amei in April 1982.

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14. John H. McDowell, in his study of Costa Chica balladry, observes that “violence experienced vicariously reaches out to rattle our sense of security and stability in life. Herein lies perhaps the strongest goad to the invention of narratives that will heal the open wounds lingering in the aftermath of violent deeds” (Poetry and Violence, 20). 15. This gender divide in the naming code was common practice; see Watson, “The Named and the Nameless.” 16. The Duanwu festival was held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month and is associated with dragon boat racing. 17. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 1, 85; Wuge yichan jicui, “The Ten Handkerchiefs,” 218, stanza 9. Suzhou scenes were commonly depicted in embroidery; see Rachel Silberstein, “Eight Scenes of Suzhou: Landscape Embroidery.” 18. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 33; “Meeting in the Paddy Fields,” Wuge yichan jicui, 207, stanzas 3 and 5. 19. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 209; Wuge yichan jicui, “Xu Atian Departs to Fetch Fourth sister,” 298, stanza 1. 20. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 79; Wuge yichan jicui, “Embroidering the Shirt,” 214, line 31. 21. For more on huaming shange, see Wang and Zheng, Minjian xushishi de chuangzuo, 66‒69. The section on the Ballad of Fifth Daughter was earlier rehearsed in McLaren, “Narrative Formation in Oral Traditions.” 22. See Gu and Wu, “Suzhou changben xulu” in Wuge wang de ge, 697. 23. Wang and Zheng, Minjian xushi shi, 79. 24. Performed in 2013 and included in the DVD collection Shen, Wujiang fangyan yuyin dianzang. The accompanying booklet contains the script on which this translation is based. The script leaves out the numerous “padding syllables” and refrains evident in the actual performance. For similar examples of this ballad from Jiashan and Qingpu 青浦, see Wuge yichan jicui, 165‒177. 25. For this explanation, see Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 11. 26. Schimmelpenninck presents a detailed analysis of this song type (Chinese Folk Singers, 240‒249). She notes its flexibility and variance across space; it is not so much a set tune as a “melodic framework” capable of individual adaptation (ibid., 248). Elsewhere, she observes other local names for tune types but believes that they all belong to “just one or two melodic patterns” (ibid., 130). 27. For example, “the rice-planting song” (luoyang ge 落秧歌) and long song (datou ge 大頭歌); see Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 11. Another example

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28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

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of the ballad version of Fifth Daughter can be found in the audio CD provided in Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Singers, appendix, 443. See Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 1, 1; Qian, Jiangnan minjian, 147‒157. For extensive discussion of stock material in delta folk epics, see Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 177‒225. Zheng, 240‒275. The arranged version is included in Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 171‒266. The editors claim to have inserted material to enrich the narrative (ibid., 265‒266). The textualization of this folk epic proved controversial; see McLaren and Zhang, “Recreating ‘Traditional’ Folk Epics in Contemporary China.” For this song session, see Wu guniang ziliao ben, 38‒43; and Wuge yichan jicui, “Atian Goes Looking for Work,” 198‒202. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 37; and Wuge yichan jicui, “Meeting in the Paddy Fields,” 209. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 61; and Wuge yichan jicui, “Dialogue Song on Lake Fen (1),” 222, stanza 23. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 200; and Wuge yichan jicui, “Nowhere for them to go,” 293, line 1. Wuge yichan jicui, “Embroidering the Shirt (1),” 215. Wuge yichan jicui, “Embroidering the Shirt (1),” 216, final line. Wu guniang ziliao ben, “Heating up the Bath,” 103. Not found in other versions. Qian, Jiangnan minjian, 22. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol.1, 17; and Wuge yichan jicui, “The Two Sisters Spend their Days with the Older Brother,” 248‒249. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol.2, 175; and Wuge yichan jicui, “When the Two Sisters Meet, They Wail Together,” 272, stanza 9. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2, 165; and Wuge yichan jicui, “Lamenting Through the Five Watches of the Night,” 264, stanza 9. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2, 172; and Wuge yichan jicui, “The One who Seeks Death in the Darkness is Ill-fated,” 270, stanza 1. This can be found in songs such as “The Matchmaker Pays a Visit,” “Hotpepper is a Female Demon,” “The New Bride Comes in the Sedan Chair,” “The New Bride Takes Charge,” “A Disaster Hits the Yang Family,” and so on, in Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 1, 22‒31. For discussion of the saosao as a malevolent spirit, see McLaren, “Gossip, Scandal, and the Wanton Woman.”

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45. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2 191; and Wuge yichan jicui, “At Wuzhen the Roots of the Old Waternut are Deep,” 288, stanza 4. 46. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol 2, 186-187; and Wuge yichan jicui, “Xu Atian’s Heart Beats Wildly,” 285, stanza 4. 47. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2, 203; and Wuge yichan jicui, “The Pair Fly from the Cage,” 295, stanza 3. 48. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2, 203; and Wuge yichan jicui, 295, stanza 7. In Jiang Bin’s anthology, the editors have inserted a section not found in Lu Amei’s original transcript where fire destroys the Yang residence leading to the death of the odious pair, see Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 261‒263. 49. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2, 205; and Wuge yichan jicui, “The Bitter Chinaberry,” 296, stanza 1. 50. It was customary to inscribe a wooden tablet with the name of the deceased and place this on an altar within one’s home. Offerings would be made to the deceased at certain times of the year. 51. Wu guniang ziliao ben, vol. 2, 225‒231; and Wuge yichan jicui, “Xu Atian Steals the Spirit Tablet,” 307‒310. 52. Wuyu xushi shange, 67‒68, see Song 39, “Zhu San yu Liu erjie” 朱三與 劉二姐. The arranged version comprises 1,164 lines. There is another version of this story related in Songjiang where Erjie gives birth to a baby while in jail. The lovers are granted an amnesty and allowed to marry, Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 68, “Liu erjie.” 53. Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 66‒67, Song 35. The transcript comprises 200 lines. 54. Well-known examples are the plays, Story of the Western Wing (Xixiang ji 西廂記) and The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting 牡丹亭). Both relate the story of thwarted lovers who are eventually reunited.

Chapter 5

Replacing the Bride Sororate and Ghostly Marriages This chapter explores two more story types within the repertoire of songs of secret passion. Both types involve the replacement of the wife (or betrothed) with another woman. In the first example a man uses deception to replace his wife with her prettier younger sister. This generally involves the abduction and rape of the younger sister followed by the suicide of the first wife. In the second case, a man attempts to break a betrothal contract and marry another woman. He meets with stiff family resistance and dies of lovesickness. The singer then enacts a ghostly marriage between the deceased male and his beloved or, in some cases, devises a story about a uxorilocal marriage in which the younger sister takes on a husband to replace her dead brother; her husband takes on the family name of the daughter and is henceforth considered to be a member of his wife’s family. Both folk epics examined here deal with the issue of the replacement or substitution of one family member by another and the vexed issue of how to ensure that the dead are commemorated appropriately. The singers came up with different solutions to the dilemmas posed by these unconventional liaisons and marriages; however, the requirement for appropriate mourning rites remains a preoccupation of the singer and presumably the audience. I will

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turn first to songs in which the younger sister is forced by circumstances to compete with her married older sister for the favor of her husband. The outcome is death for the older sister and moral compromise for the younger one.

The Brother-in-Law Goes to Fetch The Little Sister This tale is known as “Going to fetch the wife’s younger sister” (jie ayi 接 阿姨) or “Fetching the little sister by boat” (zai ayi 載阿姨). Sometimes further detail is added to the title, as in “The brother-in-law goes to fetch the little sister” (jiefu jie ayi 姐夫接阿姨). This story dates back to at least the seventeenth century, as it can be found in Feng Menglong’s Shan’ge anthology. The latter contains a song stanza entitled “Ayi 阿 姨,” in which a son-in-law refers to the fated death of his wife and his interest in her little sister: In the heavens above black clouds bear up white clouds. The son-in-law rows the boat bearing the father-in-law. “Your daughter had her fortune told: ‘In the green grass [of spring] you will become ill, When the grass withers [in autumn] you will die.’ Be sure you do not promise the younger sister to another!”1 In another stanzaic song, the brother-in-law moors the boat by the reeds and pushes the younger sister into the rear cabin. She is portrayed as giving in to this coercion. The younger sister said, “Brother, don’t be flustered, don’t hurry, Let me get up and take off my clothes. This small sister is like a pitcher of white wine stored in someone else’s home, Before the rightful owner has drunk from it, it is you who gets the first taste!”2 In the nineteenth century this tale circulated in manuscript and printed booklets throughout the lower Yangzi Delta region. The title “Xue Liulang

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tou Ayi shan’ge” 薛六郎偷阿姨山歌 appears on the list of banned imprints set out by Jiangsu governor, Ding Richang, in 1868.3 No printed exemplar is extant, but a manuscript dated 1854 was discovered in the 1980s in Luxu and has been reproduced in a Luxu song collection in modern typeset format.4 The manuscript comprises two lengthy verse narratives with hand illustrations. (The other story is “Zhao Shengguan,” also discussed in this chapter). The story of Xue Liulang in the 1854 rendition comprises 576 lines of regular rhymed heptasyllabic verse. This style, common to Chinese prosimetric traditions and changben booklets, is suitable for recitation or private reading but is not singable in shan’ge style, which typically comprises lines of varying lengths with many padding syllables and irregular rhyme. In this version, Xue Liulang is a man of means. He is married to Sixth Sister, who also comes from a wealthy family. One day while resting from the summer heat, the wife sings the praises of her beautiful younger sister, to the point where Xue Liulang declares he wants to bring her back to his bed. When Sixth Sister heard this, she became furious, “How could you think of being unfaithful?” Liulang responded with a beaming smile, “Listen to me, my wife, I’ve hit on a way to trap her in a cage. I will pole my boat to meet your little sister.” “My husband, you’re talking like an idiot! How could you deceive my sister into coming? If you can dupe her into coming here, Then it is my wish you take her as your wife!”5 Liulang says here that he will push the boat with a pole (cheng gao 撑 篙). (This boat, pushed by a pole, was the kind of small, flat one used for punting down shallow waterways. The boat was usually open, although it could contain a small cabin. It could easily navigate narrow canals and moor in clumps of reeds). Liulang commissions a special boat to be built with the finest materials and decorated with wood carvings of

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famous lovers renowned in storytelling and opera. Here the singer draws from a set-piece about bridal boats to tantalize the audience. One of the carvings features a seduction scene between a brother-in-law and his wife’s younger sister. We are told, “the ayi makes eyes at the jiefu, and he clasps her in both hands.”6 The elaborate boat described in the song reminds the listeners of the decorated barge that brides traveled in when setting off to be wed, although in the story proper the boat remains a humble pole boat. When Liulang arrives at his wife’s natal home, he claims that his wife is ill and needs assistance. The little sister is induced to travel back with him in the pole boat. During the journey, the brotherin-law confesses his real intention to the younger sister and declares his resolve to take her as his bride (chengqin 成親). The little sister is terrified that people will be able to see her on the shallow boat. Brother, listen carefully, The boat is shallow and small, people will secretly watch, And when they see me, I will be greatly mortified!”7 He refuses to listen. The little sister then tries to fob him off by saying that they can conduct an affair on arrival at his home. However, the man is resolved to do the deed there and then. The little sister begs him to find a sheltered spot and submits to his advances: When Liulang heard this, he was delighted, His hand on the pole he pressed ahead. With one thrust of the pole, he reached a copse of reeds. He moored the boat and tied it up to make her his bride. “Brother, let’s not do this in a hurry, Let me slowly take off my clothes.” Her jade hand loosened the girdle of her skirt. The young man waited calmly and patiently, He opened the clasp on her top and stroked her breasts, With the other hand he reached down to her trousers. Her two legs now open to his gaze, Her fresh flower now facing the sky. In the muddy earth the stake is struck and slowly drills down,

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He called out, “My beautiful, beautiful girl!” Beautiful girl, beautiful girl, I’ve never experienced such extraordinary pleasure!”8 After their lovemaking, she declares, “I gave my precious body to you!” She bids him to be faithful and not abandon her. They make love a second time, and we are told that this time was “just as good as before”: It was just like bees buzzing around a flower bud, Or a black dragon sipping water from a deep pond. “My heart is overjoyed, It was like dying again and again, then coming back to life.” When the love making was over, she said, “My lover, listen to what I have to say. Love affairs are determined by one’s fate. If you are not predestined, then you will not get together.” They talked and laughed together as he pushed the pole, Punting along until they reached Xie family creek.9 On arrival at his home, the younger sister explains her deception to the older sister. The latter feels betrayed and hangs herself. The little sister, her chastity compromised, is complicit in covering up the reason for her older sister’s death. Unaware of the real situation, her natal family agrees to the marriage between the two. The rites of mourning are then carried out in a perfunctory manner by the family. In this rendition, it appears that the death of the older sister is required to preserve the family’s honor. This mid-nineteenth-century rendition contains the core of the story that was performed by many singers in the twentieth century, but there were also significant adaptations. Shan’ge renditions of this tale allowed the singer to dramatize the roles of both sisters to further elaborate on the story and to deepen the emotional resonance. In contemporary folk epics, the brother-in-law is given a name such as Honglang 红郎 or Liulang 六郎. Wang Fang and Zheng Shuo have investigated the transcript and manuscript tradition of this folk epic as related in Nanhui 南匯 and Chuansha 川沙 in the east and Lake Tai country in the west.10

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Qian Shunjuan has completed a further study of song material drawn primarily from the Wuxi region to the north of Lake Tai. While all known renditions include the tale of the brother-in-law going to fetch his wife’s little sister, there are three distinct story types, each relating to specific marriage practices. The story in the changben can be found to a large extent in shan’ge from Nanhui, Jiashan, and Changshu. A common elaboration in the latter versions is the story of how the older sister exacts supernatural revenge on the younger sister. A different tale from Huangdai 黄埭 in Wuxian County 吳縣 relates that the brother-in-law is deceived by his wife’s family into marrying the wrong woman. Another distinctive version, performed in Wuxi, involves the death by sickness of the older sister and the enforced marriage of the younger sister to her brother-in-law. I will begin with the shan’ge renditions related in Nanhui, Jiashan, and Changshu, which appear to represent the earliest examples of this tradition.11

The Nanhui Version The Nanhui transcript comprises 255 lines. When visiting his wife’s family, the male protagonist (simply called here “brother-in-law”) is struck by the beauty of his wife’s younger sister. On returning home, he derides his wife (“you have the face of a four-gilled perch”). His wife gives as good as she gets. She tells him her sister is a maiden who has never left home. Believing her sister would never leave her chaste seclusion, the wife dares her husband to see if he can inveigle the sister to come to their home. She promises him that if he succeeds then he could slaughter a pig for the wedding feast, that is, he can marry the little sister.12 The husband then devises a plan to deceive the wife’s family. He tells them that his wife is seriously ill and needs help from the younger sister. The unsuspecting mother allows the little sister to depart with the brotherin-law, but the more worldly-wise saosao warns her not to go to avoid scandal. The singer describes at great length the slow progress of the boat poling along the winding river. Eventually the brother-in-law brings the boat to a halt at a bend in the creek where “both banks rise high with

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tangled grass.” What happens on the boat is left to the imagination (or was removed by the song collector). In the next stanza we are told that the brother’s home looms into sight. He is clearly a wealthy man. Beyond the gate is a moat and engraved screen wall (zhaoqiang 照墙). This is an ornamental wall placed behind the entrance of a residence to ward off evil spirits. The screen wall is engraved with images of symbolic power, a mythical unicorn, and a lion. The barking of dogs is an ominous sign. He rocks the boat and pulls on the rope, The prow cleaves the water with a thwacking sound, He rocks the boat and pulls on the rope, Both banks rise high with tangled grass. He rocks the boat and pulls on the rope, He stops the swaying rope with a very loud thwack. The boat had now passed through the length of a village. The home of the brother loomed up ahead. At the home of the brother, the screen wall featured a unicorn, And a lion with its mouth wide-open, as if it could speak. The flagpole rose to the ninth layer of Heaven, Twenty-four yellow dogs barked without cease.13 Singer: Li Huoxiang 李火祥 (b. circa 1910, male), Nanhui, song undated On arrival, the little sister finds her older sister weaving in the back room. Horrified, the older sister drops her embroidery knife in alarm and rounds on her little sister: “You’re a feral cat, a vile demon spirit… now that you’ve come here, I must die.” The little sister tries to explain that she was deceived but the older sister has lost the dare and has been dishonored. She turns over the keys of the household to her little sister, saying: “I will hang high by a rope from the rafters / While you slaughter a pig to enjoy your wedding feast!”14 This is the end of the song. In this rendition the little sister is seen as the prime cause of the death of her big sister. Her family has made an error in entrusting their maiden daughter to their son-in-law, and the girl herself has compromised her

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chastity by her decision to leave the confinement of her home. The elder sister realizes too late that she too has been imprudent and must pay with her life.

The Jiashan Version A version from Tianning township天凝鄉 Dongshun village 東順村 in Jiashan County called “Zai Aiyi” offers a more elaborate narrative in around 600 lines.15 The wife dares her husband to try to bring back the little sister and declares she will hang herself if he succeeds. The husband then schemes to bring the sister back and builds a boat with elaborate carvings in the manner of a bridal boat. He persuades his in-laws that his wife is ill and needs the attentions of the little sister. As the latter steps into the boat, the villagers come to gawp, saying, “Today the little miss is a pure blossom / Tomorrow she will be nothing but a wild rose.”16 Along the long slow journey, the brother-in-law seduces the young girl step by step. They journeyed through one creek and then another, When he reached the third creek, he brought the boat to a halt. On the bank he saw there was no one passing by. The brother quietly called out, “Little sister!” One bridge goes by and then a second bridge, At the third bridge he drew back his hand from the sculling rope. He stretched his arm out once, then once again, until he reached her red and blue girdle. Her white bosom now exposed; he took a sideways look.17 Singer: Yu Xuxing 俞敘興 (b. 1924, male), Jiashan, collected in 1984 He continues the journey with occasional stops where he makes ever more daring advances. Eventually he blurts out the truth to the younger sister. He has deceived her. He prefers her over his wife, and his real intention is to bring her back. The shocked little sister hits on a plan to save herself. As his home is not far away, why not simply wait until they

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arrive and then enjoy themselves? He protests he has been a peddler of sugar from his youth and knows not to be deceived by honeyed words. The little sister declares that she has no wings to fly and there is no cloud to bear her away. He tells her that the radish is now in the basket, and he will do with it as he pleases. The little sister turns to him in tears: “I fear I will be swallowed up whole!”18 He declares he is not trying to force her; he wants to know whether she is willing or not. The next stanza portrays the younger sister as giving in to his demands. Little sister, little sister, This taste, when has she had this before? It was just like a boat pole plunging inch by inch into the river mud, Or just like the hempen rope cast into the water latching tightly on the anchor. After the little sister reached the height of joy, She wiped herself clean and sat upright. “I was angry, but my hands were powerless to resist, Now I’m messy and disheveled, what can I do?”19 He tells her he will seek to persuade his wife to accept the situation. The little sister said to the brother, “Today you have brought such disaster on our heads, that words cannot describe. When I enter the house and my sister sees me, Where on earth can I show my face!”20 On their return, the younger sister attempts to respond to the shocked inquiries of the older sister about her appearance. Why is her splendid Huzhou gown so crumpled? The little sister says that she was splashed by a dredger carrying water weed. But the older sister is not convinced. She hands over the keys of the household to her younger sister and bids her son to seek his food and clothing from now on from his aunt.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China Sixth Sister handed over the household keys, She shut the door tightly and chose the path of death. She hung herself from the rafters; Her tongue poked out three inches long.21

The unsuspecting mother is informed that the older sister has died of illness. She is persuaded to give her approval to the marriage proposed between the brother-in-law and the younger sister. But the story is not entirely finished. At the time of the Qingming festival of the dead, the spirit of the older sister turns into a bird. The bird shrieks at the window, “Shameful, shameful little sister!” The little sister catches the bird and cooks it in her wok. This is the moment when the older sister can at last get revenge. She hears the sound of laughter coming from the wok, The little sister lifts the cover to take a look. Whir, whir, beating wings push up a jet of scalding water down her face and neck, From that time on her pearly eyes went blind and her face was scorched!22

The Luxu Version A brief song by Lu Amei of Luxu captures the agonized dilemma of a young woman at the very moment when she realizes she is about to be taken by her brother-in-law. This song comprises eight stanzas and thirty-two lines. The singer’s focus is on the moment when the little sister steps onto the boat. The little sister is depicted as a beautiful maiden who has never before left the family home. She puts on makeup and dresses in her finest gowns, just like a bride awaiting the bridal boat. However, she is an innocent almost sacred figure, “just like the Goddess of Mercy of the Southern Seas.” The brother-in-law is depicted as lyingin wait for her with malicious intent. The little sister does her face and changes her clothes. The brother-in-law waits at the doorway, peeping slyly at her.

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‘My little sister stands at the front door, all she lacks is a large red candle, She looks just like the Goddess of Mercy of the Southern Seas!’ Crowds line the banks, admiring her fine costume. The brother-in-law offers the little sister drops of muddy water from the tip of his boat pole. This is a local custom believed to help the stomach cope with the rocking of the boat. The irony of this seeming protection from evil becomes apparent in the final stanza, when the girl becomes sick with fear on seeing the dam-like barrier ahead. The little sister got all dressed up to go on the boat, The brother led her by the hand as she stepped on board. She sipped three drops of muddy water from the tip of the pole, She drank as if this was indeed the elixir of life. With his pole he moved the prow and turned the boat around, The little sister felt sick in her stomach with fear. The brother turned his head and said to her, “A dyke of floating duckweed blocks the way ahead.”23 This is the final line of the song. Here Lu Amei has captured the terror of the young woman at the point where she has to decide whether to resist or to comply.

The Changshu Version In this song from Changshu to the north of Lake Tai called “Xiao Honglang,” the deceased older sister gets revenge on her younger sister. This song comprises eleven stanzas and 102 lines.24 The sexual acts on the boat are described elliptically: “On the reed mat beneath the boat awning, her silken hair in disarray.”25 When they returned home Sixth Sister stood waiting by the door. She saw Seventh Sister sitting on the boat. “Cooked rice cannot be turned back to raw! How I now regret my earlier words!”

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China She saw her little sister, her silken hair disheveled, Her eight-pleated silk skirt scrunched up like a dumpling. “I spent two and a half years embroidering a pair of mandarin ducks on my bridal pillow, Today I throw it to the foot of the wall. Here are the household keys, my little sister!” Then with a two-foot length of sash, she hung herself in the upper chamber.26 Singer: Qian Fengjin 錢鳳金 (birth date unknown, gender unknown), Changshu, collected 1987

After her death, the older sister turns into a bird who haunts the doorway, hurling words of derision at her sister: “You use my mirror to gaze at your dog-face / You use my comb to comb your cold head / You hump my old man / And sleep on my old bed in my quilt!”27 In desperation, the little sister takes a stone and kills the bird, putting it in a wok to fry. The husband gulps down the cooked bird, spitting out the bones by the foot of the wall. From the bones grows a beautiful peony flower. When the little sister plucks the peony, she suddenly calls out in pain, collapses, and dies, leaving her husband to mourn her passing.28 We can see from these renditions that this song tradition placed the major disapprobation on the little sister, although from a modern perspective she appears to be the victim of deception and sexual assault, if not outright rape. The reason for the suicide of the older sister is not articulated, but we are led to understand that she has been dishonored and humiliated, without any standing as the principal wife. Her sister has effectively taken her place.29 There appears to be little or no disapprobation for the man responsible for the act of sexual coercion. This situation by and large reflected the legal situation in the last dynasty, where the law placed a premium on the perceived chastity of the woman. As Matthew H. Sommer explains, the test in cases of potential rape was whether the woman had put up visible signs of resistance: “Did she prove her chastity through exemplary resistance?”30 In versions we

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have observed so far, the little sister is shown as failing to put up strong resistance. In fact, one can say that the attraction of the erotic episode to the audience relies on the woman’s willing compliance. In the eyes of the community, her passive submission demonstrates complicity with the act of transgression. Her chastity now compromised, the girl’s only chance to save her reputation is marriage to the man who forced her into the act.

Other Versions: Huangdai and Wuxi Singers from Huangdai in Wuxian County sang a different type of tale, one in which the brother-in-law wants to marry the younger sister but is duped by her family into marrying the older sister. The latter turns out to have another lover. Various complications ensue before the happy ending, when they each marry their beloved.31 This version of the tale appears to derive from common deceptions practiced in the delta. If the older sister was held to be unattractive, another sister would be presented as the prospective bride to the matchmaker. The bride sent off in the screened bridal chair would turn out to be the older sister, much to the chagrin of the groom.32 Wuxi singers relate another variant, one that relates strongly to local marriage customs such as “the bolted-door marriage” (ban niu qin 扳 鈕親) and “marriage by abduction” (qiangqin 搶親). The Wuxi version comprises some 2,000 lines. It is drawn from individual renditions sung by Qian Afu, Tang Jianqin, Zhu Yongchang 祝永昌, and Zhu Bingfu 朱 炳福.33 In the arranged version it is divided into twelve titled segments, such as “Dragon Boat Competition,” “Assignation,” “Marriage,” “Going to Get the Younger Sister,” “Wailing for the Departed,” “Return of the Soul,” “Discord in the Home,” “Collecting the Body,” “Double Veneration,” and “Change in Marriage.” In this account, Xue Liulang is a farmer who encounters a daughter from a wealthy family during the dragon boat festival. The couple enjoy a rendezvous by the shores of Lake Tai but there is no mention of lovemaking. The mother is horrified when her daughter tells her that she has given herself to Liulang and now wants to marry him.34 She realizes there is no choice other than to allow the

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marriage to go ahead, but the father is furious and refuses. Sixth Sister cries and declares she will commit suicide. Eventually, the mother goes behind the husband’s back to agree to the marriage. Several years later, Sixth Sister gives birth to a son but falls ill in the depths of winter. Sixth Sister asks Liulang to bring back her younger sister to come to her aid. Xue then sets off by boat to get the younger sister. The Chen father tries to throw him out of the house but when the mother hears about the infant grandson she agrees to let Seventh Sister go back with Xue Liulang. The journey passes uneventfully although at one point the boat rocks in the wind and Seventh Sister falls backward with a cry. Xue supports her and finds she is indeed beautiful, but there is no further interaction. When Sixth Sister passes away, Xue and Seventh Sister carry out the rite of calling back of the soul (zhaohun 招魂) throughout the night.35 The mother hears Xue mourn for her daughter and hits on the idea of Seventh Sister marrying him to look after the baby boy. She cites the saying, “if the younger sister takes over from the older sister, then the child of the older sister will not suffer” (Ayi jie jiefu, waisheng wu chiku 阿姨 接姐夫, 外甥勿吃苦). On the third day of mourning, the ghost of Sixth Sister claws her way out of the coffin. Peeping through the gauze window, she sees the shadow of a man and a woman. She thinks, “What, my corpse is not yet cold, and he’s taken a wife?” Suddenly, her infant son cries out. The ghostly Sixth Sister hears a woman respond and feels a stab of jealousy—how could her husband be so faithless? She resolves to turn on him in anger, but then realizes that this woman is her own sister. She hears Xue say that both he and his wife in the underworld would thank Seventh Sister for looking after the infant. The ghostly Sixth Sister now understands that she has wronged her husband. But her sister is now about to depart, leaving the infant son to his fate. Sixth Sister resolves to do something to stop her leaving. She hears her sister crying out, “Open up the door…I’m in here with my brother-in-law —just the two of us together, this will ruin my reputation.” At that moment the mother declares that she has taken it on herself to marry them by the bolteddoor method—that is, she has bolted the door on their room and will not

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open it until they promise to marry. The compromised pair has no option but to agree. Xue declares he will remain faithful to Seventh Sister all his life. There is a further plot complication where a local magnate abducts Seventh Sister in marriage; eventually she is rescued by Xue Liulang. In the Wuxi story, Xue’s acquisition of the beautiful Seventh Sister is not due to trickery and seduction. His mother-in-law essentially arranges his marriage with the younger sister, thus legitimizing this unorthodox act in the eyes of the local community. As I have argued in an earlier study, this folk epic reflects the prevalence of two unorthodox forms of marriage prevalent in the lower Yangzi Delta.36 One was the sororate form of marriage, in this case, a man marrying two sisters in succession. The other was “marriage by abduction,” in which a man simply seizes an unmarried woman and makes her his wife.37 The lower Yangzi Delta was marked by a general shortage of women and an onerous bride price system which made it very difficult for poor men to afford wives.38 When a wife died young in the delta region, the husband had to find the bride price for another wife. For the poorer classes, a common solution was to marry the younger sister of the deceased wife. Since the two families had already exchanged bride price and dowry, there was no need for a further exchange of payments. The story about the bolting of the door to force a marriage was an actual practice in the delta region.39 Together with “abduction in marriage,” the custom of “the bolted-door marriage” provided a means whereby a poor man could expeditiously obtain a wife without going through a matchmaker and paying a bride price. Both were accepted local customs that recognized the hardships faced by a man without a wife in the poorer classes of the delta region. The Wuxi version of the sororate marriage tale frames the central characters in a much more positive way than other renditions. The older sister is genuinely ill and does not dare her husband to bring back her little sister. Her husband has no designs on the little sister and brings her back chastely and safely to his home. The older sister dies of illness, not of suicide. After death, she appears as a ghost to ensure that her husband

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has a wife and that her child will be looked after. This version appears to have been influenced by contemporary views about the pursuit of love in marriage. In discussion of this arranged version, Zhu Hairong acknowledged that a conscious effort was made to steer away from the erotic scenes found in earlier changben.40 The latter-day transformation of the story required the jettisoning of fixed components found in the earlier more broadly prevalent tradition. In recreating this familiar tale, the Wuxi singers have responded creatively to the unorthodox marriage forms current in their local region in the pre-contemporary era.

Ghostly Marriage: The Story of Zhao Shengguan Another very popular folk epic is the story of Miss Lin from the Yuhang region north of Hangzhou, who fell in love with the son of a wealthy family from Suzhou. This tale, which was named after the male protagonist, Zhao Shengguan 趙聖關, circulated orally and in manuscript and song booklets in the nineteenth century if not earlier. The title “Zhao Shengguan shan’ge” 趙聖關山歌 appears on Ding Richang’s list of banned imprints.41 Zhao Shengguan is claimed to be a historical figure, the son of a wealthy salt merchant who lived in eighteenth-century Suzhou. In the 1980s, folklorists visited a derelict homestead on the outskirts of Suzhou that was said to be the original Zhao property.42 Suzhou people relate that the young Zhao was betrothed to the daughter of an official family but rejected this betrothal, forsook his studies, and became a merchant, traveling along the delta waterways. On one occasion, he moored overnight at the township of Linping in Yuhang and fell in love with a beautiful young woman he saw washing clothes by a canal. He arranged a rendezvous. After one night of love, they made plans for their marriage. The young man returned to his family to find a matchmaker but his family refused to break the original betrothal. Zhao Shengguan became sick from a broken heart. Miss Lin visited him at his home as he lay dying. On his decease, she resolved to enter a nunnery, thus demonstrating fidelity to her lover.43

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In renditions of this tale in folk epics and song booklets, Miss Lin is portrayed as intensely proactive in pursuit of love, in contrast to the conventional perception of a maiden from a good family (known as guinű 閨女), who should live in seclusion in the inner chamber. She initiates the love affair, hires a boat, purchases medicine and supplies, and travels with her maid by boat from Linping to Suzhou. After Zhao’s death she takes on the role of a bereaved wife rather than that of a lover abandoned in a distant town. Miss Lin is sympathetically portrayed by the singer, in striking contrast to the condemnation of the little sister who is deceived by the brother-in-law in the story about Xue Liulang. To the modern reader, the little sister of the latter story appears to be the victim of sexual assault at the very least, while the male protagonist is not punished at all for his deception and sexual coercion. In “Zhao Shengguan,” Miss Lin actively transgresses the sexual code of the era but redeems herself by behaving like a chaste widow. In some versions she enters a convent (as in the pseudo-historical tale above); in others she makes a ghostly marriage with her lover or dies from grief. It appears that her vows of chaste widowhood, or in some versions, her own death shortly after his decease, have redeemed her in the eyes of the singers and their audiences. The sympathy accorded Miss Lin can possibly be understood in line with the cult of “the faithful maidens” (zhen nü 真女) who followed a strict code of lifelong chastity to their deceased betrothed. The faithful maiden phenomenon began among elite classes in the Ming era and was an iteration of the more widely known code of “widow chastity,” in which a widow vowed not to remarry on the death of her husband. By the nineteenth century, possibly due to state encouragement, the cult of the faithful maiden spread to the commoner classes, including peasants and merchants.44 Some “faithful maidens” chose to commit suicide as a sign of their fidelity; others entered a convent or enacted a ghostly marriage with the deceased. However, the faithful maiden was expected to be virginal and to make a lifelong vow of heroic chastity (or commit suicide).45 This marks a big point of difference with the tale related in

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song booklets and folk epics, in which seduction and love making is a key part of the developing story. Two nineteenth-century manuscripts of this story in heptasyllabic verse are extant, and both relate a similar tale. The earliest, a manuscript of 1854, is included in the hand-illustrated booklet from Luxu that also contains the story of Xue Liulang discussed earlier in this chapter. This comprises a lengthy prologue and a series of titled sections such as “The Six Gates and Three Passes of Old Suzhou,” “Shengguan Sets Off to Travel in the Spring,” “The Exchange of Amorous Glances,” and so on.46

The Nineteenth-Century Song Booklet (Changben) The author of this manuscript claims the tale has a strong affinity with the mountain song tradition. One could consider it a literate man’s version of a song in popular circulation: When Pan Gu divided Earth from Heaven, Xiao He compiled three thousand legal codes. Fu Xi set up the rites for male and female. Zhang Liang created mountain songs. Mountain songs were invented by clever people, Each word and line is passed down from of old. If you are weary, songs can raise your spirits, If you are despondent, songs ease your cares. There are good reasons to sing mountain songs. Songs help the rice crop grow in the fields. The Tang monk went to get the sutras to preach about the Buddha, But mountain songs sing of nothing but private amours.47 The prologue goes on to set out the narrator’s interpretation of the underlying message of this story. While this appears to be merely a story about a love affair, it is actually a story about the injustice of a world where young people who long for their beloved cannot marry them and where couples who are married are in fact ill-matched and unhappy. From the time of Pan Gu down to the present day,

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How much unfairness is there in the world! Fine young gentlemen cannot find a wife, Sixteen-year-old lovely girls have no husband. The sun rises in the east and casts its rays in the four directions, How many ill-matched couples are there in the world! Fine young gentlemen are forced to marry ugly wives, Clever young ladies are forced to marry doltish men!48 In an unfair world, you should seize every opportunity for enjoyment while you can: There are few human beings who live to one hundred, If there are any true gentlemen, who while imbibing wine, Have not plucked beautiful flowers, then you have lived your life in vain!49 This rendition begins with the young man, but the focus quickly turns to the female protagonist, Miss Lin. She is very forward in showing her partiality to the handsome young merchant, whose boat is moored by her residence. She throws him a longan fruit as love token and has her maid deliver a letter to arrange a rendezvous in her bed chamber. The narrator justifies this transgressive behavior by declaring that Miss Lin is of the same caliber as the female warriors of the Yang family, who set out on the western campaign to defeat the barbarians.50 In the bed chamber, the lovers first vow fidelity till old age. Then they toast each other in a conventional song matrix usually known as “Ten Cups of Wine” (shi bei jiu 十杯酒), although here they exchange only three toasts. The young girl appears as a seductress: They drink three cups of fine wine to express their passion, This fresh fruit in their mouths, they had never tasted before. The lover boy eats the red waternut, the girl eats the lotus root, The lotus root twines tightly around the red waternut.51 In the first two toasts the couple exchange their names and birth dates, the kind of information reported by the matchmaker before a betrothal.

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In the third toast they engage in amorous talk, likened to the sound of a beating drum and a seven-stringed lute. In this way the couple mimic important features of the wedding rites, where the bride and groom drink from the same cup and the household holds a noisy celebration. Next follows a depiction of lovemaking based around the song matrix “Five Watches of the Night” (wu geng 五更). The singer adopts the conventional phraseology of love making: “It was just like a hibiscus opening up its tender buds / Or a peony flower drinking in the lover’s dew.”52 Some of these motifs can be traced back to the Ming period: Today I have joined my body with yours, Our feet together, our hands entwined, Like red waternuts, my three-inch feet rest on your shoulders, Just like the peddler from Hengtang, arriving in Suzhou with a panier of lotus flowers.53 When Zhao Shengguan fails to send a matchmaker, Miss Lin calls in a fortune-teller to find out what is wrong. The latter compares their dates of birth (the eight characters bazi 八字 exchanged by prospective marriage partners) and declares that her lover will die this year. Miss Lin refuses to believe this and decides to go and find out for herself. She sends her maid to buy gifts and supplies for the journey, hires a boat, and departs. On arrival, she persuades Shengguan’s sister to let her in to see her lover. Finding that he is indeed very ill, she strokes him from head to toe and observes his cold feet, bony spine, and sallow face. Lin sets off to find suitable herbal medicine, which ultimately fails to cure him. Someone tells her about the efficacy of the deity of Wushan 吳山 mountain in Hangzhou. She then embroiders sacred symbols on a cloth banner to be hung in the temple to beg favors from the deity. Lin journeys to Wushan, erects her banner, and encounters a monk who tells her that her lover will die that very afternoon. Returning in haste, she finds that he is indeed deceased. Lin then undertakes the full fortynine-day cycle of mourning known as qiqi 七七 (seven periods of seven days), which would conventionally be carried out by his wife. The song

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concludes with her vow: “In this world I will not see your face again / But I hope that once reborn we will live together until old age.”54

The Luxu Version The folk epic sung by Lu Amei and others differs significantly from the nineteenth-century song booklet in its greater use of vernacular language, its elaborate detail, and greater focus on the rites of mourning. This version does not include scenes of lovemaking. Miss Lin asks her maid to arrange a rendezvous, but the next stage (if performed) was not included in the textual rendition.55 In the Luxu folk epic, the dilemma of a young girl who has fallen in love with a man she can never marry is more fully explored by the singer. One example of the way that the singers build up tension in the audience is the treatment of her agonized wait for her lover’s return. It is related that she observes a series of ominous signs: a mouse bowing in supplication, a snake leaping down from a great height, a dog digging a hole to defecate in like a cat, and a wild dog rushing through the doorway.56 She seeks out a fortuneteller who prophesies disaster. Lin is angry with the fortune-teller and resolves to find out for herself. She tells her parents that the deity of Wushan has appeared to her in a dream and asked her to visit him in his temple. Her parents agree to allow her to depart. She hires a boat, prepares supplies, and dresses up like a bride. The villagers all come out to see the spectacle. While on the boat, she tells the ferry man that for extra money she wants him to journey north to Suzhou, not south to Hangzhou. As she journeys along the water route, she sees women transplanting the rice seedlings, plucking mulberry leaves, and treading on the water wheels. Even though Miss Lin is a genteel lady from a good home, she speaks the same language as the rice-paddy farmers: “If the rice seedlings are transplanted then the harvest will take care of itself.” This popular saying means that one must do things in the proper sequence: “Once on the bank I will present my greeting card / Just as when the red marriage invitation is brought out, there is someone who receives it”.57 On arrival, she persuades Shengguan’s sisters to allow her

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to see her beloved, who is mortally ill. Zhao tells her that he is ill-fated and will die. She should take back the card with her birth dates and marry someone else. Lin refuses to do so: Lady Lin said, “Flowers can only bloom one hundred days, People have a short time of happiness. A good boat needs two poles and two paddles, I have never heard that a fine lady could marry two men!”58 After his death she performs a marriage ritual with the dead (jie yinqin 結陰親) in front of his spirit tablet in the family hall. Lady Lin clutched the spirit tablet and entered the bridal chamber. “I will be a bride without a groom, Last year we met for the first time at Linping, But now I can only hold your spirit tablet and lament.”59 Lin then carries out ritual mourning for her “husband” in the seven rounds of seven days prescribed by custom. Each stanza refers to a new stage in both her ritual activities and the journey of the spirit of the deceased to his final resting place. These stages paralleled stages of grief enacted in women’s funeral laments in the pre-contemporary era.60 As the woman loudly laments, the spirit gradually moves from the inner home to a distant domain. In the first round of seven days, she sings about opening the locked boxes and cupboards and taking out the incense censor and ritual items for the altar, as if she can hardly believe her beloved is absent. At the second round, she takes out a red covering to place over his coffin. When this stirs in the breeze, she feels as if her husband has come back to life. At the third round, she describes her grief as she listlessly combs her hair with no admiring husband to watch. At the fourth round, she dreams he has come back to her chamber; on awakening, she notes the extra pillow but finds only one pair of shoes. At the fifth round, she imagines the husband standing on a high tower, flanked by yakshas from the Underworld, gazing back at his wailing wife and his village home. At the sixth round, Lin complains of her own ill-

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luck. Her husband has died in the space of a year; she is left to drink bitter goldthread. In the culminating stanza the full reality of his death hits her: At the seventh round, I reproach my husband. I grieve that as a young man he cast me off and left me halfway along the road. My husband, my husband, travel slowly along the western road, As for myself, with disheveled hair and bare feet, I will follow from behind.61 The final section depicts her rituals at the graveside at the time of Qingming and her entry into a Buddhist convent. At the end we are invited to imagine a spiritual reunion of the two lovers: When the Herd Boy meets the Weaving Maid in the nighttime sky, I will meet with my beloved at Magpie Bridge. As a mortal being, I speak only mortal speech, But my mountain song will ring out loud and strong.62

The Suzhou Version Lu Qiaoying 陸巧英 (1895‒1983), a female singer from Suzhou, sang a rendition of around two thousand lines in 1982.63 This version contains additional elaboration and plot complications. Zhao Shengguan pretends to be insane when his parents try to force him into an arranged marriage, and eventually they allow him to become a merchant. He sets off traveling and one night moors his boat by the residence of the Lin family. He asks the maid to arrange a rendezvous with the beautiful girl he has spotted on the waterway. Miss Lin is portrayed as a pious young maiden who fills her lonely days with recitation of the sutras. The maid tries to entertain her with a saucy depiction of the Seven Immortals, who, we are told, came down to earth to find sensual love: “The immortals are just like we common folk / They don’t covet long life but rather a life of love.”64 The maid draws back the curtains and Miss Lin spies two butterflies mating. She sighs: “Why should no one want to pluck this fresh flower bud? / Why am I punished as if I were a nun?”65 On

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meeting in her bedroom, the couple make a vow of fidelity followed by lovemaking conveyed in the full “Ten Cups of Wine” poetic matrix, which allows the singer to progressively describe the stripping of clothes and the ornate carvings of lovers from famous plays on the “ivory” bed. She invites him to lie with her: “The quilt of gold-dragon brocade covered the lover boy, the lover boy covered the girl; the mat cushioned the girl, and the girl cushioned the man.”66 Lu Qiaoying’s story includes a subplot where Zhao’s boatman and Lin’s maid also engage in a love affair. When Lin’s parents find out about the maid, they fire her and seek a stricter custodian for their daughter. Now that Shengguan is unable to see his beloved, he returns to his home to try to arrange a formal marriage. When his parents refuse to renege on the original betrothal, he becomes seriously ill and dies. Lin carries out the lengthy cycle of mourning expected of a wife. When this is finished, she cuts off her hair and enters a convent.

Jiashan County Versions One of the earliest transcripts related to this folk epic was collected from Zhu Shoubao 朱壽寶 of Taozhuang township 陶莊鄉, Dingjia village 丁家村 in 1954.67 This song comprises a “Twelve Months of the Year Song” in 12 stanzas, followed by an additional seven stanzas narrating the seven rounds of mourning rituals. At the finale of the Twelve Months of the Year Song, Miss Lin is left standing by the grave site of her lover, implying that she will continue to be faithful to him until death. It is possible that this easily learnable type of song was preferred by most of the amateur singer-farmers in the pre-contemporary period. A “Twelve Months of the Year Song” was even incorporated into the 1854 songbooklet version discussed above.68 In the version sung by Bao Laohu, from Dashun township 大舜鄉 Silü village 四吕村, the female lover is called Second Sister from Linping (Linping erjie 臨平二姐) and the male protagonist Zhao Shenggui 趙 勝桂. This version of approximately 600 lines lacks the ritual songs

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found in other renditions. On the deathbed of her lover, Miss Lin vows to remain chaste to her dying day.69 Two other singer transcripts from Jiashan refer to the female protagonist as Seventh Sister Lin (Lin qijie 林七姐). The finale portrays Miss Lin mourning and wailing for three days and nights until she collapses and dies. Both coffins are burned together. Coils of smoke arise from the coffins, forming an immortal bridge (xian qiao 仙橋).70

Fengxian County Versions Fengxian singer Zhu Bingliang 朱柄良 (1909‒1986) offers a twist to the conventional story by inserting a uxorilocal marriage, with the husband’s children being regarded as the descendants of the wife’s family.71 This was a strategy adopted by families whose only son has died and who were without male heirs to carry on the ancestral rites. In Zhu’s rendition, the male protagonist is called Yao Xichun 姚喜春. Miss Lin takes the spirit tablet of her deceased beloved and “marries” him in a ghostly ritual. Xichun’s sister marries uxorilocally in order to provide the Yao family with male descendants. Another rendition of the uxorilocal marriage story, also from Fengxian County, has the Yao sister urging Miss Lin to remain with their family, presumably as a faithful widow. She returns to her family in Linping, but her parents treat her with great brutality. Because she has harmed the family honor, she is placed on a plank and nailed down until she is dead. Subsequently, Miss Yao marries uxorilocally and her son succeeds in the imperial examinations. When he is an official this son has the two caskets of Yao Xichun and Miss Lin buried together at a single grave site.72 Jiang Bin observes that singers of this song would generally cease their story at the point where the male protagonist (in this case Yao Xichun) dies of illness. In renditions that continued past this point, they would only sing the set-piece songs of mourning. Singers generally did not want to sing of the outcome for the female protagonist because they feared that the ghost of Miss Lin would harm them to the point of cutting off their descendants.73 As discussed in chapter 4, Lu

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Amei and her neighbors expressed similar fears in the case of the song of Fifth Daughter. The stories of secret passion claim to be about “real” people who lived in actual localities known to the singer and the audience. The singer commonly expresses a great deal of sympathy for the young lovers. The lovesickness of Fifth Daughter and Miss Lin is understood in terms of the natural development of desire for a mate, which society has for various reasons failed to satisfy. In the case of Miss Lin, she largely redeems herself in the eyes of her audience because she adopts the attributes of the faithful maiden, who retains lifelong fidelity to her betrothed. The little sister who is deceived by her brother-in-law fails by the same standard, as she does not preserve her chastity and gives in to her abductor. The tragic endings of these stories can only be understood within the codes of propriety governing sexual relations and family honor. The audience understands the key protagonists not so much as individuals with personhood as characters playing a predestined role within a kinship system. One family member, such as a betrothed bride, can be replaced by another; an older bride can be swapped for a younger one; and a dead husband can substitute for a living one. Certain kinship roles are likely to clash—the saosao and the little sister-in-law; the older, married-off sister and the younger sister; a betrothed young man and his parents. For the singer and audience, these conflicts can only be resolved with the death of one or more of the major protagonists. When sung to the end, the singer had to come up with elaborate ways of ensuring suitable mourning rites for the deceased, or, if this did not occur, he or she could portray the vengeance of the aggrieved spirit. While these folk epics certainly included many scenes of courtship and lovemaking, taken as a whole, one could say they were songs of mourning for those whose transgressions led to broken lives and premature deaths. Underlying the moral code of the singer-farmer was the inexorable logic of rice cultivation: “If the rice seedlings are transplanted then the harvest will take care of itself.” The rice shoot must be plucked carefully from the nursery bed and planted at the right place and the right time with

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appropriate rites and songs so that it can bear its golden panicle of grain and thus sustain the lifeblood of the community.

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Notes 1. These two stanzas are my translation. Shan’ge, 33b. For another translation, see Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, the Mountain Songs, chapter 4, stanza 107, 190. 2. Shan’ge 33b. For another translation, see Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, the Mountain Songs, chapter 4, stanza 107A, 191. 3. Wang, Yuan, Ming, Qing sandai, 146. 4. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 398–405. 5. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 398. 6. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 400. 7. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 402. 8. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 403. 9. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 403. 10. Wang and Zheng, Minjian xushishi, 43‒65; and Qian, Jiangnan minjian, 56‒69. 11. Wang and Zheng believe that the coastal county of Nanhui has preserved the older forms of the song-cycle, which then travelled to the neighboring counties of Chuansha, Jinshan, Fengxian, and Qingpu, then south to Jiashan, and west to Wujiang and Wuxi, Minjian xushishi, 43. 12. Wuge yichan jicui, 815. 13. Wuge yichan jicui, 818. 14. Wuge yichan jicui, 818. 15. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 403–416. The text is divided into 5 sections. 16. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 411, section 3, stanza 4. 17. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 411, section 3, stanzas 7 and 8. 18. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 412, section 3, stanza 16. 19. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 412‒413, section 3, stanzas 21 and 22. 20. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 413, section 3, stanza 24. 21. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 414, section 4, stanza 5. 22. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 416, section 5, stanza 4. A similar but shorter song of 73 lines from Jinshan 金山, south of Shanghai, is included in Wuge yichan jicui, 819‒820. 23. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 397. Collected from Lu Amei in 1982. 24. Wuge yichan jicui, 827‒829. 25. Wuge yichan jicui, 828, stanza 7. 26. Wuge yichan jicui, 828, stanza 8.

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27. Wuge yichan jicui, 828, stanza 10. 28. Wuge yichan jicui, 828, stanza 11. 29. On suicide as a choice made by women to preserve their dignity and honor, see Zamperini, “Untamed Hearts.” 30. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society, 75. 31. “Honglang qu xiaoyi,” Wuge yichan jicui, 791‒814. This rendition comprises around 1,200 lines in 300 stanzas and was transcribed from singer Lu Gendu 陸根杜 (female, aged 66 at the time of collection in the 1980s). 32. Wang and Zheng, Minjian xushi, 45‒46. 33. Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 339–431. Arranged by Zhu Hairong. For a fuller treatment of this story, see McLaren, “Folk Epics from the Lower Yangzi Delta Region.” 34. See the segment “Marriage,” Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 358–367. 35. For delta funeral laments, see McLaren, “Making Heaven Weep.” 36. McLaren, “Folk Epics from the Lower Yangzi Delta Region,” 173. 37. McLaren, “Marriage by Abduction.” 38. See McLaren, Performing Grief, 44‒48. 39. Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 67‒68; Hou, “Wu Yue minsu he Wuge guanxi,” 82‒85. 40. Gao, “Jianping Zhu Hairong souji de Wu ge,” 68. 41. See Wang, Yuan Ming Qing sandai, 147. 42. Report of Qian Xingzhen in Wuge yichan jicui, 341‒342. 43. See the report of Lu Gong in Wuge yichan jicui, 445. Historical sources for this anecdote are not cited, so one can assume this is an account in oral transmission. Wang Fang and Zheng Shuoren claim to have met people living in Suzhou in the 1980s who say they are descended from the Zhao family. However, the descendants were unwilling to talk about Zhao Shengguan because of his scandalous actions in engaging in an illicit love affair (tou siqing 偷私情), see Wang and Zheng, Minjian xushishi, 119‒120. 44. One compendium of biographies of faithful maidens reported that sixteen out of forty examples came from “ordinary backgrounds,” see Weijing Lu, True to Her Word, 106. 45. Weijing Lu, True to Her Word, 105. 46. For a typeset edition, see Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 261‒283. The second manuscript, dated 1898, is included in Wuge yichan jicui, 385‒412. 47. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 261. In Chinese mythology, Pan Gu 盤古 is the creator of the cosmos. Xiao He 蕭和 (257‒193 BCE) was a strategic advisor to the founder of the Western Han dynasty. He was renowned

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48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

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for revising the draconian laws of the fallen Qin dynasty (221‒207 BCE). Zhang Liang is another claimed inventor of mountain songs, see chapter 3. The Tang monk (Tangseng 唐僧) refers to the historical Xuanzang 玄奘 (602‒664), who in the Tang era journeyed to India to collect Buddhist sutras. He is a central figure in the Ming novel, Journey to the West (Xiyouji 西遊記), and appeared constantly in theatrical and storytelling performances in the late imperial era. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 261. The narrator draws a parallel between wu junyun 勿均匀 (unequal distribution) and wu xiangdang 勿相當 (illmatched). Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 261. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 262. For the Yang family warriors, see chapter 1. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 266. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 266. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 266. The three-inch feet refer to tiny bound feet, also known as “lotus feet.” The final line about Hengtang bearers of lotus roots can be found word for word in Feng Menglong’s anthology; see Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, the Mountain Songs, chapter 2, stanza 60, 142. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 283. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 229‒283. The Luxu version comprises approximately 2,000 lines arranged into ten sections together with a prelude and epilogue. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 244, section 5, stanza 4. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 251, section 7, stanza 3. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 257, “Mourning Through the Five Watches of the Night,” stanza 4. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 258, section 9, stanza 3. On women’s funeral laments as a form of emotional “performance,” see McLaren, “Lamenting the Dead,” 51. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 258, “The Seven Rounds of Mourning,” stanza 7. The Buddhist heaven is believed to be in the west. Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 260, final stanza. This refers to Altair and Vega respectively. In the famous story of the Herd Boy and the Weaving Maiden, the lovers are separated by the Milky Way. They can meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. The magpies form a bridge to let them meet.

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63. For Lu’s version, see Wuge yichan jicui, 344‒384. For a biography of Lu Qiaoying, see Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 337‒343. 64. Wuge yichan jicui, 356. 65. Wuge yichan jicui, 356. 66. Wuge yichan jicui, 362. 67. Wuge yichan jicui, 443‒444. 68. It occurs in the section where Miss Lin expresses love-longing for her absent lover (Lin xiaojie wang lang 林小姐望郎), see Zhongguo Luxu shange ji, 267‒269. 69. Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, “Linping Linjie,” 363‒379. This version was collected in 1986. 70. For the two transcripts, see Zhongguo Jiashan tiange, 380‒391 and 392‒ 403. 71. For this version, see Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 267‒336. It is called “Linshi nű wang lang” 林氏女望郎. Zhu Bingliang came from a poor farming family and claimed to have learned his version from a noted singer called Tang Yinshan 唐银山. For these details, see Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 2. 72. Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 337. 73. Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 337.

Chapter 6

The Song of “Hua Mountain Lifter” The folk epic of Hua Mountain Lifter regales the audience with a celebration of masculine heroism. It relates at length what happens when the social order breaks down and the singer-farmer turns to violence to defend his community. We have found an undercurrent of violence in mountain songs and folk epics discussed earlier: the exorcistic force with which the farmer extracts the demonic weeds from the rice paddy; the black magic unleashed when Shen Seventh Brother “steals” rice grain from Sacred Grotto; the abduction and rape of young women in the reedy waterways; and the brutal punishment enacted by kinsfolk on young couples who violate the principles of orderly marriage and procreation. In “Hua Mountain Lifter,” violence is a way of life for a band of farmer-rebels who gather in a mountain fortress to resist imperial troops and local militia. This folk epic legitimates the social class condemned by Chinese gentry and officialdom as “local bandits” (tufei 土匪). In recent times, the central protagonist was condemned by the authorities as a brigand king (qiangdao da wang 强盗大王), a king of chaos (luanshi dawang 亂世大 王), and a murderous fiend (sharen mowang 殺人魔王).1 The farmer-

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rebels led by Hua Mountain Lifter, however, saw themselves as members of the “army for justice” (gongdao jun 公道軍) with an agenda to resist state taxes and the impositions of local gentry. More broadly, they sought to rectify the inequities of their social system, the gap between rich and poor, that in their own words was “not fair” (bu ping 不平).

Rebellion and Resistance This folk epic echoes many tales from the immensely popular saga of the Water Margin heroes, known through storytelling, theater, novels, and popular prints. The followers of Hua Mountain Lifter, like the followers of Water Margin hero Song Jiang, retreated to a mountain hideout from which they ventured forth to fight with the authorities. As with the Water Margin heroes, revenge for wrongdoing is a powerful motivation. In both story-cycles, martial arts and feats of supernatural strength figure hugely. There are also some important differences. “Hua Mountain Lifter” lacks the strongly homosocial content of The Water Margin novel, and, far from featuring “a hatred of women” as in the latter, puts forward strong women figures such as Hua Mountain Lifter’s mother, the Fisher Mother with magical powers, and the warrior wife, Phoenix, who follows her husband in death.2 In his history of Macheng County in Hubei Province, William T. Rowe observes that “collective memory, historical consciousness, and other routinized cultural practices played critical roles” in “the phenomenon of violence.”3 In the case of the singer-farmers of Lake Tai, historic practices of rent resistance and peasant rebellions played an important role in shaping the collective memory. Social breakdown and brigandage was particularly prominent in the late Ming, the nineteenth century, and the Republican era. Of these outbreaks and rebellions, the most important one shaping the transmission of this folk epic would most likely have been the Taiping civil war of the mid-nineteenth century, which was commemorated in song throughout the lower Yangzi Delta. Rowe argues that in the case of Macheng County, the two main models of violence

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played out successively over the dynasties were the yingxiong 英雄 or heroic warrior model (also known as the haohan 好漢 or “tough guy) and the “demonological paradigm,” in which the enemy is objectified as a demon to be eliminated without mercy.4 “Hua Mountain Lifter” borrows elements from both these models but infuses them with the characteristics of the songs of rice cultivation previously discussed in this volume. In other words, the normative principles invoked are those of the rice-paddy cultivators, including a strong validation of the mother’s nurturing and procreative role, filial piety, and dedication to one’s village community. “Hua Mountain Lifter,” comprising some 20,000 lines, is the longest of the identified folk epics of the lower Yangzi Delta. It is related here that the son of Hua Baoshan joins Li Zicheng 李自成 (1605–1645), a historical rebel who played a key role in the downfall of the last emperor of the Ming dynasty. This positions Hua Baoshan as a farmer-rebel alive in the mid-seventeenth century. It is possible that the song-cycle we have today includes memories of brigandage during this era of civil war. According to local records, the Changjing 長涇 area to the north of modern-day Wuxi was pillaged twice by massive bandit gangs during the Ming-Qing transition. One of the leaders was identified as “notorious Bandit Wu Paoshan from Tall Mountain” (gao shan ju dao Wu Paoshan 高山巨盜吳匏山). Wu’s attack on the local gentry and townships took place in the third lunar month of 1647, three years after the Manchu conquest. The bandit attacks were so severe that the population was impoverished for several decades.5 However, in the folk epic, we never see the heroes pillaging local townships. On the contrary, the farmerrebels are constructed as warriors who fight the authorities and resist unjust taxes and extortion. The moniker “Mountain Lifter” refers to the Herculean strength of the main hero, who is said to be so strong that he can lift a mountain. This folk epic narrates the story of three generations of rebel leaders: Hua Dragon Root (Hua Longgen 華龍根, nicknamed “Great Dragon” Dalong 大龍); his son, known as Young Dragon (Xiaolong 小龍, nicknamed

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“Mountain Lifter” Baoshan 抱山); and his grandson, known as Little Dragon (Xiaoxiaolong 小 小龍). Apart from its extreme length, this folk epic is also remarkable for the claim that it was passed down over the centuries in just one family until very late in the imperial era. “Hua Mountain Lifter” draws on a type of tale that related the miraculous life experiences of a single heroic or supernatural individual. The singers also draw from memories of rent resistance movements and popular uprisings. Contemporary singers of this folk epic recall the participation of their recent forebears in the Taiping civil war that convulsed the region in the mid-nineteenth century. Memories of past violence and trauma have put their stamp on the form of this folk epic, as has the spread of literacy and a literate cast of mind among contemporary singers in socialist China. In this chapter, I will first outline the basic plot of “Hua Mountain Lifter” and then discuss historical events that had a strong influence on the formation of this folk epic, specifically, the rent resistance movement in the Wuxi region. I will go on to explore the likely influence of narratives about powerful spirits and deities on singers of this folk epic and its association with a temple complex in a hillside region of Wuxi. The chapter will then proceed to examine the respective roles of the main transmitter of this tradition in the twentieth century, Hua Zurong, and his friend and party cadre, Zhu Hairong, in the latter-day re-creation of this folk epic. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of the distinctive aesthetics of this folk epic as a recognized cultural monument in the present day.

The Heroic Mission The story begins with an eruption of violence by the bailiffs of the local landlord, who come seeking rent at New Year. The conflict between the impoverished farmers and the bailiffs leads to a popular uprising against local landlords led by Dragon Root. Young Dragon is born at this time. As an infant, he shows prodigious talents and has a miraculous escape from harm. After the death of his mother, he is adopted by fellow villager

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Master Zhu, who trains him in martial arts and then sends him off to learn magical skills from a Daoist master on Dragon Mountain. He acquires all sorts of military and supernatural capabilities, becoming a “man of prowess,” to use the term of Avron A. Boretz.6 When starving, he eats raw fish and eels in Lake Tai. He captures a huge eel monster, swallows it, and gains supernatural strength. When Young Dragon lifts an artificial mountain in a public competition, he becomes known as “Hua Mountain Lifter.” Young Dragon marries a woman of similar courage and battle prowess. The farmer-rebels take advantage of their knowledge of the marshy terrain to confound the enemy. For example, they lure attacking troops toward land abounding in poisonous snakes and hornets or along paths laid with tangled, thorny melon vines. Many such battles are won against landlords and officialdom. However, eventually imperial forces besiege the hideout of the army for justice at Mount Hou, a densely wooded massif on the eastern fringe of modern Wuxi. Young Dragon leads most of his troops out of harm’s way but returns to face certain death. After a siege of many months, the army for justice runs out of food and water. Finally, Young Dragon, his wife Phoenix Sister, and his senior troops all die of starvation. Little Dragon is conceived miraculously and born just before his mother’s death. Village elders entrust the infant to a woman known only as Fisher Mother. She teaches military skills and supernatural arts to Little Dragon. As a young man, Little Dragon invigorates the army for justice and leads a succession of battles against troops sent by the court. The imperial army is about to lay siege to Mount Hou but withdraws when word comes of Li Zicheng’s attack on the Ming capital in Beijing. Subsequently Little Dragon journeys to the capital in Beijing to join the army of Li Zicheng. This concludes the first two volumes of the saga, which were published successively in 1997 and 1999.7 A sequel to the second volume was produced seven years later. This third volume elaborates further on the story material found in the second volume.8 The first half deals primarily with the achievements of Master Zhu, chief benefactor of Little Dragon, and his attempt to repulse official forces sent to wipe out the army for justice in Dongting. In an attempt to

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terrify the rebels, the imperial troops dress up as ghouls and monstrous henchmen, and their leader parades as the King of Hell (Yan Wang 閻 王). After several battles, Master Zhu is severely injured by an arrow. Little Dragon hears of the plight of his benefactor and returns from the capital. He engages in battle with the imperial forces, which are led by an individual known as Young Sharpie (Xiao Jianjian 小尖尖). When Young Sharpie is captured by Little Dragon, he confesses to his masquerade and is set free. Young Sharpie then returns to lead another series of campaigns which are cunningly repulsed by Little Dragon. When the army for justice attacks the county seat, they are forced to flee to the banks of Lake Tai. Little Dragon’s wife (daughter of the Fisher Mother) falls into a trap set by Young Sharpie and Little Dragon dies trying to save her. The remaining followers of the army for justice hasten to join the forces of Li Zicheng in the capital. Before her death, Little Dragon’s wife gives birth to a son called Hua Acheng. Overall, “Hua Baoshan” reflects a world where the heroic mission, or from another point of view, the project of revenge for past wrongs, is passed on from father to son, and from son to grandson. The heroes are bound by an inescapable commitment to seek justice through acts of vengeance despite the apparent futility of this mission. The chief grievance of the farmer-rebels in this tale is the payment of rent to the landlords and tribute grain to the state, as discussed in the next section.

The Rent Resistance Movement Events narrated in this folk epic reflect memories of the rent resistance movements that erupted in the lower Yangzi Delta from the final decades of the Ming dynasty to the late nineteenth century.9 Kathryn Bernhardt observes that resistance could be both individual and collective, with the former more prevalent than the latter.10 In the case of “Hua Mountain Lifter,” we see the situation of an individual protest against rent dunning at New Year turn into a collective protest and outright rebellion. After the Taiping civil war, magistrates and officials participated to a greater

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extent in rent collection. According to Bernhardt, “local government officials supplanted landlords as the principal targets of tenant protest.”11 This could account for the strong role played by the imperial envoy and imperial troops in this folk epic. Wuxi singer-farmers would have heard stories about their forebears who engaged in rent resistance such as the so-called “local bandits,” who launched a violent struggle against landlords in Wuxi in 1853.12 Landlords commonly hired local martial arts practitioners (or, from another perspective, gangs of thugs) to defend their lives and properties. At least one such case is recorded in the Wuxi area in the 1850s.13 In this militarized environment, villagers sought to acquire skills in traditional martial arts. Peasant rent resistance movements continued in Wuxi and the delta region into the twentieth century. In the Republican era, an estimated 70% of the farming population in the lower Yangzi Delta were tenantfarmers, much more than in other regions of China. In addition, the majority of landlords lived way from their estate in towns and cities (the so-called “absent landlord phenomenon”). These factors contributed to a sense of alienation between farming tenants and local elites.14 At the time of the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927, the Chinese Communist Party in Wuxi organized peasant activists in a violent attack on landlord properties and rent-dunning offices which led to the deaths of landlords and their families.15 The initial incidents treated in this folk epic deal specifically with rent resistance. However, as the vast narrative unfolds, concrete grievances against landlords, magnates, and officialdom become subsumed into a broader agenda commonly associated with rural uprisings of the era— that is, “to destroy rapacious officials and distribute goods to the poor / If we wipe out what is not level then we will have Great Peace.”16 Great Peace (taiping 太平, literally “great leveling”) can only be achieved through “violent leveling” (saoping 掃平). The army for justice sets out ten principal goals and values: equal treatment; no official harassment; no extortion of the poor; no cheating in weighing grain; diligence in farm

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work and study; respect for the elderly; teaching writing and martial arts to the young; treating neighbors as kin.17 This moral code was largely commensurate with traditional village norms but could not be achieved without violence: The King of the army for justice gained great renown. He killed greedy officials, beheaded odious gentry men, Wiped out the evil and vicious, and reduced rent and taxes.”18 Here the language of violence is also the language of exorcism: the goal of the peasant rebels is to extirpate the demonic figures that oppress them. The authorities, for their part, regard the rebel leaders as fiends who must be wiped out to preserve public peace. Sometimes, as discussed further, this extirpation of the demonic is performed in ghostly masquerades carried out by rebels or government forces.

Demonic Masquerades During the attack on Mount Hou, the imperial troops masquerade as ghouls and demons to confuse and intimidate the followers of the army for justice. At the intersection of three paths leading up the mountain, a phantom army blocks the advance of the rebel band. Where three paths meet, they were blocked by the ghosts of plague, Along three routes are ghostly troops, menacing and fierce. Three paths of ghostly soldiers like vicious demons, A plague-head soldier like the God of Hell!19 Their leader, an official masquerading with the face of a corpse that had died of plague, accuses Little Dragon of seeking to overturn the ruling dynasty, for offending the local “Gods of Wealth” (magnates) and for the theft of tax grain.20 The King of Hell, dressed in imperial insignia, appears in a magnificent sedan chair surrounded by ghostly soldiers bearing flags, umbrellas, and fans. He is followed by five hundred fierce lictors and five hundred demonic figures with wolfish fangs, green eyes, grinding

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teeth, and twisted mouths. Wagons follow with the instruments of hellish torture: iron leg-racks, beds of nails, vats of boiling oil, furnaces, liver gougers, tongue extractors, sharp saws, and flesh grinders. Faced with this awe-inspiring sight, the population of Meili falls about in disarray.21 Demonic masquerades of this sort were familiar to the populace from festival occasions where statues of the deities were paraded through the village to ward off evil influences from invading the community. Villagers dressed up as the King of Hell and his ghoulish assistants and paraded together with the statues. According to ter Haar, the costumed participants in the parade often belonged to marginalized groups, including those regarded as local bullies, bandits, and members of criminal gangs.22 The tortures of hell were commonly depicted in temple murals. The singerfarmers might also have memories of historical events where demonic masquerades were deployed as a battle strategy. Mark R.E. Meulenbeld cites the case of a fourteenth-century military official who painted the faces of his troops to bluff pirates laying siege to his city into thinking they were a demonic horde.23 A more recent example involved a band of village rebels carrying out elaborate masquerades in the Lake Tai region. Hamashima Atsutoshi presents this interesting historical episode in his study of the cult of the Governor (zongguan 總管) in premodern Jiangnan. In the 1840s, a band of “brigands” from Changshu pillaged wealthy families in protest at a local tax imposition. Their leader, Jin Derun 金德 潤, claimed to be a spirit medium and called on his followers to dress up as ghouls and demons. The rebels assembled in front of the statues of the guardian deities at the village temple and cast lots to ascertain whether their campaign would be propitious. As the signs were favorable, they continued raiding stores and beating up tax agents and local property owners. After several days, there was a sudden storm. The rebels saw this as an unlucky sign and returned to the temple to seek another sign from the deities. This time the bamboo slips indicated an unfavorable outcome, so they called a halt to their pillaging. Subsequently the local magistrate, with military support from Suzhou County, managed to capture the ring leaders. The statues of four deities in the village temple

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were removed, tied up like criminals, and conveyed by wagon to the county-level Temple of the City God. Here they were placed on public show in the temple grounds as punishment for their crime of misleading the multitudes with their prognostications. Through this spectacular humiliation of the local deities, the state displayed its power over the spiritual realm. After one year, when the statues were deemed to have served their term of punishment, they were returned with full ceremony to their rightful places in the village temples.24 Rebel (or brigand) leaders like Jin Derun sought to legitimize their activities by invoking the aid of temple deities. They refashioned their own identities to become cult leaders with claimed supernatural powers. This made them even more threatening to the authorities, who had to eliminate not just the rebel leadership but also the associated popular cult. A similar story is related in this folk epic as the chief rebel leader is assimilated into the cultic practices surrounding the Three Mao Lords Temple at Mount Hou. In these two examples we observe the emergence of religious movements that validate resistance and rebellion in the eyes of the participants.

The Singers of “Hua Mountain Lifter” This folk epic is unique among known Wu-language folk epics in that it is the only example of a narrative in song transmitted by a single family rather than by a community. It was performed only by males in the family line for many generations. Only in the contemporary era did women begin to perform parts of the song. It is also the only folk epic that was transmitted in relative secrecy until the modern era. It was not unknown for Jiangnan families to organize ritual occasions involving the recitation of sacred songs, but these were public occasions with participation by men, women, and children.25 In the case of “Hua Mountain Lifter,” the secretive nature of the transmission was due to the subversive nature of the song material.

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In the late twentieth century, Hua Zurong of Wuxi Dongting was recognized as the inheritor of the family tradition. Hua Zurong claimed Hua Baoshan as one of his ancestors. He reported that the song-cycle about his life had been passed down orally from father to son over many generations. When he was a child, his grandfather had ordered him to kneel before the spirit tablets of his forebears and swear an oath to transmit the song for the glory of the Hua household. Recitation of the song of Hua Baoshan accompanied the family ancestral rituals and took place in sessions from the start of lunar new year to the third lunar month.26 The Hua family not only transmitted this long narrative song for numerous generations; in many ways, they embodied it. One example was their keen interest in military arts. Hua Zurong lost his father at the age of three. His grandfather trained him in traditional martial arts, including fighting with broadswords and staves, and throwing stone weights. Hua claimed that his forebears joined the Taiping army in the 1860s and fought against both foreign and Qing imperial forces. From a young age he was told stories of the feats of his Taiping ancestors. During the Japanese occupation of Jiangnan, Hua joined the People’s Liberation Army, becoming a communist party member in 1947. During the Cultural Revolution, Hua was accused of having been a “local bandit” in the past. This signifies that he may have been one of the armed strongmen who preyed upon the gentry class in the Republican era. At the height of the movement, Hua was attacked by Red Guards and suffered physical abuse. According to Qian Shunjuan, “he was detained in an ox-pen, beaten up by many people in rotation, forced to have a blackboard or iron grate around his neck, at one time he had three iron grates placed on him.” Hua was able to throw off the weights and grates to the amazement of his attackers.27 His strength was clearly the equal of his ancestor, Hua Mountain Lifter. In the 1980s, Hua worked as a cowherd and was known for his songs and stories. Antoinet Schimmelpenninck, who interviewed him in 1989, reported that he had mastered many of the longer songcycles: “he knew at least five long narrative songs, all acquired orally, and

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each having well over two thousand lines. The longest had 4,500 lines and would take him three days to perform.”28 He was said to be illiterate.29 In the twentieth century, the single-family transmission broke down as other villagers acquired elements of the song tradition. Guo Wei has traced four generations of transmission beginning with Hua Zurong’s grandfather and a member of the Zhu family. By the third generation, several different families were involved, as well as Hua Zurong and Zhu Hairong. The fourth generation includes a woman, Tang Jianqin, who was a disciple of Qian Afu, and other people who do not belong to the Hua family.30 It appears that the Zhu family have played an important role in the transmission of this song-cycle for about one hundred years. Zhu Hairong claimed that this was due to the strong kinship relations between the two families.31 He also claimed to be one of the main transmitters (changshuzhe 唱述者) of the “Hua Mountain Lifter” as well as the “arranger” (zhenglizhe 整理者), a task that involves collecting, collating, and editing.32 In the third volume, the role of Master Zhu is very prominent in the story, which would surely reflect the participation of the Zhu family in the modern reshaping of the folk epic. This trend also shows how singers coming into a song tradition can seek to include their own (imagined) ancestors in a prestigious narrative. Folklorist Qian Shunjuan first came to hear about the Hua Baoshan song narrative in 1982. At that time, Hua Zurong told her that the song had been banned by the authorities. Curious about the recent discovery of the longer narrative songs, Qian then urged Zhu Hairong to transcribe this song-cycle to ensure its preservation for future generations.33 Zhu spent decades working with Hua Zurong and others in his home village, recording and reassembling the story of the Hua heroes into what is now the longest known folk epic of the delta region. The three volumes published by Zhu Hairong are the only texts available for scholarly appraisal in the present day. It is thus impossible to consider the production of this folk epic without examining the efforts of the chief redactor and editor, Zhu Hairong.

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Zhu Hairong was born on the banks of Yacheng Lake in Wuxi Dongting to a poor family whose men had been hired hands for generations.34 His life story mirrored that of his friend, Hua Zurong. Like Hua, he too was immersed in the military culture of the region. He believed that his great-great grandfather had served in the army of Taiping general Li Xiucheng 李秀成 (1824–1864), the so-called Loyal Prince (Zhong wang 忠王), during the latter’s campaign in the Wuxi area. Zhu’s father was a noted singer of mountain songs and ran a tea house where he related stories about Taiping heroes. I grew up in a household that told stories about the Taiping Kingdom and in a place full of sites where Taiping heroes had fought.35 Rousing songs about Taiping victories were passed down through the generations. The song below relates how the Loyal Prince launched an attack on Yangming Bridge, south of Wuxi in 1860: The Taiping troops had the powers of gods! They could arrive without a trace and vanish without a shadow, Three thousand brothers spent the night by the southern bridge, But not a soul was aroused from his sleep! The gardenia opens its fragrant buds, At Yangming Bridge a great battle unfolds. The scholar gent was toppled into the river, And the army toff was slaughtered on the bridge.36 As a child, Zhu was told of large-scale massacres of imperial and foreign troops carried out by the Taipings in his home region of Dongting. The corpses were so numerous that they were piled high in water channels that the locals called “man-eating pits” (chi ren keng 吃人坑). This chant was passed down through the generations: In the east lies a pit full of Green Men, To the west lies the graves of the White Heads. The Green Men and White Heads are demons,

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China The White Heads and Green Men are evil spirits.37

The demonic imagery here derives from the Taiping movement, which increasingly came to see itself as a divine army destined to destroy the Manchu court and officialdom.38 Zhu used local tales about the Taipings as the basis for a novel-length work, Narrative of the Campaign of the Heavenly Troops in the East (Tian bing zheng dong yanyi 天兵征東演 義).39 One can assume that the singers who collectively created “Hua Mountain Lifter” were drawing from a long-standing tradition of stories about bands of tough men, including brigand-heroes from centuries past, together with their forebears who joined the Taipings. Stories circulated about local women who joined the Taiping movement. One such heroine, Shi Hemei 石荷妹, was renowned for coming up with clever stratagems such as piling melon rinds and creepers over the path of the invading troops. The farmers with their sandals of straw could easily walk over the slippery pile, whereas the leather shoes of the foreign enemy sank deep into the morass.40 These homely stratagems are reminiscent of similar tales narrated in “Hua Mountain Lifter.” The singers also drew on stories told about familiar sites that were associated with the rebels. One example is the claimed grave site of the hero, claimed to be in Banqiao 板橋 Village not far from Mount Hou. The horrific retribution enacted on Hua by the authorities lingered in local memory. The officials and court greatly feared that the story of Hua Mountain Lifter would come into circulation, so they charged him with being an Evil Fiend Who Brought Disorder to the Age and made an order to destroy his corpse and extinguish all traces. The officials had his tomb opened, exposed his corpse, and chopped up parts for separate burial. Hua Mountain Lifter’s grave site was at Banqiao village, over three li [around one mile] west of Mount Hou. When I was young, I used to pass by that place. With my own eyes I saw two rows of mounds. Everyone around knew that these were the mounds where the severed parts of Hua’s body had been buried. The area was known locally as “the tomb of the great king” and

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“the general’s tomb.” People also spoke of “the split open tomb” and “mounds of the severed corpse.” Over the centuries, at New Year and festival occasions, or at times of disaster, the common folk of the area would go there to venerate Hua Mountain Lifter and to implore his aid. It is said that he answers the prayers of those who are poor and victimized.41 This legend influenced the recreation of the folk epic, which further developed the theme that the deceased hero had become a powerful spirit. It is related that the imperial forces attempt to dismember the corpse of Hua Mountain Lifter but are foiled by supernatural intervention. Young Sharpie gives this command to his troops: Dig up the grave, open the coffin, Take out the Bandit King, Hua Baoshan, Hack his body into a thousand, then ten thousand pieces, Until the bones are crushed to smithereens, and his flesh minced to pulp.42 As they begin to dig, the earth opens up to reveal a vast pit that engulfs three thousand government troops. The remaining soldiers are ordered to dig only around the edges of the burial mound. Suddenly, they hear a loud crack as the mound splits open to reveal an empty tomb. The assembly sees a golden dragon and multicolored phoenix representing Hua Mountain Lifter and his wife flying off to Heaven. The astonished soldiers kneel and kowtow to the sacred spirits.43 Unlike most delta singer-farmers, Zhu Hairong attended school and acquired basic literacy.44 His literacy skills were enhanced by the common practice of copying out incense texts (xianggao) for recitation in the temple complex on Mount Hou. Some of these texts were about Hua Mountain Lifter. In Dongting, Chaqiao, Meicun and other regions, once children reached the age of six or seven, they would practice copying out incense texts. Those who went to school would study; in the evening they would copy out incense texts. The children of the

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China poor could not go to school, so the copying out of incense texts became a way for them to learn how to recognize characters and to learn how to write. There were some young people in the villages who would copy out incense texts right after New Year. They would do it all day until deep in the night to the point where it became a social custom. Whoever copied out the most would win honor and glory[…]There was also a rule about copying out incense texts: “Your heart must be upright, your hand must be clean, the paper must be pristine, the characters must be clear.”45

Incense texts comprised prayers and praises to various deities and spirits; thanks for motherly nurture; tales about famous mountains, rivers, and landmarks in the region; and stories from regional opera and storytelling genres.46 At least two titles related stories about the Hua family: the “The Three Dragons Text” (Sanlong gao 三龍誥) and the “Baoshan Text” (Baoshan gao 抱山誥).47 As a youth, Zhu Hairong was employed in a dumpling shop, a dentistry (tooth-puller), and a concrete works.48 In 1944 (around the age of 14) he took part in underground activities against the Japanese occupation. In 1946 he joined the Communist Youth League. When the Japanese were defeated, the Republican government sought to impose a grain tax on the population. The young Zhu took part in numerous campaigns to resist government tax and forced labor impositions. He joined the communist party in 1948. In 1949, with the setting up of the People’s Republic, he became a local cadre.49 In 1950 he was involved in the violent suppression of “counter revolutionaries” (zhenfan 鎮反).50 During the early years of the People’s Republic, Zhu was put in charge of agricultural affairs in the Wuxi region of Chaqiao, where he was engaged in land reform and rent reduction. He also spent around five years in part-time training at the Wuxi cadre school and was subsequently employed in cultural affairs.51 As a cadre he was able to constantly hone his literary skills, which were now put to the service of the party’s cultural policy. Although he tried to learn the new rhetoric of Marxist liberation, mountain songs remained an integral part of Zhu’s everyday life. He

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relates that when called on to chair committee meetings, he was loath to read out party documents and sang mountain songs instead. He found the latter much more effective at motivating his audience.52 He was very aware that song could be used to pass judgement: “With folksongs you can accuse someone, you can lay blame, and, of course, you can sing someone’s praises.”53 Offering praise and laying blame was an essential element of party politics during the first three decades after the establishment of the People’s Republic. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhu’s well-known love of folk performance became the medium for his downfall. He was publicly denounced (pidou 批鬥), paraded through the streets, beaten with poles and leather belts, and kept in detention.54 His major crime was the booklet of folk material deemed to be “poisonous weeds” (ducaoji 毒草集). After the Cultural Revolution (post 1976), Zhu returned to his passionate interest in the folk culture of his home region. He recorded, edited, and arranged a great deal of folk material, especially mountain songs. This was not always easy. The villagers recalled the abuse they had suffered during the Cultural Revolution and were chary of displaying their talents in “feudal” activities. Many were elderly and had not sung their repertoire for many decades. Zhu was very assiduous in eliciting song material from even the most reluctant. He would visit them time and time again and even set up a group meeting to encourage them to “remember.” According to Guo Wei, Zhu Hairong encouraged Qian Afu and other villagers to sing mountain songs belonging to the “Hua Mountain Lifter” tradition to encourage Hua Zurong to recall his ancestral songs. These included “Ducks saving the dragon,” “Wild boar feeds the infant with its milk,” “Eating the eel demon and becoming an immortal,” “Setting up the army for justice on Mount Hou,” “The great battle of Meili,” “The great battle in the lake,” “Rebellion on Mount Hou,” “Eighteen great battles,” and “Going to join Chuang Wang [Li Zicheng].”55 The same material can be found in titled song segments within the assembled folk epic. In a later article, Guo described the way that Zhu worked as a process of “transmitting through recollecting” (huiyi chuanchang 回憶傳唱).

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In 1996, at the age of 66, Zhu resolved to collect and arrange “Hua Mountain Lifter.” He recollected the narrative song, working together with Hua Zurong. Taking Hua’s recollected transmissions as the main core, Zhu added further highlights and song lines recollected and transmitted by Hua Jinrong 華進榮, Hua Renrong 華仁榮, Zhu Apan, Zhu Zengbao 朱增寶, Zhang Haosheng 張浩生, and Tang Jianqin.56 Given that all the participants were expert in the folk repertoire of this region, this “transmitting through recollecting” would appear to be extempore composition rather than mere recollection. In other words, the participants saw themselves as “remembering” the story when they were in fact composing it anew from the shared linguistic resources of the tradition. Shan’ge singing had been repressed for decades in socialist China and was no longer part of everyday life. The circumstances of this composition in performance were thus very different from the original receptive context, which had been mainly limited to the Hua patriline and close friends.57 The many years spent in “remembering,” editing, and arranging allowed much time for elaboration and creativity. This helps to account for the sheer length of this folk epic, which appeared at a time when the longer narrative songs were drawing national attention. One should thus regard the final product as a composition of the 1990s with a basis in the original song tradition passed down in the Hua family. Zhu Hairong’s motives in recording this folk epic appear to be pride in the long narrative songs of his home region. He was not commissioned to transcribe this folk epic nor ever given financial reward. It appears that Zhu’s role was decisive in the production of “Hua Mountain Lifter”; however, Chinese scholars do not attribute a quasi-authorial role to Zhu Hairong. Even Guo Wei, who is one of the most knowledgeable and judicious scholars of this particular song tradition, places Zhu Hairong in his category of Collectors and Researchers of Wu Songs.58 Zhu Hairong can be fruitfully compared to other members of “the folk” who acquired the tools of literacy and used them to create literary monuments for their community and national audiences. One example is George Sword, the Oglala warrior of Pine Ridge who wrote a comprehensive record

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of the customs and myths of his own people.59 Another example is G. Siregar Baumi from Batak, North Sumatra, who appropriated folk material in his publications to raise the prominence of his home region.60 One can term Zhu Hairong a “co-creator,” a term used by Mark Bender to describe the collaboration of various singers with editors and translators in the long narrative poems and epics of China’s ethnic minorities.61 An example closer to the delta region is the case of Yu Dingjun 余鼎 君 of Changshu who, according to Rostislav Berezkin, is “noteworthy for his self-conscious changes in the contents and organization of the traditional art” known as “telling scriptures.”62 Yu draws heavily on the Changshu idiom in his scripture material and includes local folklore in his elaborations. Berezkin comments that he “takes the position of an educated person who can evaluate the performance tradition from the external perspective, and has an aspiration to perfect the traditional art and highlight its didactic and educational functions in the local society.”63 Having acquired the tools of literacy, and with a lifetime of experience as a singer, collector, and editor of songs, Zhu Hairong was able to look afresh at his own society. To use the words of Bernard Cohn: “what had previously been embedded in a whole matrix of custom, ritual, religious symbol…has now become something different. What had been unconscious now to some extent becomes conscious.”64 The ability of the literate and literary individual to reify and render visible what had hitherto been assumed and hence invisible creates the distinctive aesthetics of this folk epic, which is by far the longest of those produced in the delta region. I will now turn to examples of the aesthetic style of “Hua Mountain Lifter,” beginning with the opening segments of the narrative.

The Aesthetics of “Hua Mountain Lifter” This folk epic relates the life histories of three protagonists who are father, son, and grandson. All have the word “dragon” in their names, and all engage in fierce battles to save their people from the depredations of the ruling class. The son, Hua Baoshan, is also depicted as ascending

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to Heaven on the summit of Mount Hou after his death. The structure of the tale parallels what Noga Ganany terms “origin narratives,” that is, hagiographic accounts of the lives of the deities. According to Ganany, origin narratives recount the life experience of one protagonist from earliest childhood to their death and later veneration. The protagonists are deities, historical heroes, or mythological figures who are wellknown to their communities. The texts relate their acquisition of physical and spiritual power and search for transcendence. Many are “banished immortals” who come from Heaven and ultimately return there. They undergo numerous physical and spiritual trials in their quest for enlightenment but are ultimately triumphant. The texts have a strong didactic content that detracts from their fictional qualities.65 Elements of this basic template can be found in this folk epic. There are three main protagonists, but only two (the son and grandson) are given elaborate narratives. All three “Dragons” follow on from the mission of the first and cannot be clearly differentiated as individual figures. It is not claimed that they originate in Heaven or are immortal beings by dint of birth. However, they do have extraordinary births (supernatural conceptions, long gestation in the womb) and the son (Hua Mountain Lifter) ascends to Heaven after his death by starvation. Hua Mountain Lifter and his wife appear in ghostly form after their death at moments of crisis to aid followers of the movement. There are also considerable differences between hagiographical accounts and the folk epic. The strong role of the wife as companion and comrade in battle found in the latter is more reminiscent of mountain songs, storytelling, and theater than stories about the deities. Further, the goal of rent resistance and the general mission of the army for justice relates more to the moral codes of farmers and rice-cultivators than to a religious agenda of selfcultivation and transcendence. In this retelling of “Hua Mountain Lifter,” Zhu was influenced by religious texts, but his song material is drawn primarily from the shan’ge tradition. Central to Zhu’s recuperation project is transmission of shan’ge

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style and Wu-language idiom. The use of the regional idiom here is not just the unmediated expression of the singer-farmer but rather a mark of authenticity. Little attempt is made to smooth out the language to conform to general expectations of Chinese vernacular fiction, although the editor has added transitional phrases to link individual song sessions. Glosses assist readers from outside the region to understand regional expressions. “Hua Mountain Lifter” is also distinctive in its inclusion of the metalanguage of song-making—that is, the singer-narrator leads the audience to reflect on the artful nature of successful song creation. These characteristics of “Hua Mountain Lifter” can be understood as part of the objectification of one’s own culture that occurs when a member of “the folk” acquires the tools of literacy and is encouraged to recreate selected aspects of “the folk” for a broader audience or readership. Some examples of this reflective style are discussed in the next section.

Reflections on Song-Making The folk epic begins with a reminder to the audience about how difficult it is to create a long narrative song. It is like an archer straining to load the arrow on his bow: When you arch the bow and draw the arrow, both tips bend tight. Mountain songs are good to sing, but it’s hard to make a start. It’s hard to begin, but nothing else is hard, Just a few short four lines and one can get off the ground.66 Homely images remind the audience of the importance of discipline and diligence in daily life and in song creation: When you transplant the seedlings in great fields, you must plant them upright, When you sail boats on long rivers, you must keep in a straight line.67 The singer boasts of his ability to add innovation and novelty to his long song:

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China When you arch the bow and draw the arrow, both tips bend tight, If long songs are hard to sing, then changes in the song are harder still. The star of longevity sings only one song; the radish in the mud has one root not two. But my shifting song is not like an old buffalo circling endlessly around the millstone, But rather like the seventy-two shape-shifts of Monkey King as he overcame one hundred and eight tribulations.68

The singer needs to keep up the flow of song, just as once the arrow leaves the bow it must reach its mark, or as rice seedlings must be planted in straight rows, and boats must be guided down the winding water ways. Hardest of all is the need to create variety within the conventional tale. The radish has only one root, but the superior singer needs more than one storyline. One should not be like the elderly man, who at his birthday celebration sings only one song, nor like the buffalo treading around the millstone, but be as effortlessly creative as the famous shapeshifting Monkey King of storytelling and opera. One of the striking aspects of “Hua Mountain Lifter” is the extensive elaboration of folklore, supernatural events, and local customs within the narrative. Whereas all the delta folk epics allude to the customs and beliefs of their home region, other folk epics do not seek to present an omnibus of local folk stories to entertain or inform the reader. It is this characteristic of elaboration and inclusiveness that marks “Hua Mountain Lifter” as unusual within the folk epic tradition of the delta. Items of folk content can often comprise a whole song session. One example is the story about the origin of the name “Dongting,” the hometown of the singers of this folk epic.

The Origins of Dongting (Eastern Pavilion 東亭) Dongting is located around three miles or five kilometers to the east of Wuxi city. In the county gazetteer, it is claimed that the original

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name of this area was Longting (Magnificent Pavilion 隆亭). However, it later became known as Longting in the sense of Dragon Pavilion (龍 亭). According to a local gazetteer, a former Hanlin Academician and large property owner called Hua Cha (see chapter 2) built himself a grandiose residence in Longting Township in violation of the sumptuary laws of the era. The word “dragon” also offended the court, as it implied imperial ambitions. To placate the emperor, the name of the town was then changed to Eastern Pavilion.69 The singer does not relate the story told in the county gazetteer but conjures up an analogous tale where a common bean curd seller saves the day. First, we are told that the Yangzi River region has geomantic features favourable to the nurturing of an emperor. The Yangzi River itself is like a dragon; Lake Tai is the white pearl in the paws of the dragon. For this reason, Old Wu town (the supposed site of the first Wu kingdom) was renamed Dragon Pavilion. The dragon teases the ball just as the ball teases the man, The dragon meets the ball on the banks of Lake Tai, On the banks of Lake Tai stands Old Wu town, Old Wu Town changed its name to Dragon Pavilion.70 The reigning emperor fears the emergence of a southern pretender to the throne: “He sent an envoy to pass down a sacred decree / All the people within one hundred li of the town are to be beheaded” (stanza 3). It is a seller of bean curd who comes up with a clever strategy. He stamped the words “Dong Ting” (Eastern Pavilion) on his bean curd, thus fooling the imperial envoy. The populace avoids beheading but are required to pay three taels of silver in gratitude for this act of mercy. We are now told that this was the era of the final years of the Ming dynasty: “disaster stars rained down from the sky like thunderbolts and burning fire / The state was in chaos, households impoverished, land laid waste, and people left destitute” (stanza 7). The wealthy pay the impost while the commoners flee for their lives. The singer then turns to the ancient site of Yacheng Lake (literally meaning Duck Town Lake). A flock of ducks on Yacheng

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Lake led the first King of Wu (Taibo) to this area. At this very spot he taught the people to raise livestock. It is also at Yacheng that a man called Hua Dragon Root was born, a man of tall stature, with “dragon eyes,” nicknamed “Great Dragon” (stanza 13). In this way the singer returns to the emergence of powerful dragon-like figures in his home region, men of prodigious strength and talent who strive to save their people, men who have the talent to be future emperors.

Rent Collection at New Year The story proper begins by introducing the theme of rent resistance. At the end of the year, the tenants working the fields of property owners are required to pay their annual rent. Dragon Root, a tenant farmer, is unable to pay both the rent and the “gratitude money” required by the emperor. The New Year is also the time for the expulsion of the demons of misfortune by ceremonies of exorcism. For this reason, it is not the custom to enforce the payment of rent, taxes, or imposts once the New Year festival begins. In violation of convention, the landlord’s henchmen come to demand the rent at New Year. On this very day the wife of Dragon Root is going into labor after a pregnancy of one year. Dragon Root’s heart burned with fire, The flame in his stomach felt like a volcano erupting. He rushed to the front room and pounded heavily on the door, Just as an arrow leaps from a bow, he struck down the demon men. “Today is New Year’s Day, no need to tell you this, This one wants rent, the other wants silver, My wife is in labor, twisting and turning on her bed, Tell me, which one should I obey?” The evil demons opened their stinky maggot mouths, “Hand over your rent and silver right now! Who cares if it is New Year’s Day or a festival time, Who cares if your wife gives birth to a child and dies herself?” (stanzas 19–20)71

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They tie Dragon Root around the neck with a steel chain; his limbs bound by rope. As he is hog-tied, he hears the cry of a newborn baby. This prompts Dragon Root to make a spectacular effort to free himself from his chains. When Dragon Root heard the wail, he stood stock still, It was like a knife stabbing his heart and lungs; blood spurted from his mouth, Smoke streamed from his eyes, his veins bulged, his mouth opened wide as he let out a great shout— It was just like when spring thunder peals, the whole world becomes bright. He gave out a shout then clenched his teeth, With all his power he stretched out his hands and legs, And with the sound like “za za za za,” The steel chain and rope snapped into little pieces (stanzas 32 and 33).72

Signs of the Malignant Child The next song session comprises a lengthy harangue between the clan leader and a village elder about the fate of the baby son of Dragon Root. The clan leader declares that the babe is in fact a demon and should be thrown into the river. He lists ten signs of malignancy in the infant: the fact that he is born on New Year’s Day; that his mother was pregnant for a whole year; that he has a terrifying wail and wild laughter; that he looks like a plague demon; that he insulted the deities of Heaven, Earth, the Mountains, and the River God as shown by a series of unnatural events; and that he injured his parents and brought harm to the whole village: In recent days at the Hua family shrine, we have seen dogs wail, cats leap around, mice scurry in clusters, ancestral tablets have dropped to the ground, spectral voices can be heard.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China If we want to right the balance of yin and yang, then the infant must be thrown into the river. Only if we rid ourselves of this evil son of Dragon Root can we know Great Peace.73

In this instance the clan leader has deployed the familiar rhetoric of demonology to victimize the infant son of Dragon Root. But the singer deploys the same rhetoric against the clan leader and his henchmen. One of the village elders, Old Man Hua, comes up with ten refutations to the charges of malignancy. He argues that a child born on the first day of New Year will be a great man in the future, a baby in the womb for a full year will become a great general, and so on. He also accuses the clan leader of offending the Earth deity: You tried to force rent on the first day of New Year and upset the God of the Earth, That’s why a storm of sand and dust has whirled across the ground… (stanza 30) He concludes with these words: If officials and the rich cannot get their rent and silver, they should blame themselves. They should not kick a brick and blame others, nor bite their own tongues and blame the cook. If they cannot catch a chicken, they should not blame Little Dragon. In one word, we simply cannot throw the infant away! (stanza 34) Old Man Hua wins over the neighbors: Old Man Hua speaks truly, like the sweetness of the mature sugar cane. The Old Clan leader is talking nonsense, just like old ginger rotten to the core. (stanza 35) Humiliated, the clan leader and henchmen depart. In this section we note the way that lengthy harangues, often involving the listing of alleged

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crimes and detailed refutation, can form the basis of dramatic action in a song session.

The Power of Motherly Love In the next section we see the wife of Dragon Root attempt to save her infant son from the clutches of the authorities. It is the fifth day of New Year, when the villagers welcome the God of Wealth. The families of the rich get up before dawn to light firecrackers and invite the God of Wealth to come to their houses first. Suddenly bailiffs from the landlord burst in through the door of the humble home of Dragon Root, wrest the infant son out of his mother’s arms, and cast him into the river. She is left heartbroken: There is sorrow with no tears, crying with no sound, Her hatred had no limits, her suffering no resort. When the wife saw her baby, the root of Hua’s family, being borne away to be killed, she knelt in front of the spirit tablets in the hall and spoke what was in her heart: “This should never have happened, should never have happened, a thousand times this should not have happened. I have not been able to protect the root of the Hua family, Why should I continue to live in this world?” It is daybreak with a glimmer of white light in the east, Birds are twittering on the surface of Jiuli River. Her hair disheveled, blood gushing out, the wife of Dragon Root ran onto a high mound by the west bank to throw herself in the river. Suddenly she spies something floating in the river. She took a careful look- it was a torn quilt jacket. From the jacket came a noise. Ducks circled around the jacket, holding it with their mouths, paddling with their feet to draw it nearer. The wind suddenly changed to the east; the tide shifted east as well; the bundle tossed and tumbled towards the banks. The mother of little

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China dragon baby looked on as if it were a dream but was awoken by a baby’s wail. She raced towards the river and embraced the root of her family.74

Dragon Root’s wife then gives thanks to the spirits of the ducks, the wind, and the river for saving her son’s life. However, this reprieve offers only a brief respite. Dragon Root escapes from prison, and the local authorities decide they need to put away his son to ensure he does not return to avenge his father’s death. They seize the young child and leave him for dead on the mountain side. However, he is suckled by a wild boar and continues to thrive. Eventually he is spotted by villagers playing with the wild animals. In desperation, his mother goes to the mountain together with two village elders and calls out to her son: One call from his mother shook the heart of her son, Two calls from the mother shook the mountains and forest. When the mother wailed twice the whole mountain responded: flowers and foliage withered; birds twittered a lament; the lions, leopards, deer, and hares all lowered their heads; oxen, sheep, boars, and dogs shed copious tears; in their midst a tigress bore Little Dragon; he cried and shouted out “dear mother.” Mother and son embraced; their faces drowned with tears.75 Once back in his home village, the young child becomes a prodigy despite his traumatic experience. According to the singer, hardship in youth brings about resilience and maturity: Good seed should be sown in poor thin soil, Good seedlings should be planted in dark rich loam. Poor thin soil brings forth shoots with the toughest roots, Dark rich loam brings forth the best rice shoots and the finest men.76

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Young Dragon is trained by his benefactor Old Zhu in martial arts such as boxing, smashing stones with his bare hands, lifting of stone weights, leaping over piles of timber, and supernatural arts such as walking on water. They hear that Dragon Root is leading a rebellion in the Lake Tai area. In response, the authorities plan to capture his wife to lure him back to his home. The villagers put up a fight with hoes, rakes, and sickles but cannot repulse the Clan Leader and his henchmen. Dragon Root’s wife decides to kill herself to avoid falling into the plot to trap her husband. She reminds her son not to forget his origins and to complete his father’s mission. Then she throws herself headfirst at the pier of a bridge and dies immediately. The song continues: With a yell, “dear Mother,” reaching to the clouds, Someone flew like a comet, comet swift, swift comet, it was Little Dragon. He jumped out of the water onto the stone bridge; bearing his mother on his back, he raced away. Within the blink of an eye, he was gone.77 With assistance from Old Zhu, an auspicious place is found for the proper burial of Young Dragon’s mother. Young Dragon expresses thanks for her nurture: My dearest mother, Your burden of rearing me is deeper than the sea. Ten months gestation is hard for anyone to bear, But, dear mother, you bore me for a whole year. My dearest mother, Your burden of rearing me has reached up to the clouds. People say that when a boy is born the eaves of the house will be raised, But when I fell to earth on New Year’s Day, I was just a malignant star.78

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The Apotheosis of “Hua Mountain Lifter” The influence of religious texts is apparent in the story of the ascension of Mountain Lifter (Young Dragon) to Heaven after his death on Mount Hou. In the scene below the villagers witness his apotheosis as a powerful deity: Mountain Lifter died in battle on the mountain top, moving Heaven to respond. In the distant blue empyrean, the face of Heaven changed. In a trice, crow-black clouds rolled, thunder clapped, lightning struck. Wild winds roared, fierce rain pelted down, you could barely open your eyes. When Mountain Lifter starved to death on the mountain peak, Heaven itself was moved. In the distant blue empyrean, the face of Heaven changed. In a trice thick snow blanketed the hills and villages, Silver flowers on white trees linked by snowflakes like lotus-petals.79 The sky undergoes a series of strange transformations—the snow evaporates and a rainbow that looks like a heavenly bridge appears in the sky. The Gods of Thunder and Lightning cease the storm; a strong breeze blows away the rain. The Sun God blows away the dark clouds and shows a red face to the world; the myriad birds assemble; the Earth God encourages the flowers to blossom; tree branches nod their heads; the roars of lions on Mount Hou reach up to the sky. Amazed at the heavenly signs, and mourning the loss of their leader, the villagers race up to the mountain top. They raise their heads and gaze up toward Three Mao Lords Temple. Suddenly they see Mountain Lifter riding a golden dragon as if alive, Phoenix Sister was sitting on a brightly colored phoenix that dazzled the eyes. Golden Dragon and Brilliant Phoenix waved their heads and tails, their faces smiling.

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The assembly of troops, wielding knives and bejeweled swords, Kept guard tightly on both sides, As the rainbow boat bore them up to Heaven.80 The next song describes the public veneration of both Young Dragon and Phoenix Sister in the temple grounds of the Three Mao Lords: The human tide surged towards the Three Mao Lords Temple. When they arrived their faces changed color, They saw Young Dragon and Phoenix together with the assembly of generals who had starved for one hundred days. There they stood before the temple, their eyes open wide, Still holding their great knives and the Dragon-Phoenix sword, Just as if Heaven had sent down living immortals. “Good men all, great heroes!” With one voice their calls rocked the mountain top, One by one, the crowd knelt down before the temple gates. “Our benefactor, our saving star!” Their cries so loud the sky cracked open. Kinsfolk and neighbors, one by one they all kowtowed, their foreheads knocking on the ground until the rocky crag was red with blood.81 Singers involved in the transmission of “Hua Mountain Lifter” drew from the well-established tradition of veneration of the Three Mao Lords at Mount Hou. For example, we are told that the villagers carry out ritual sacrifices to Hua Mountain Lifter on the 18th day of the third lunar month, which was the anniversary of Mountain Lifter’s ascension into Heaven. It was also an important festival time for devotees of the Three Mao Lord movement.82 The main base of the Three Mao Lord sect was in Nanjing, a long way south of Wuxi. However, there were also smaller branches of Three Mao Lord temples located in various locations, including the Huishan massif to the north of Wuxi.83 Veneration of the three Mao brothers, who were notable Daoist adepts, can be traced back as far as the third century CE. They were principally noted for their powers of exorcism and interest in Thunder Rites. According to

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Berezkin and Goossaert, Three Mao Lord adepts acquired a reputation as “threatening vagrant clerics” who were practitioners of the martial arts and engaged in black magic.84 Oral traditions associated with the Three Mao cult included stories of banditry and miraculous births as well as descriptions of local customs.85 The assimilation of Hua Mountain Lifter into the temple activities at Mount Hou is made very clear in the following story in the folk epic. It is related that three years after the death by starvation of Hua Mountain Lifter, the villagers copy out incense texts relating to their hero: From every village in Old Wu Meili come men, women, and youths. After the New Year festival, they copy out incense texts and compose sacred poems, over a hundred sacred poems and incense texts. On the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth day of the third month, three nights in all, They sit in the temple hall, bow to the deities, and sing songs with more fervor than before, each with their entire hearts reciting the sacred texts. Some sing, “Hua Baoshan is an Illustrious Sacred Ancestor”; Others sing “Dragon and Phoenix are Heavenly Immortals”; some sing “The Justice Army Changes its Face,” and “Get Rid of the Cruel and Kill the Greedy and Treacherous.” Even more sing, “May Dragon and Phoenix Preserve the Infant Son,” and “Let’s Revive the Army for Justice and Recover our Homeland.”86 When the commander of the imperial army learns of the new religious movement, he sends troops to the temple to stamp it out.87 Zhu’s “Hua Baoshan” is remarkable within the corpus of delta folk epics not just because of its length and association with local religious activities. While deriving much material from a preexisting oral and religious tradition, it is the product of the intersection of life, literacy, and politics in the twentieth century. The first volume revolves around the evils of rent-collectors and peasant resistance, whereas the later volumes

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focus more on exposure of the evils of the court and officialdom. The thematic material also reflects community response to violent upheavals over the past century or more as embodied in the lived experience of the singer-participants and recent forebears. Zhu’s own experience in the suppression of counter-revolutionaries can be glimpsed in the aggressive rhetoric directed at the class enemies of Hua Baoshan. Notions of demonic possession are ever present in the rhetoric of the farmer-rebels and in the words of condemnation of the authorities. Throughout the folk epic one finds a wealth of references to rice-paddy agriculture, the passing of the seasons, local legends, popular customs, ritual practice, weaponry, and fighting. This reflects Zhu’s determination to profile his home region in a genre that has now emerged as a regional treasure. In his reshaping of the shan’ge tradition, Zhu borrowed freely from both religious and secular storytelling arts. Chinese scholars have remained guarded about Zhu’s quasi-authorial role in the production of “Hua Baoshan.” Liu Shijie, a scholar of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has praised “Hua Baoshan,” saying that it “has not been polished by a literary author and retains the original flavor and authenticity of peasant art.”88 According to Li Ning, “Over a period of forty years Zhu has relied on his natural gifts and training in folk performance arts as well as his skillful deployment of artistic language to collect and arrange numerous Wu language songs and stories. He has persistently endeavored to return the basic ideas and linguistic attributes of the folk to their original condition.” 89 I would add here that Zhu Hairong composed something that is neither a transcript of a folk song-cycle nor a folklorist-produced representation of a folk songcycle, but something that transcends both. He could be best understood as a composer-recorder who retains fidelity to the aesthetic resources of his region to offer an interpretive framework for the mediation of past and present violence and trauma. In other words, he has produced something different, a new type of Yangzi Delta folk genre, that is worthy of investigation in its own right.

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Lauri Honko uses the term “creative scribe” to describe the situation where an individual can both compose extempore and record in writing.90 The “creative scribe” has “internalized the poetic language” but has “goals of unification and commensurability” not found in the original singer.91 Works produced by the “creative scribe” are not so much “traditional” as “tradition-oriented”; that is, “they have been moulded, if not created, in the hands of performers, scribes and editors. They possess ‘anterior speech’ in the form of oral epic registers internalized not only by their performers but also by their scribes and editors, but they are not direct documents from oral performances.” 92 The classic case of Honko’s “creative scribe” is Elias Lönnrott, author of the great Finnish epic, the Kalevala. However, Lönnrott’s first acquaintance with Finnish oral traditions was as an adult in an academic setting, not as a singer who inherited the tradition from his community. This is an important point of distinction with Zhu Hairong. Lönnrott’s ability to compose in epic style was acquired in the process of his collection of songs relating to what became the Kalevala. In this regard, Lönnrott’s experience is more akin to that of the numerous folklorists who have collected and edited the folk epics of the Yangzi Delta rather than to singer, transmitter, and composer, Zhu Hairong. Zhu Hairong’s distinctive role in the recreation of “Hua Mountain Lifter” is inseparable from his life history, particularly his origin as a poor peasant who became immersed in the local politics of his home region. In his often painful entanglement with the Chinese revolution, it is Zhu’s creativity and sense of agency that make him stand out from the faceless and anonymous peasants we are used to seeing as the target of communist propaganda. In “Hua Baoshan,” Zhu’s local community could see themselves in their own eyes as proud fighters, skilled in weaponry and battle tactics, willing to seek vengeance against those who had oppressed them. Far from being a passive tool of the revolution, Zhu Hairong became an important catalyst for the emergence of what was basically a new type of narrative song, the product of a literate inheritor of the song tradition.

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Notes 1. As claimed by Zhu Hairong in Hua Baoshan, 218. 2. For a recent discussion of misogyny in the Water Margin novel, see Song, “Masculinizing Jianghu Spaces in the Past and Present.” 3. Rowe, Crimson Rain, 2. 4. Rowe, 6. For the demonological paradigm, see ter Haar, “China’s Inner Demons,” 27‒68. 5. Wu and Hua are said to be homophonous in the local dialect. For this record, see Yang, “Mingdai zhong hou qi Jiangnan shehui bianqian,” 136. On bandit attacks and tenant uprisings against property owners in the Lake Tai region at the time of the Manchu conquest, see Chin, “Peasant Economy,” 113, 169‒170. 6. This training involves learning the skills of a “warrior, commander and shaman or ritual master”; Boretz, “Martial Gods and Magic Swords,” 94. 7. Hua Baoshan; Hua Baoshan (Di er ji). 8. This third volume is included in Zhu’s collected works, Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 6, 415‒610. The entire folk epic has also been published as Zhu, Zhongguo yingxiong shishi. 9. On the collective action by Lake Tai farmers to resist rents in the late Ming and Qing, see Shih, “Peasant Economy,” 177‒184, 209‒225. For similar movements in the nineteenth century, see Bernhardt, Rents, Taxes. For a historical overview of the tax and rent burden in the Wuxi region, see Bell, One Industry, Two Chinas, 15‒25. Wuxi was one of the provinces from which the imperial state demanded a higher level of tribute grain (Bell, 15). The state assisted the landlords in the punishment of tenants who defaulted on rent (Bell, 24). 10. Bernhardt, Rents, Taxes, 6. 11. Bernhardt, 10. 12. Bernhardt, 74n80. 13. Bernhardt, 77n86. 14. Liu, “Making Revolution in Jiangnan,” 4. 15. Bernhardt, Rents, Taxes, 200 note 22. The Chinese Communist Party found that Jiangnan tenants were more interested in aggressive rent resistance than in overthrowing the existing system. See Liu, “Making Revolution in Jiangnan.”

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16. Chu tanguan, ji pinqiong/ saoping wuping fang taiping 除貪官, 濟貧窮/ 掃平無平方太平, Hua Baoshan, 143. 17. Hua Baoshan, 146‒147. The first goal of “equal treatment” (pingdeng 平等) refers to resistance to foreign bullying, an element that probably entered the song tradition in the nineteenth century. See ter Haar, “China’s Inner Demons,” 40‒42, for the use of these terms in late Qing rebellions, including the Taiping movement. 18. Hua Baoshan, 148. 19. Zhu Hairong, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 6, 450. 20. Zhu Hairong, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 6, 450‒451. 21. Zhu Hairong, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 6, 470. 22. Ter Haar, “China’s Inner Demons,” 34. 23. Meulenbeld, Demonic Warfare, 116. 24. Hamashima, Ming Qing Jiangnan, 10‒11. 25. For example, the Shen 沈 family of Luxu claimed to have led ritual activities to venerate Fierce General Liu for nine generations, see Chen, Dangdai minjian xinyang, 247. 26. Hua Baoshan, 219; Guo Wei, “Zhongguo si da yingxiong shishi zhi yi,” 22‒23. 27. Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 137‒138. 28. Schimmelpenninck, Chinese Folk Songs and Folk Singers, 72. 29. See the biography of Hua Zurong in Zheng Tuyou, Wuyu xushi shange, 324. 30. Guo Wei, “Wu ge Wu gushi,” 560. 31. Hua Baoshan, 219‒220. 32. Guo Wei, “Wu ge Wu gushi,” 561. 33. Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 128. 34. See Qian, 159. 35. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 297. 36. “When you wipe out what is not level then there will be Great Peace,” stanzas 2 and 7. Sung by Qian Afu, Wuge wang de ge, 161‒162. The bridge was guarded by a member of the local gentry and a military officer who were both killed by the Taiping forces. This event was celebrated as one of three Taiping victories that destroyed the power of the militia in Wuxi. 37. Zhu Hairong, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 297. The Green Men were the Qing imperial army and the White Heads the foreigners that supported the state in the suppression of the Taipings. 38. Ter Haar, “China’s Inner Demons,” 42‒52.

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39. Zhu Hairong, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 2, 43‒130. First published in 1984. The Taiping rebels continued to be commemorated in songs and stories by farming populations even though their egalitarian principles of land distribution had never in fact been realized; see Bernhardt, “Elite and Peasant,” 379, 406, 407n1. Communist sympathizers saw the Taipings as a precursor to the revolutionary movement of the early twentieth century, see Meyer-Fong, What Remains, 4‒5. 40. For stories about Jiangnan women warriors amongst the Taipings, see Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 220‒231. For the melon rind trick, see ibid., 224. 41. Report by Zhu, Hua Baoshan, 218. 42. Hua Baoshan (Di er ji), 444. 43. Hua Baoshan (Di er ji), 460. 44. Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 160. 45. Qian, 278. 46. Qian, 278. 47. Zhu Hairong, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 91. 48. Qian, Jiangnan minjian xushishi, 160. 49. Qian Shunjuan’s preface in Hua Baoshan, 15. 50. Zhang, “Kunpeng zhanchi,” 232. The land reform movement began in mid-1950. In April 1951, there was a severe crackdown on “counter-revolutionaries,” see Tan, Wuxi xianzhi, 34. 51. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 2, 33‒34. 52. Qian, Jiangnan minjian, 160‒161. 53. Minge keyi su, keyi yuan, dangran keyi song 民歌可以訴, 可以怨, 當然 可以頌 in Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, vol. 1, 149. 54. See account by Zhu Hairong in Hua Baoshan, 220 and Qian, Jiangnan minjian, 161. The campaign against the “Four Olds” was carried out from August 1965. Red Guards assaulted three thousand people and raided 16,000 homes, confiscating “old” material (Tan, Wuxi Xianzhi, 44). On January 19, 1967, a large-scale public denunciation was carried out at the Wuxi Sports Stadium, leading to fighting between warring factions. Over forty people were injured. On September 15, there was reported a severe battle in which ten people died (Tan, 45). 55. Guo Wei, “Yingxiong shishi ‘Hua Baoshan’ lizan,” 106. 56. Guo Wei, Wuge yanjiu, 210. 57. On the role of tradition bearers in the contemporary formation of the epic narratives of southwest China, see Bender, “Butterflies and DragonEagles.”

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58. Guo Wei, Wuge yanjiu, 193. 59. Clifford, “Introduction: Partial Truths,” in Clifford and Marcus, Writing Culture, 16. 60. Rodgers, “A Batak Antiquarian Writes His Culture.” 61. Bender, “Co-creations, Master Texts,” 65‒90. 62. Berezkin, “On the Survival,” 169. 63. Berezkin, 203‒204. 64. Cohn, An Anthropologist Amongst the Historians, 228‒229. 65. Ganany, “Origin Narratives,” 34‒49. 66. Hua Baoshan, vol. 1, 26, “Prelude,” stanza 1. 67. Hua Baoshan, vol. 1, 26, “Prelude,” stanza 3. 68. Hua Baoshan, 27, “Prelude,” stanza 4. 69. Tan, Wuxi xianzhi, 97. This is the same Hua Cha who featured as a villain in “Chen the Tiler.” The latter contains a different version of this legend. 70. Hua Baoshan, vol. 1, “The Birth of Hua Baoshan,” 27‒28, stanzas 1 and 2. 71. Hua Baoshan, “The Birth of Hua Baoshan,” 32. 72. Hua Baoshan, “The Birth of Hua Baoshan,” 34‒35. 73. Hua Baoshan, “Childhood,” 42, stanza 23. 74. Hua Baoshan, vol. 1, “Childhood,” 48, stanzas 50 and 51. The word “root” (gen 根) has many meanings in delta folk epics. It refers to the roots of plants and to males in general as they form the ancestral line that families seek to preserve. In love lyrics gen refers to the male member. 75. Hua Baoshan, “Childhood,” 64, stanza 120. 76. Hua Baoshan, “Childhood,” 65, stanza 125‒126. 77. Hua Baoshan, 70, stanza 148. 78. Hua Baoshan, “Youth,” 71‒72, stanzas 2 and 3. 79. Hua Baoshan (Di er ji), “Ascension to Heaven,” 266‒267, stanzas 1 and 2. 80. Hua Baoshan (Di er ji), “Ascension to Heaven,” 270, stanza 13. 81. Hua Baoshan (Di er ji), “Offering Sacrifices,” 274, stanzas 11 and 12. 82. Hua Baoshan (Di er ji), 278; Berezkin and Goossaert, “The Three Mao Lords,” 299. 83. Berezkin and Goossaert, “The Three Mao Lords,” 300. 84. Berezkin and Goossaert, 295, 298. 85. Berezkin and Goossaert, 309‒310. 86. Hua Baoshan (Di er ji), Ssection 6, “The Commoners of Meili Commemorate the Three Dragons,” 408. 87. Hua Baoshan (Di er ji), 411‒412. 88. Liu Shijie, “Shenhou de wenhua diyun,” 44. 89. Li Ning, “Yingxiong shishi ‘Hua Baoshan’ duhou gan,” 333.

The Song of “Hua Mountain Lifter” 90. Honko, Textualization of Oral Epics, 8. 91. Honko, 8. 92. Honko, 7.

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Coda How Mountain Songs Remember Fresh shoots in a bamboo grove, Can poke their heads through a paving of stone. Lotus flowers in a pond, Can lift their buds from a pile of mud. Tendrils dead for a hundred years, Can climb up from the roots of trees.1 Singer: Qian Afu, collected circa 1980 In this song Qian Afu sings of the tenacious continuity of precious life forms even when death appears all but certain. In the context of the early 1980s, this song presents Qian’s understanding of the favorable shift in Chinese politics that occurred after the decisive conclusion of Maoist-era campaigns.2 He rejoices too in the stubborn persistence of the agricultural songs and folk epics so beloved by the rice-paddy community before 1949. As noted in this volume, songs continued to be sung and collected throughout the high socialist era. Zhu Hairong collected some of the most evocative of the agricultural songs during the period of the calamitous Great Leap Forward campaign of the late 1950s. Luxu farmer-singer Zhang Juemin told us in May 2014 that he had sung mountain songs when working on his own throughout the 1960s. It is worth noting too that the material culture of the rural population saw little change over the first thirty years of socialist China. When Chinese folklorists went down to villages to collect folk songs in the early 1980s, the agricultural tools and typical methods of rice cultivation were for the most part the same as in the pre-contemporary era. Tools developed in the Song dynasty were still in use with some refinements in the twentieth century. The commune members still lived in dispersed settlements amid a network of water channels, traveled on foot along the banks, poled wooden boats

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to market towns, and tilled the soil in the same way that their forebears had done for centuries. In April 1979, when I was a foreign student at Shanghai’s Fudan University, I had the opportunity to observe rural conditions in the delta. Our class was taken to the countryside to take part in agricultural work as part of the “open door” schooling popular at that time. We spent several days at Loutang 婁塘 Commune in Jiading County, about thirty kilometers northwest of Shanghai. While dining with our village “mother,” I observed her husband, a wiry man in his sixties, standing on a flat timber contraption, one hand holding a bullock’s tail, as he swept across the paddy field like a surfer in the shallows. As I learned later, what I saw in 1979 was most probably the ba 耙 or harrower invented a thousand years earlier. I observed commune members knee deep in mud bending down to weed the rice paddy. Their labor was not accompanied by mountain songs but by the latest government directive blaring from a loudspeaker set up in the fields. When I returned to rural parts of the delta in the 1990s many villages were still connected by pathways rather than highways. In 1994 I traveled by car down a half-built road in the coastal Nanhui region. When the road petered out, we were offered a tractor to take us to a particular village. The farming cottage we visited had no running water or sewage system. It was only in the very late twentieth century that modern infrastructure and mechanization was introduced to rural populations of the delta.3 This means that in the 1980s, when elderly peasants were called upon to recall the songs of their youth, they could still see all around them the landscapes, waterways, and agricultural equipment that were embedded in the rhetoric of their songs. This must have assisted them in recalling shan’ge learned decades earlier. However, these singer-farmers had lived through the Republican era, Japanese occupation, civil war, the establishment of socialist China, and the Cultural Revolution. One would expect that the ideology of the revolution had a significant impact on the way that they remembered and recreated their songs for scholarly

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audiences. As Aleida Assman has pointed out: “A historical caesura always introduces the chance to narrate the past in a different way,” particularly when there is “a fundamental change of values.”4 It is with this caution in mind that one must proceed to evaluate the transmission of “traditional” folk songs in the contemporary era. When our singer-farmers called to mind the songs of the past they did so for the benefit of folklore scholars, government officials, and the occasional foreigner, not for their fellow toilers in the paddy fields. One would expect that the most practiced singers—those with the strongest memories— were probably the ones most able to adapt their repertoire to please and entertain their visitors. It is thus possible that Lu Amei put forward a more elaborate portrayal of the folk epic of “Fifth Daughter” than had been attempted before and that her version presented the hired hand, Xu Atian, in a more favorable light than is generally the case in the siqing genre (see chapter 4). Qian Afu is the transmitter of an unusual version of the sororate marriage type of story (“Going to get the younger sister”) that seeks to exonerate the key male protagonist in ways unknown in mainstream versions (see chapter 5). Qian also produced a comic version of “Fifth Daughter,” where the hired hand (Atian) harangues the local magistrate and persuades him into allowing the couple to marry. First, Atian argues that the maiden herself was willing: “Sir, I will tell you the whole truth, A mosquito cannot enter a duck’s egg if there is no crack, A bee cannot swarm across a stone threshold if there is no gap, If the boat does not leave mud in its wake, then the water will not be dirty, Only when the girl invites him is the lover boy willing.”5 He then goes on to condemn the evil saosao for her slander and pleads his diligence and poverty. Even livestock and insects can find a mate, why should he pass his days in loneliness? The emperor himself has seventy-two consorts in numerous palaces. He can give rein to his lusts whenever he wants; why should not the hired hand with true affection

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live with his beloved? Do not the nobles, officials and grandees of the counties and districts also indulge themselves in love affairs? He pleads his case in this fashion for some time and in the end the magistrate grants him the right to marry as well as a sheep and pitcher of wine to boot. This highly improbable tale amounts to a parody of the mainstream story. In the absence of earlier versions, it is possible that Qian’s witty inversion of the typical “Fifth Daughter” tale was influenced by the rhetoric about class antagonism propagated in the preceding decades. In brief, when one examines the “same” story in different renditions one finds that the majority relate very similar tales but that the most noted and competent song practitioners have exercised radical creativity in their own interpretations of the folk epics. Scholars of oral traditions often argue that remembering is fundamentally a matter of “technique,” where the singer masters a repertoire of largely conventional or formulaic material to compose ad lib rather than from rote learning. In this line of thinking, memory is “a technique based on rhythmical constraints.”6 Egbert J. Bakker argues for a broader understanding of memory as a cultural construct that can be understood emically, that is, from the point of view of the epic singer. In emic understandings “remembering the song is to perform the song, that is, to bring the world of heroes to the present.”7 Assman too argues that different societies have different “modes of remembering” that constitute “a form of social and cultural practice.”8 For delta farmers, singing was a form of labor that brought about a social good, just like planting trees, growing rice, catching fish, and poling a boat. It was an embodied act borne of strong emotion that required concentration, a loud voice, and careful timing with the rhythms of labor. It was through singing mountain songs that the sacred teaching (jing 經) from the past could be transmitted. The term jing, more often translated as “sacred texts,” here refers to “sacred rules” associated with how to grow food and preserve the community: Lake Tai is broad and vast—the thousand boats return. From the myriad boats comes endless songs, burst after burst.

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Songs transmit the sacred rules, teach us how to grow grain and raise livestock—how hard this toil! Now I open my treasure box, my voice; I’ll sing it all, from start to finish. Singers: Zhu Apan and Tang Jianqin, “Shen Seventh Brother,” collected 1980s9 Singing is likened to twisting rice-chaff to make rope, searching in one’s belly for a tale, or drawing the bow tight when you shoot an arrow. Once you begin, the song will surge like a tidal wave, and one can continue for the length and breadth of Lake Tai. How then do mountain songs, considered as a verbal art or “technique,” remember? I will present some reflections on what the songs and folk epics examined here tell us about the techniques of memory deployed in delta mountain songs. Remembering here refers to both the singer’s concentrated toil in “remembering” (composing) the song or folk epic and to the memories of the past that the song transmits. The singer of both the shorter songs and the songs of epic length drew on a range of memory frameworks that implicitly invoke notions of time passing and space crossing. In the stanza presented next, we are given an expression of what was considered to be variable and unique, as opposed to what was held to be invariable and constant. Each piece of land has its own special nature, The customs of one village could be taboo in the next. But every year has four seasons, eight solar periods, and twentyfour festivals, In each life span there are three things to celebrate: birth, marriage, and death after a long life.10 The specificities of the environment (“the land”), together with the customs that arise from that environment, are held to be unique to each locality. Compared with the diversity of geography and social custom, the passing of time is regarded as universally prevalent and constantly

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recurring. Time comprises the seasonal round together with its festival activities and the continuous cycle of birth, marriage, and death in human society. Cosmopolitan notions of time, particularly dynastic eras, are rarely important.11 The community’s notion of time is reflected in one of the simplest types of song, the Twelve Months of the Year Song. It seems likely that several of the folk epics explored in this study originated with this easily memorable form (e.g., “Fifth Daughter” and “Zhao Shengguan”). The months of the year provided an easily grasped template onto which the stages of the life of an individual could be placed, with each month and season evoking both a stage in the life cycle and an appropriate emotion (such as romantic love in spring and lament in winter). This template made it virtually inevitable that the narrative would end in sadness but also that another cycle would begin. In the composition of the longer narratives, the singer did not try to recall any exact sequence of events. Stories proceeded in an episodic way, as befitting the singer’s mood and the occasion, not necessarily in chronological order as understood by a narratologist or as hoped for by the Chinese folklorists who collected the long narrative songs. Despite this looseness of structure, both singer and the audience knew how these narratives (mostly) ended. Impending tragedy was evoked (an order is given to commit suicide; a funeral scene is presented) rather than specifically recorded in song. In the long saga “Hua Mountain Lifter,” lineage is the principle that ensures regeneration. The transmission of this folk epic by sons of the Hua family finds its echo in the narrative itself, which enacts the same principle of cyclical continuity, as son after son continues the mission of the father. Secret commemorations held at the believed grave of the dismembered hero, located at the foothills of Mount Hou, helped to confirm this memory in the minds of the local population. In epic traditions, landmarks and natural features such as mountains and rivers serve as a mnemonic technique in ad lib composition. Images of place are abundant in folk epics; however, individual singers did not burden their memory with elaborate descriptions. Depiction of locations

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tend to be broad brush and evocative rather than explicit and detailed. For example, a thick clump of reeds on a waterway conjures up a scene of seduction or rape. The banks of canals where women toil at the waterwheel or wash clothes can be a site for lovers, but also where a place where a young maiden can be abducted and married off to a distant province. Poplar trees and stone lions before an ornamented door indicate a grand family, the kind of family that could easily mistreat a mere hired hand. Mountains can be the site of sacred grottos where one can acquire sacred knowledge, or the place for rebel farmers to erect a fort. The curves and bends of Lake Tai take the shape of a rhinoceros, an animal revered as water protector, but also feared for its demonic power to cause flooding. Some folk epics are rooted in specific places and encode historical memories, for example, Mount Hou, Yacheng Lake, and the temples to the Three Mao Lords. Songs with boating routes were often sung by ferry men and women. Boating songs refer to the delights of familiar market town destinations, which are portrayed as wonderlands with colorful shops, taverns, brothels, and temples. Folk epics often include lengthy depictions of material culture such as embroidered shirts or towels, ornamental boat carvings, and items of furniture. These depictions are based on familiar stock material that had a particular resonance in the mind of the singer and audience. For example, embroidered goods that serve as love tokens encode a complex visual language that requires experience and intelligence to unravel. Xu Atian is sure he is in love with the right person when his beloved correctly interprets the symbolism on his gift of embroidered handkerchiefs (chapter 4). The song-cycle of the brother-in-law abducting the younger sister of his wife includes lengthy depiction of the carvings on the boat on which he will bear his captured “bride.” The carvings present a bevy of fictional romantic couples known to the audience from storytelling and regional opera (chapter 5). The lengthy descriptions of the carvings on the boat led the audience to anticipate a juicy tale of a young girl’s compliance in seduction rather than a crude tale of sexual coercion. In stories of secret passion, the bed is described as a formidable

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world unto itself: “The small ivory bed with its four corner posts was just like a walled-in town / On both sides the curtain hooks were made of gold with silver inlay.”12 The singer assembles valued objects from the material culture of the past to evoke a set of expectations that will propel the story forward (the ornamented boat will surely be used to abduct a bride; seduction in a fine bed will not come to a good end). Action in folk epics is often cast in the form of a dispute between two protagonists. Here the singer is likely to deploy systems of sequential numbering as an aid to memory. Is the infant Young Dragon a malignant child who must be cast out of the community? The clan leader comes up with ten reasons why this is the case. Subsequently a village elder refutes his argument with a parallel set of ten reasons. This debate about what constitutes malignancy in an infant exhibits the power relations between individuals positioned differently in the hierarchy. In this case, it is the elderly villager, not the clan head, who persuades the community of the correctness of his interpretation. From this public dispute, the villagers learn that fixed interpretations from authorities can be creatively deployed by commoners to resist the impositions of the powerful. How should Heavenly Master Zhang evaluate his daughter Seventh Sister, an immortal spirit who has eloped with a common mortal? Sixth Sister condemns her younger sister for seven heinous crimes, including the stealing of rice and grain to take to the world of man. Seventh Brother refutes these charges with twelve declarations of her virtue. These are presented in the style of the “Twelve Months of the Year Song”: “In the first month the plum flower buds in the cold / On the mountain top she helped me cross the four passes in the bone-piercing wind; this is the first good thing.”13 In this exchange a mortal man uses his wit and eloquence to win a dispute with an immortal magician. In the folk epic “Hua Mountain Lifter,” Little Dragon interrogates Young Sharpie at length and forces him to admit that he had employed a motley crew to masquerade as demonic souls to intimidate the population of Meili.14

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Agonistic dialogues usually culminate in a resolution that propels the storyline forward (the village elder wins a temporary reprieve for the infant Young Dragon; Seventh Brother wins the argument about the virtue of his beloved; the Meili community is no longer deceived). One can say that verbal dispute or diatribe is one of the most important ways that dramatic conflict is enacted in folk epics. In “Fifth Daughter,” the brutal saosao engages in a lengthy harangue with her husband to persuade him to do away with his little sister. In this case the husband cannot come up with any response and is left with no choice but to force her into suicide (see the appendix). “Fifth Daughter” includes whole sessions based on conversations between the young lovers or the two younger sisters. These are desperate, haunting dialogues, in which they cast around for a solution to their dilemma. Extensive dialogue and debate allow the singer to fully explore the moral and tragic parameters of the story and thus tug at the heartstrings of the listeners. The audience is reminded of past tragedies and triumphs and why these are important to local identity. In “Hua Mountain Lifter,” folk epics passed down through the generations confirm to the singers and their audience that they belong to “a community of resistance,” a sense of shared identity that returns to the fore at moments of crisis (the Taiping civil war, political persecution).15 Mountain songs provide a rich repertoire of discourse for the expression of emotion, including love longing, desire, lament, and mourning. Men and women exchanged mountain songs while courting and displayed their prowess in song in public competitions. A rhetoric of titillation and seduction could be readily conveyed in the erotic imagery of shan’ge singing. The singer’s choice of what to sing (a happy or sad song) was understood as a reflection of their emotional state. Fifth Daughter, while toiling in the paddy fields, longs to sing mountain songs about love affairs but dare not do so for fear of public derision. On her first encounter with Atian, she is bowled over by his loud singing (see the appendix). This language of intimacy, in the familiar stock material of the shan’ge tradition, was mostly played out in the public sphere in line with the kinship roles of the protagonists. It does not reflect the language of

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interior emotion or individual subjectivity but rather a “performance” under the gaze of the community by a member of a kinship system. For example, it is understood that a young unmarried girl is regarded as vulnerable to abuse by her family elders and to seduction by an outsider if not married off in a timely fashion. It is the role of her older brother and his wife to ensure that this is done. If not, then the family will be disgraced, and punishment will follow (chapter 4). One bride can be substituted for another, and a dead husband can replace a living one (chapter 5). The Golden Bird, an immortal from Sacred Grotto, is transformed into the mortal wife of a rice-paddy farmer (chapter 3). In other words, notions of personhood are relational rather than individual. This does not mean that individuals lack agency and distinction, but that the folk epics reflect a notion of individuality which is not autonomous but “indissolubly meshed into a social, relational world” in the words of Karin Barber.16 The human relational world is understood as analogous to crop cultivation, which operates in line with the same norms of personhood and kinship. During the annual round, the tiny seed becomes a green sprout in the nursery bed, a transplanted maiden in the paddy, a pregnant rice shoot, and finally, a golden mother-panicle, which after winnowing and hulling, becomes pearly grain-sons. The rich imaginative domain explored here appears as if in a world of its own. Few if any of the literati commentators of the past attempted to plumb its depths. Like Fan Chengda, they felt reassured by the laughter and songs of their tenant-farmers that a good harvest would result. Those who chose to comment on the content of the songs remarked on their “lewdness.” One can say that the moral parameters of rice-paddy farmers appear to be not so much “Confucian” as agrarian. The norms of rice cultivation—selection, transfer, and nurture— applied equally to the discipline of rice growing and to human procreation. This is possibly the most ancient memory transmitted in delta mountain songs, one that still shapes the imaginary of rice-growing zones across monsoonal Asia. Filial devotion (xiao 孝) was a fundamental virtue in the rural communities investigated here, but xiao in villages differed from that of cosmopolitan

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China: “Filial care of parents brings good fortune / Filial care of the fields leads to a crop of grain.” 17 At village level, xiao revolved around the family, field labor, and the community. The epitome of xiao was someone who saved his people from want. Village xiao had nothing to do with loyalty to the emperor or service to the state. The song communities of the lower Yangzi Delta belonged to a world of their own making that was also an intrinsic part of what we term “Chinese culture.” It is the so-called “fictional” world of Chinese culture that is most real to the singer-farmers of the delta. The heroes, gods, and supernatural figures of ritual, theater, and song are invoked in the essential tasks of calling for harvest blessings, exorcizing weeds, expelling the plague and “demonic” officials. When smoothing out the soil, the singer-farmer enacts the role of Pigsie exorcising demons, or Zhao Zilong wielding his spear in battle. He pulls up the villainous weeds with the vigor of the King of Hell. As he scythes the golden sheaves, he conjures up the “thousand-armed Guanyin” or “a dancing sword in battle.” At harvest time, he venerates his “ancestors,” some of the most venerable gods in the Chinese canon, such as Fu Xi, Shennong, and the spirits of the Five Grains. In songs of harvest blessings, people from many different pasts, actual and fictional, coalesce in the laboring body of the singerfarmer. There are some parallels between these songs of enactment and the role of a spirit medium calling on the ancestors and gods to possess their being. As Stephan Feuchtwang observes, in the performances of spirit mediums, the past “is telescoped, made simultaneous.”18 The singerfarmer, doubled over in the rice paddy, seeks to perform the role of the Celestial Master, who “could summon magic forces with his bare hands / His face turned towards the sacred water, his back towards the sky.” The songs examined here participate broadly in the same performative culture as the operas performed at village temples and the parades of the statues of the deities at temple festivals. As Jonathan Hay has observed of these informal performances, there is a “porous boundary” between actor and spectator and a sense in which the spectator is a “co-

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creator” of the performance.19 David Johnson, in his study of village opera in Shanxi, argues that in this region village opera exhibits extreme variation, to the level that every village ritual or festival performance is “unique.” He labels this phenomenon as “village ritual autarky,” a reference to the absence of “outside ritual or ideological authority,” and the accommodation of the autonomy of the village participants.20 This reminds us once again that we misunderstand Chinese culture if we consider only what is transmitted in written texts and ignore the ongoing renewal and recreation of Chinese culture that occurred at micro level in every village in the pre-contemporary era, creating a kaleidoscopic pattern of bewildering complexity. As the singer-farmer declares: “Each piece of land has its own special nature / The customs of one village could be taboo in the next.” The task of the scholar of Chinese regional culture is thus to demonstrate the way that communities used the environmental and cultural resources of their locality to create their own distinctive constructions of the cultural values and practices that could best ensure their prosperity into the future. The songs and folk epics of the Yangzi Delta nurtured and sustained the rural population over many generations. Invisible in Chinese textual history until the late twentieth century, these songs of the rice paddy present a unique record of a world that has now largely disappeared. As demonstrated here, the songs and folk epics offered a technology for the creation and transmission of significant “memories” among the largely illiterate population of the pre-contemporary era. These “memories” of events believed to have taken place in the past were created anew with each generation, each adaptation meeting the need of the contemporary age, each epichoric community in potential negotiation with other communities and with broader cosmopolitan culture. The songs capture a rich imaginative domain where the norms of humankind are integrated into the orderly, disciplined realm of the procreation of rice within the annual round. If humans can summon the blessings of the ancestors and expel noxious demons with the power of their labor and their songs, then the harvest will be good, and the community will survive to bear

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progeny into the future. Lack of diligence in rice cultivation, excessive libido in human society, and the demons of hatred and jealousy lead to catastrophe and death. In these cases, it is only in song that one can fittingly honor the lingering spirits of the aggrieved dead.

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Notes 1. Wuge wang de ge, 170, stanza 6. 2. He concluded this song with a couplet learned in the 1950s: “As for we poor people / It is only when the communist party came that we raised our heads.” This song is thus a combination of conventional imagery onto which is grafted sentiments belonging to the zeitgeist of the early socialist era. 3. Dong and Li, 20 shiji Jiang Zhe Hu, 31‒32. 4. Assman, “Transformations between History and Memory,” 61‒62. 5. “Xiao Wu guniang,” in Wuge wang de ge, 300, final stanza. This song was first published in 1982. 6. Bakker, “Epic Remembering,” 66. 7. Bakker, 67. 8. Assman, “Transformations between History and Memory,” 62. 9. “Shen Seventh Brother,” in Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 91, stanzas 3 and 4. 10. Hua Baoshan, “Childhood,” 37, stanza 1. 11. “Hua Mountain Lifter” is set in the Ming dynasty. Even here we are not told the name of the reigning emperor. 12. “Fifth Daughter,” in Wuge yichan jicui, “In the heavens there is a baleful comet,” 259. 13. “Shen Seventh Brother,” Wuge wang de ge, 330‒331. 14. Zhu, Zhu Hairong wenji, 487‒494 15. A classic example of the role of remembered stories in creating communities of resistance is the Camisard community of the Cévennes Mountains in the south of France. The Protestant Camisards passed down an oral tradition about their revolts against Royalist troops in the early eighteenth century. While their tales are not verifiable, they are seen to constitute “a community of resistance… that has continued to exist in the area until today”; see Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, 93. 16. Barber, The Anthropology of Texts, 109. 17. Proverbial saying 孝順父母有福, 孝順田地有谷; see Jiang, Daozuo wenhua, 264. 18. Feuchtwang, “Ritual and Memory,” 290. 19. Hay, “World-Making in Performance and Painting,” 34. 20. Johnson, Spectacle and Sacrifice, 68, 140–141.

Appendix The Folk Epic of Fifth Daughter This translation of highlights from the folk epic of “Fifth Daughter” is based on the transcripts sung by Lu Amei in 1981 without editing or revising.1 At a later date, selections from the original transcripts (with minor amendments) were reproduced as a “strung-together version.”2 Subsequently folk song scholars arranged the individual song sessions in perceived narrative order, excised material deemed inappropriate, and smoothed out anomalies to produce a readable text for a national readership.3 For the convenience of the reader, citations below are given to both the original transcripts and to the “strung-together version,” which has been published in a well-known anthology. 4 Folk epics in shan’ge style are narrated in a mixture of third-person narrative and dramatic speech. During a performance, the transition between third-person narrative and the dramatic mode would be clear to the audience by changes in voice timbre and the body language of the singer. In written form these indispensable clues are missing. I have sought to capture these transitions by adopting certain conventions, as follows: 1. Third-person narrative contains no quotation marks. 2. First-person voice expressing the inner thoughts of the character appears in single quotation marks. 3. Dramatic voice (second person voice) is placed in double quotation marks. Most stanzas comprise four lines with a varying number of syllables. It is common for one line (often the third line) to be considerably longer than the others. The singer also employed vocable syllables such as wu-

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a-hei-hei and other non-semantic syllables for dramatic effect. These are not reproduced in transcripts. The stanza presented next with accompanying text and a literal translation is the opening of the song session, “Meeting in the Paddy Fields.” 六月日头火喷喷， sixth month sun fire bursts forth 秧田一片绿茵茵. rice shoot fields all over green carpet 大男小女勒拉拿个稗草拔， adult men young women take up [knives] to cut the weeds 五姑娘腰背弯弯一双手臂晒得像烧焦格饭粢能介. Fifth Daughter’s waist back curved two arms burnt like cooked rice

Meeting in the Paddy Fields Singer: Lu Amei (undated).5 1. In the sixth month the sun shoots forth like fire, The paddy fields are fully green and lushly growing. Men and women, young and old, take up knives to cut the weeds, Fifth Daughter is bent at the waist, her two arms scalded like scorched rice cakes. 2. In the sixth month the sun shoots forth like fire, Cicadas in the tree branches make a merry din. If the Sky God sends no heat, then the rice grain will not mature, If Fifth Daughter does not weed in the fields the saosao will curse her and say she has lazy yellow sickness.6 3.

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If the rice shoots are not weeded, then they will not grow long, If grown up girls are not wed, then babies will not be born. Of ten paddy fields there are nine where people are singing mountain songs. Fifth Daughter wants to open her mouth to sing, but she doesn’t dare to choose a song about love affairs. 4. ‘If you sing a song of secret passion then people will gossip and talk a lot, They’ll say you’re just a seventeen-year-old maiden leading on your lover boy. They’ll say that the reason my face is yellow, and my eyes glazed and listless Is not because I worked in the fields day and night at my toil, but because I secretly grabbed a lover and coupled like wild fowl in the dead of night!’ 5. If the rice shoots are not weeded, they will not bear grain, The wind suddenly blew in a lover boy. On his shoulders is a pole with two paniers of rapeseed cakes shaped in arhat piles,7 The pole bends low with the five-foot load, but from his mouth booms mountain songs. 6. If the rice shoots are not weeded, then they will ripen late, Fifth Daughter heard a burst of wu hei wu hei and wondered to herself, ‘It is just like the Sky God sending thunder when there are no black clouds, Or like a swift hawk swooping to catch a fish when Lake Fen is a long way away.’8

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China 7. Which key will open which lock? When Fifth Daughter heard Atian’s song booming out she was bowled over. She saw he had a hempen broad-brimmed hat on his head, a short shirt on his back, his two feet were bare; he was walking past her on the banks of the fields. Her eyes were so bedazzled that she plucked up not weeds but rice seedlings! 8. When a man wants a woman, it’s as hard as crossing endless mountains, When a girl who wants a lover, it’s as easy as knocking down a plank of wood. Fifth Daughter saw that the young man had thick eyebrows, round panther eyes, and a hefty build. Transfixed, gazing at him, her soul followed Atian as he bore his load along the path. 9. If the Sky God sends no wind, then the trees will not stir, If you want to reel silk, you must first plunge it in boiling water. Fifth Daughter wanted to scoop up her man like picking up a cocoon and throwing it into the wok. Quietly, silently, she heaved the weeds at Atian as if sending him a token of her love. 10. If fated wills it, then even if you’re apart a thousand leagues, you’ll be sure to meet. On this day Atian was to meet with the good fortune of peach flowers.9 She took up the dripping wet weeds and it struck its mark,

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His sleeves and shirt now sodden and splattered with mud and dirt! 11. When those passing by saw Fifth Daughter throw her weeds at him, They thought that the young peddler would surely want to hurl abuse at her. “He’ll curse her as a cheap young baggage, He’ll say you’ve got eyes in your head, but why did you fling your weeds wildly this way, seeking out this poor fellow?” 12. When those passing by saw Fifth Daughter throw her weeds at Atian, they said, “That young peddler will be sure to cause trouble. If this happened to someone else, then people would come to her defense. But no one will go to help her, quite the reverse, once her brother finds out he’ll give her a good pummeling with his fists!” 13. When those passing by saw Fifth Daughter throw weeds at Atian, They called out, “Little Sister, run away quickly!” But Fifth Daughter heard this as wind past her ears, She remained in the rice paddy stock still, her eyes half-closed, smiling at Atian. 14. Xu Atian slowed down his pace, By now he’d lost two of his three souls. He saw the maiden’s face blush, Truly, her face was not bad at all! 15. Xu Atian slowed down his pace, He saw a young girl, greatly embarrassed, standing in the fields,

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China When she smiled, he saw two dimples the size of swans’ eggs, “Did you throw your weeds at me as a token of your love?” 16. Xu Atian slowed down his pace, Love longing racked the whole of his body. Fifth Daughter was unknowing, but he was just like the poplar and willow trees in full bloom in the second month, bursting green with intent.10 Atian took careful stock of where he was, which village and which spot, so that he could search for this fine girl and grab her in a love match. 17. The cicadas in the branches of the trees buzzed loudly. Fifth Daughter had no understanding at all, She kept on gazing at the young man with the paniers as he made his way on the distant road. Unwilling to weed, all she could do was smile and smile. 18. The cicadas in the branches of the trees buzzed loudly. Fifth Daughter could not have realized, That on this day a handful of weeds would lead her to fall into the Eight Trigram spider’s web that determines human destiny.11 Who could know it would destroy the two of them, that man and woman both would lose their lives!

The Green Gauze Curtains Sway and Swirl 12 Singer: Lu Amei, collected December 27, 1981 In this erotic song, the hired hand, Xu Atian, has secretly come to see Fifth Daughter in her room at night. As in many of Lu Amei’s songs, the final stanza ends on a note of suspense. The cunning saosao has overheard the lovemaking and has plans on the handsome young man herself.

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Chinese beds had four posts with curtains all around. In the first lines, the term “green gauze curtains” (qingsha luozhang 青紗羅帳), alludes to a “barrier” (zhang 障) shielding the young lovers from scrutiny. The curtains sway and swirl (youyou 悠悠), suggesting the activities taking place behind the curtains.13 The girl’s hair is said to be two zhang (丈) long (that is, is ten feet or 3.1 meters). This is hyperbole to describe very long hair. The place names in this song come from all around the delta region. The western region Xihengtou 西橫頭 (literally “western side”) refers to the western hinterland of Shanghai. Beiku 北庫 is located on the border of Lake Fen, on the eastern flank of Lake Tai. Liantang 練塘 is located further east in Qingpu County. Huzhou 湖州 is the area south of Lake Tai. Danyang 丹阳 is located north of Lake Tai in the Zhenjiang region. Peddlers traveled long distances on foot or by boat to bring local specialties to other areas of the delta. These lines reflect a sense of a deltawide community. The “water-chestnut feet” refer to small bound feet. 1. The green gauze curtains sway and swirl, Fifth Daughter and Xu Atian, both now coupling as one, Little sister, Fifth Daughter, her hair two zhang long, dangled over his shoulder like skeins of silk, It was just like a peddler from the western region setting off with parcels of silk to sell. 2. The green gauze curtains sway and swirl, Fifth Daughter and Xu Atian, both now coupling as one, Little sister, Fifth Daughter, extended her three-inch tongue into the mouth of her lover, It was just like the Big Sister from Beiku who rises early to bake sweet rice cakes. 3. The green gauze curtains sway and swirl,

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China Fifth Daughter and Xu Atian, both now coupling as one, Little sister, Fifth Daughter, stretched out her snowy white arm along the shoulders of her lover, It was just like the peddler from Liantang setting out to sell lotus roots in Huzhou.14 4. The green gauze curtains sway and swirl, Fifth Daughter and Xu Atian, both now coupling as one, Little sister, Fifth Daughter, placed her two boobs in her lover’s hands, It was just like the peddler from Danyang selling steamed bread. 5. The green gauze curtains sway and swirl, Fifth Daughter and Xu Atian, both now coupling as one, Little sister, Fifth Daughter, placed her little water-chestnut feet on her lover’s shoulders, It was just like a new top graduate erecting a triumphant archway on his return home. 6. The second watch passed and then the third one, Xu Atian felt tired lying on the ivory couch; his stomach empty, he called out in hunger, Fifth Daughter said, “Xu Atian has been lying here since the first watch, then the second watch, then the third watch at midnight; even if I had money there’s nowhere to buy food, But by my pillow I have a bunch of pitted dates and some hard rice cake.” 7. The third watch passed and then the fourth one, Fifth Daughter called on Xu Atian to depart by the stairway. For Xu Atian she combed her hair high in hibiscus style with two plaits,

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“Tomorrow night come back to my pillow to sleep with me again.” 8. “Come again, come again to sleep with me,” Fifth Daughter said tenderly to Xu Atian. “Now you know your way to my window on the south wall, return to your own quarters. Come again tomorrow night to sleep with me.” 9. While Fifth Daughter was coupling with her beloved within the green gauze curtains, The saosao in her own chamber was embroidering a perfume sachet. She wanted to embroider twelve sachets to give to the young hired hand as love tokens. ‘Having an affair with Atian will be much better than love on one’s wedding night!’

Your Lover is Tender in Years15 Singer: Lu Amei, collected June 1981 This erotic song takes the form of a dialogue between Fifth Daughter and Xu Atian. In the Chinese tradition, lovemaking is commonly described as an amorous battle. Here the singer draws an analogy between the “battle” of the lovers and the actual battle they will have with their community. Here Atian challenges his lover to prove she has sufficient fortitude to endure what lies ahead. The big stone vat (qi shi gang 七石缸) was used to store rice. In the first stanza, it is Xu Atian who is speaking; Fifth Daughter responds in the second, and so on. 1. “My love, you are tender in years, I see you in times to come with all those uncles and aunties like white cabbage moths, how can you endure three gusts of

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China strong winds and four days of heavy frost? Once, then twice, I’ll strike you till your heart is hot, Three times, four times, I’ll strike you till you’re good and ripe.” 2. “I, your lover, am tender in years, Yet I can endure the uncles and aunties with their rods of iron and cabbage heads; I can bear three strong winds and four days of heavy frost. Once, then twice, you strike right to my heart. Three times, four times, the more you strike, the more I feel refreshed.” 3. “My love, you are tender in years, I see that you have little strength, how will you resist them? I see you like the harrow beaten in the foundry without a fire, It can’t be ground on the whetstone.” 4. “I, your lover, am tender in years, Don’t look at my small stature, this little sister can resist them. I am like the harrow struck in the foundry with a strong fire, I can be ground on the whetstone.” 5. “My love, you are tender in years, I see you swimming by like the white-eyed water-snake, how can you drink up the ghost-haunted water of the Yangzi, sip by sip? You are like the open lotus flower in the sixth month, how can it bear three days of fierce storms and four days of heavy frosts?” 6. “I, your lover, am tender in years, I am like the Heavenly white-footed young dragon, your little

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sister can drink up every drop of the ghost-haunted water, Like the plum flower in the twelfth month at New Year, I can bear three days of fierce storms and four days of heavy frost.” 7. “My love, you are tender in years, I see you like the white-footed water-snake who swims up to fight with my green dragon, The tea pot from Yixing is easy to smash, but you are a sturdy stone vat!”

The Sister-in-law Catches the Fornicators16 Singer: Lu Amei, collected December 28, 1981 In this song the saosao is referred to as Asao. The hired hand has shown no interest in the wife of Yang Jinda and now she is determined to take action against the pair. This is a comic song; the fun lies in the way that the young girl tries to disguise her love affair. 1. Asao hid behind the door and listened to the amorous pair. When she heard the sound of talking, she was on fire with anger. Taking up a white copper stick,17 With a sound bingbang she rapped on the door. 2. The young girl heard the saosao rap on her door. She cursed the saosao, “You cheap hussy, you cheap whore! Your yourself want to have a love affair with him, but this will certainly fail, If you try to stop me in my affair, I’ll fight you to the death!” 3. When the saosao heard them talking, she became on fire with anger.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China Her eyebrows stuck up straight and her eyes were round as a bell. She raised the copper stick higher and higher, “I’ll knock down your door and catch you in the act!” 4. When the young girl heard her speak, she was on fire with anger. She cursed the saosao, “You cheap hussy, you cheap whore! All the aunts, all the cousins and womenfolk, came to squabble and make a fuss, Then one of them spent the night with me!” 5. The saosao realized the young girl would not confess. Her eyebrows stuck up straight and her eyes were round as a bell. She raised the copper stick higher and higher, “Those mats on your bed, how come there is the imprint of two people?” 6. When the young girl heard her speak, she was on fire with anger. She cursed the saosao, “You cheap hussy, you cheap whore! “Where can one find a young girl who sleeps in such a way That all night long till dawn breaks she does not move at all?” 7. When the saosao heard this reply, she was on fire with anger. She cursed the girl, “You’re really immoral, Last night your arms and pigtails were hung over the edge of the bed, It’s clear you’re having an affair!” 8. When the young girl heard her speak, she was on fire with anger, She cursed the saosao, “You cheap hussy, you cheap whore! “Last night I placed a sweat cloth over the side of the bed,

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Let my older brother come to take a look.” 9. When the saosao heard this reply, she was on fire with anger. She cursed the girl, “You’re really immoral, “Last night an Yixing spout-pot18 was placed on the plank, And a pair of small square-toed slippers by the foot of the bed.” 10. When the young girl heard her speak, she was on fire with anger. She cursed the saosao, “You cheap hussy, you cheap whore! Last night I placed a red clay tea pot on the plank,19 When the aunts and sisters came, one of the large-footed ladies placed her slippers at the foot of the bed.”20 11. When the saosao heard them talking she was on fire with anger. Her eyebrows stuck up straight and her eyes were round as a bell. “Last night you left the teacups all over the place on the Eight Immortals table,21 With melon seed kernels spat all over the chamber!” 12. When the young girl heard her speak, she was on fire with anger. She cursed the saosao, “You cheap hussy, you cheap whore! Last night when the aunts and sisters came, two of them came to dally and drink tea, They spat melon seeds all over the bed chamber.” 13. When the saosao heard them talking she was on fire with anger. She burst through the maiden’s door to catch her secret lover, The thirty-six boxes [for her dowry] she smashed to pieces, But in not a single box could she find anyone at all.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China 14. In the young girl’s room on the ivory couch were one by nine makes nine, two by nine makes eighteen, three by nine makes twenty-seven, four by nine makes thirty-six in all soft silken coverlets, “Who is it hiding in the thirty-six soft silken coverlets?” Now her lover was captured, her tears poured down in torrents, On bended knee, the young girl clasped her hands together and knelt to the saosao standing by the door, “Saosao, in the end we’re all one family, Allow Brother Xu Atian to return to his home, The Xu family have three mu of fields and bamboo gardens and only this single root is left!”22

In the Heavens There is a Baleful Comet23 Singer: Lu Amei, collected April 8, 1981 Fifth Daughter lives at Fangjia Creek, which is also the home village of Lu Amei. In this song session, the malicious saosao lures her husband to bed to put him in the right mood to submit to her will. The saosao is referred to as “a baleful comet” (saozhou xing 掃帚星), also known as “the Broom Star.” The Broom Star has a long sweeping tail and is an omen of disaster. The Broom Star features as the wife of Jiang Ziya 姜子牙 in the wellknown saga relating to the Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi 封神 演義) known to delta populations through regional opera, storytelling, and the Ming novel of the same name. In this song session, the imagery of baleful influences conveys the singer’s understanding of the underlying family dynamics that will lead to the ruin of the young lovers. 1. In the heavens there is a baleful comet, On the earth there is a black fish demon, Of all the black fish demons, the most evil has seven stars [marks] on its head.

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Of all the households at Fangjia Creek, the most evil is the one with that hot-pepper minx! 2. The hot-pepper minx is the long-tongued one in the household of Yang Jinda. She has a face like the leaf of a loquat tree, With bristles on both front and back, When her eyes roll, her heart is heavier than iron. 3. After many years of the chaos of war there was no peace on the shores of Fen Lake. Of ten households, nine shut their doors tightly as soon as it gets dark. On this day Yang Jinda retired to bed early, He set up an oil lamp and began to smoke his opium water pipe. Two coils of smoke wafted up to the sky, his pipe emitted a pungent smell. When he’d been smoking for a while, he felt his strength renewed. 4. The long-tongued woman saw the man was idle and doing nothing much. She smiled and tittered at him, saying, “All day till night you’ve worn yourself out with work, It would be best to go to your bed made by Ningbo 寧波 carpenters in six days by six, thirty-six days in all, and sixty-six days extra to do the exquisite carvings and cunningly wrought fretwork, to revive your spirits.24 5. When Yang Jinda heard this, he felt secretly pleased, “Since my wife and I bowed in the hall [at the marriage ceremony] it is now three times three, nine years in all, All that time she’s either been pulling nasty faces at me or glaring

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China at me with her eyes sticking out. Who could have thought that today it would be like the festival of Nun Huang? But now my boat is setting off with smooth seas and a fair wind!”25 6. Yang Jinda laughed, his eyes narrowing, as he got up. His wife helped him take his clothes off. The long magua jacket she hung up on a crouching-dragon golden hook,26 The hat with the pointed top she placed carefully on the dressing table. 7. Yang Jinda laughed, his eyes beaming, as he got up. His wife helped him take his clothes off. She removed his embroidered fancy patterned boots and placed them on the plank. His tightly fitting short shirt and trousers were left draped over the bed. 8. Yang Jinda laughed, his eyes beaming, as he got up. His wife helped him take his clothes off. She took all his clothes off till one saw the shiny skin And something like a rubber hammer that was jumping and leaping around. 9. The hot-pepper minx turned away and took off her clothes. She removed the golden hair clasp from her head and placed it by the pillow. She took off the green parrot jacket and her trousers with the red silk rolled up hems, She folded up her clothes and draped them across the bed.

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10. The hot-pepper minx turned away and took off her own clothes. She drew out her three-inch tightly curled up small golden lotuses and placed her slippers, embroidered with climbing flowers, on the plank by the bed. Her tightly fitting short shirt and trousers she draped across the bed. Her two boobs, soft like the steamed bread sold by Dangyang peddlers, bobbed up and down. 11. The hot-pepper minx took all her clothes off, one by one. Her face all smiles, displaying her fine tender flesh as she got into bed. Yang Jinda was just like the Xietang 斜塘 peddlers bearing paniers of lotus roots on their way to Suzhou town, Going off to do some business and then indulging in some play. 12. The small ivory bed with its four corner posts was just like a walled-in town, On both sides of the bed the curtain hooks were gold with silver inlay. Thus, it comes about that many sturdy men and brave heroes Plunge down on the pillow as if into a deep blue lake.

Lamenting Through the Five Watches of the Night27 Singer: Lu Amei, collected April 2, 1981 Now that the saosao has got the full attention of her husband, Yang Jinda, she works on his emotions to the point where he feels compelled to force his younger sister to take her own life. This song relies on an ancient poetic form known as tan wugeng 嘆五更, literally “lamenting through the five watches of the night.” Night watchmen would mark each watch

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with the beat of a drum. The fifth watch marks the coming of dawn. In this song session, the singer has added additional “watches” to extend the narrative to its grim denouement. The tan wugeng type of song was often employed in songs of lament or songs of love longing. The singer deploys this form to build up tension as well as to convey a long period of time. 1. At the first watch at the first stroke, the moon begins to rise in the east, The long-tongued saosao determines on her evil plan. Without opening her mouth, tears poured like yellow bean seeds down her face. This left Yang Jinda all at sea, like trying to rub the head of a tenfoot temple god, you can’t reach it. “Our Yang family stores of grain are so full that the moth-borers are at work, Beneath the house we stashed away red-painted boxes of white silver ingots. The year has three hundred and sixty-five days in all. We have firewood, rice, oil and salt, every kind of food stuff, we have everything we need. All the copper keys on strings for the front door of the Yang house right down to the rear door, and all the keys for the inner chambers and the outer chambers, every single one is in your keeping. What is it that has made you leak tears like a run-down fir-wood basin that, when filled with water, constantly drips down?” 2. At the second watch at the second stroke, the moon had reached the tips of the trees. The long-tongued saosao wrinkled her brow and pulled a gloomy face. She said, “Cold rice, cold congee, I could eat these, But the fatal airs blocked up in this house, how can I endure that? The white rice in the upper chamber, the silver in the lower

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chamber, I have no heart to look after these. The keys for the front door and the back door, for the inner chambers and the outer chambers, I’ve flung them down near the bed.” When Yang Jinda heard his precious wife say this he thought she must be ill. He said to her, “Shall we get a doctor to come to our house?” Then the hot-pepper minx ground her teeth and hissed, “You stupid idiot, who would have thought that our sparrows’ nest is harboring a stinking turtle dove?” 3. At the third watch at the third stroke, the moon shone high in the sky. The long-tongued saosao, the more she spoke the more she became livid with anger. She said, “It looks like you’ve got your head in a calabash, Who could have known that in the Yang family it is a case of slicing the scallion to reveal both sides are hollow! Who could have known that the rear door, so tightly locked away, was opened wide by your good little sister? At midnight at the third watch the mice were so terrified they could not find a safe hole to hide in.” When Yang Jinda heard this, at first he failed to understand it, ‘She says that the rear door was open to the southeast wind.’ The long-tongued saosao tapped his face sharply with her finger, “I’m telling you that your younger sister has taken a secret lover; you have been her bodyguard and watchman!” 4. At the fourth watch on the fourth stroke, the golden cock crowed, Yang Jinda urged his wife not to tell tales or spread gossip. He said, “Don’t listen to idle slander and gossip, Our young fifth sister is in every way a good and proper maid.” The long-tongued saosao became enraged. She cursed him, “Jinda, the skin on your face is so thick, it’s three feet three inches thick.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China People want face just as trees want bark, Such a big brave man, how come you have no guts? You’re simply treating this hired hand, Atian, as your adopted son, You’ll be keeping him all your life and handing over our little girl to him!” 5. At the fifth watch on the fifth stroke, the dawn star appeared. The long-tongued saosao spoke fiercely, just like the beating of a bamboo stick. She said, “The large tree by the door has attracted a wild bird, Along the eaves of the roof snakes glide because the weeds grow lush. When girls grow up the saosao should take great care. It’s just like having eight hundred dan of smuggled salt stored by the side of the river.28 By day I fear robbers coming to loot, By night we must ward off thieves who come to steal. Fifth Daughter has already started to get lovelonging, By day she makes eyes at the hired hand, she raises her eyebrows to flirt with him, making come-on glances, At night the two of them are like an old married couple sleeping on the same bed. Just wait until your little sister’s belly puffs up like the bitterling fish, And you, dear brother, will then be totally humiliated. Your fresh flower, Fifth Daughter, has already been sucked like a bee at pollen, I’ve been keeping watch this past three days, and I’ve noticed he did not leave through the gate in the wall.”29 6. “When Fifth Daughter knew I had exposed her little scheme, she wanted to stop my mouth. She tried to induce me to work hand in glove with her and make him sleep with me. Fortunately, this wife is upright and behaved properly.

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If not, you, Jinda, would get to wear a turtle’s green cap. You’ve been turning a blind eye to these wild mandarin ducks, allowing them to form a pair! Further, they have already prepared brocade, satin, silks, and fine goods. Sooner or later, they’ll make off with these and flee to other parts. You’ve almost played the role of a turtle, with your gold, silver, and valuables all stolen clean away!”30 7. When the sun rose, one could say it was the sixth watch. As Yang Jinda heard this he felt as if shot through the breast by wild arrows. “That yellow-haired little girl has now changed into an eighteen-year-old young woman. She’s changed so much she’s become totally immoral. This offence to public decency, how can we forgive her? The glorious banner of the Yang household has been torn to shreds by this one person. If you want to push out sunshine from the room, then you must shut the door early! Before the flood waters arrive, one must shore up the embankments, Thank heavens for you, my wife and pillow partner, who told me the true story. Otherwise, I, Jinda, would have let the yellow-haired wolf into the chicken coop. My lady, you are a fine and virtuous wife, You bear all the wifely virtues, peerless in the world!” 8. When the hot-pepper minx heard this, it was as if a string of keys hung from her heart, Or as if seven jin and four liang of sweet-honeyed sugar had been poured bit by bit, little by little, into her stomach.31 Jinda called on his servants not to breathe a word of this. He said, “If the sky falls in, I will prop it up.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China Those two having an affair are like crazed chickens wanting to suckle milk. Just as the land beneath Fen Lake will not transform into a racecourse, And as the sun will not rise from the western sky, So, this hired hand will never get the Fifth Daughter of the Yang house!” 9. When the sixth stroke of the sixth watch had finished ringing out, Yang Jinda’s face was now as crimson as the statues of the ferocious guardian spirits in the Temple to the City God. With one blow he grabbed Fifth Daughter and held her firmly by her three feet of silken tresses, Just like a hawk in the sky swooping down on a tiny sparrow. He put this question to her, “Life or death, this choice will be up to you. If you don’t break off your affair, you can hide away at midday, but at midnight you’ll have to meet the God of the Underworld.” Fifth Daughter was heart-broken, her tears poured down. The long-tongued saosao brought out a knife and a length of rope, Fifth Daughter saw that poison had filled entirely the heart, lungs, and stomach of her brother and saosao. She said, “My own brother, in cutting bamboo shoots you don’t remove the roots.” 10. Now the fifth watch has rung out, we’ll add another three watches of the night, A cauldron of hot oil had been poured into Fifth Daughter’s heart. She wailed and lamented bitterly to her own brother, dear older brother, She raised her hands and begged, “Let your own little sister continue her love affair.” Yang Jinda clapped his hands, stamped his feet, and cursed her ceaselessly, He said, “You foolish little girl, you’re like a mosquito biting a

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statue of the Buddha, you’ve mistaken your target.32 That hired hand, Atian, is so poor he only owns a single chopstick. If you go to their home how on earth will you live?” Fifth Daughter replied to him, clear and crisp, She said, “I’ll toil with my two hands and rely on Heaven to provide for me!”

The Bitter Chinaberry33 Singer: Lu Amei, collected April 9, 1981 Fifth Daughter elopes with Xu Atian. Meanwhile, the millstone shed at the Fang household catches fire and a corpse is brought out. Yang Jinda believes it is the body of Fifth Daughter. It is in fact the body of Fourth Daughter who has sacrificed her own life so that her sister could elope with Atian. In order to prevent the neighbors from knowing about the scandalous love affair, Yang Jinda and his wife put on a show of mourning the loss of Fifth Daughter. The saosao wants to ensure that Fifth Daughter cannot come back as an avenging ghost to make trouble. She determines to bury her corpse beneath the tall chinaberry tree, whose tenacious roots will surely hold down her ghost and not let it escape to wreak havoc in the world of mankind. The chinaberry tree is known for its bitter poisonous fruit. The final line refers to the Temple to the City God, which featured murals of the tortures of hell. 1. Yang Jinda, by the side of the millstone shed, turned this way and that. In his heart he was secretly very happy, ‘Fifth Daughter’s ghost has gone to the Western Heaven. I have avoided throwing away a barrel of money to some other person’s home.’34 2. Yang Jinda, by the side of the millstone shed, turned this way and that.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China He was so happy he became delirious with joy, “A skein of tangled silk has today been unraveled, If she had not had an affair with that hired hand, how could it come about that she would die in the fire?” 3. At Yang Jinda’s home his wife set to wailing, The cats bawled after the mice called out piteously.35 “All our kinsfolk and close friends, look on us kindly, Our good fifth sister never left home, I urged her day after day to just eat her meals and be at her leisure, Don’t listen to gossip, today disaster has struck!” 4. As for the hot-pepper minx, the sound of her sobbing carried three leagues away, “My small sister is nowhere to be found in the world. At grinding rice and reeling silk she was quick of hand and foot and had good eyes. How is it that good people do not come to good ends?” 5. She slapped her buttocks36 and tried to throw herself into the fire. The old ladies watching the fire called out in alarm, “Auntie, auntie, don’t grieve so, you might do yourself some harm. Those who light incense in good faith will always be rewarded.”37 6. Fifth Sister’s body was cooked dry like charred rice crust, When others saw it, they took fright, They covered her body with a mat of reeds, And bought a coffin to place her in. 7.

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The saosao’s conscience was all crooked, As she wept and cried an idea came to her, ‘We can set up a stone monument in her remembrance, And by the southeast we can plant a bitter chinaberry tree.’ 8. The chinaberry tree’s branches are tall, The hot-pepper minx wanted Fifth Daughter to suffer in the next life even more than she had in this life, ‘The tree roots will pin down her ghost so that it cannot move away, She will be tied down in hell as surely as to the millwheel in the Temple to the City God; there she’ll be ground like prawn sauce, with no way to sweep up her corpse’!

A Heavenly Fire Destroys the Yang Family Home38 Singer: Lu Amei, collected September 1981 Heaven was cold, the earth was frozen, Outside the wind blew from the north-west. The Yang family home was destroyed by a fire from Heaven, Passers-by could only put their hands in their sleeves and watch as the central chamber was burnt to the ground.

Xu Atian Steals the Spirit Tablets39 Singer: Lu Amei, collected May 1981 1. When the Qingming Festival came around, the little boy shrilled and trilled on his flute.40 Atian felt sick at heart, On this day he planned to go to Fangjia Creek to visit the new grave, He wanted to visit Fifth Daughter’s grave to weep and wail.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China 2. At the time of Qingming, ‘ghostly lights’ flit along the banks throughout the night,41 At every spot mourners add more earth to make the grave mounds big and tall. At the graves of others, people were piling up the earthern mounds, But no one tended to the grave of Fifth Daughter; Atian’s heart was on fire. 3. Atian’s heart was on fire, He wanted to journey to Fangjia Creek, But knew that Yang Jinda would try to catch him. He thought, ‘If I go into the village and came across his wife, she will harass me to the point where I won’t be able to fly away or leap up high!’ 4. Xu Atian’s heart was on fire, ‘Fifth Daughter has sacrificed her life for me, Atian, Sharing a bed for one day leads to a hundred days of affection.’ To repay the favors of his beloved, Atian feared not that his whole body would be scaled like a fish piece by piece! 5. Speaking of repaying favors, one must repay favors. He posed as a peddler selling sugar and went to visit the new grave. In the front bamboo basket were concealed paper money and heated wine, In the back bamboo basket were hidden four dishes—one vegetarian and three with meat. 6. Speaking of repaying favors, one must repay favors.

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Passersby thought he was just a man with a head-cloth selling sugar. How could they know it was Atian when he took a step forward? His pair of baskets rocked from side to side, his two eyes brimmed with tears. 7. We’ll talk of something strange, something truly strange, At midnight he went to the grave. In the third month of spring, mourners, bemoaning the swift passage of the night, returned home to sleep. Alone at the grave mound, Xu Atian kept up his piteous weeping and wailing. 8. He made the new grave big and tall, On both sides he planted poplars and willow trees. Three bricks served as the ritual platform, On four sides there was no one, only a few small dogs from the village howled and whined. 9. ‘My dear little sister, little sister, In the wild fields you are alone and untended, you’ve really suffered! At the seven rounds of mourning, there is no one to call the Daoist priests to recite the scriptures of repentance, On eight sides, you contend on your own with the wind and frost!’ 10. ‘I have brought sacrificial food and wine for you, beloved sister, try some of this. Forget not how in the tenth month last year we spent a happy time together in the fragrant room, We hid our love from your brother and his wife and drank some wine to seal our hearts as one.

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Memory Making in Folk Epics of China How could we have known that on this day we two lovers would be rent in two, you in your grave mound of yellow-brown earth; I call out to my little sister, but there is no response!’ 11. He used his chopsticks to place a little food on top of the grave mound, ‘I ask my little sister to take up the food offering and taste a little. If you still lived in this world, you would be happy to eat food made by your dear brother, Today try to eat this dish; if the flavor is not right it’s because your dear brother has added a dollop of goldthread soup.’42 12. Xu Atian raised the wine to her and then the food, But he saw no sign at all from Fifth Daughter. He wept and wailed, collapsing at the grave mound, calling out, “Little sister!” Clasping the fragrant grass on the mound, his head fell so hard that it was as if a roller had gone right over the ground, tearing the leaves from their stems one by one.

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Notes 1. See Wu guniang ziliaoben. 2. Another session from Lu Amei was added at this stage, “Meeting in the Paddy Fields.” 3. Jiangnan shi da minjian xushi shi, 171‒264. For details, see McLaren and Zhang, “Recreating ‘Traditional’ Folk Epics.” 4. Wuge yichan jicui, 196‒310. Glosses provided in Wuge yichan jicui are also translated here. 5. Wuge yichan jicui, 207‒210. 6. The word saosao refers to the wife of Yang Jinda, who is the older brother of Fifth Daughter. “Lazy yellow sickness” lan huang bing 懒黄病 is an illness akin to hepatitis that makes one’s face yellow, makes eating difficult, and causes lassitude. This can also be interpreted as snail fever (schistosomiasis). 7. Die luohan 疊羅漢 refers to the pyramidal shape of the huge pile of seed cakes. 8. “Wu hei wu hei” is often song as the refrain or opening line of folk songs in this region. The next two lines refers to two impossibilities or absurdities. 9. Taohua yun 桃花運 means to have the good fortune that someone reveals their love for you. 10. The word qing 青 (green) is also a pun for qing 情 (passion). 11. The eight trigrams (eight sets of three broken or unbroken lines) have been used in fortune-telling since ancient times. A spider’s web in the form of the Eight Trigrams symbolized marriage in popular iconography. Eight Trigram spider web symbols were carved on the exterior walls of homes in the Jiangnan region, see Knapp, China’s Living Houses, 121, fig. 7.45. In popular stories and ballads, spiders can take on the form of seductive young women. If they engage in battle, then their magical eight-sided web can easily defeat opponents, see Idema, Insects in Chinese Literature, 151‒153, 201‒203. 12. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 118‒120; and Wuge yichan jicui, 234‒235. 13. On the meaning of youyou as “swaying seductively,” see Oki and Santangelo, Shan’ge, 144. 14. Lotus roots are regarded as soft and white. 15. Wu guniang ziliaoben, 91‒93. Not included in other renditions.

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16. Wu guniang ziliaoben, 129‒134; Wuge yichan jicui, 236‒239. 17. “White copper” baitong 白銅 is an alloy made of nickel and copper. It was commonly used for candlesticks. 18. The Yixing yehu 宜興夜壺 is a clay pot with a long spout used by men to urinate in at night. 19. The zisha hu 紫砂壺 is a type of dark red clay teapot made in Yixing 宜 興 in southern Jiangsu Province. This type of stoneware is also known as boccaro. 20. Poorer women in the delta did not have their feet bound. A “large-footed” woman is one who had natural feet. 21. The Eight Immortals Table (baxian zhuo 八仙卓) is a varnished timber table that can seat up to eight people. 22. Three mu is equivalent to half an acre. Xu Atian is the only son left in the family line, in line with the popular saying, “the son is the living root of the family” (erzi shi ming gen 兒子是命根). Only sons could carry on the family line. 23. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 159‒161; Wuge yichan jicui, 257‒259. 24. Ningbo is a coastal town known for its fine furniture. 25. The historical Huang Daopo (黄道婆) was a Daoist nun who brought the technique of cotton cultivation and spinning to the delta region in the thirteenth century. She was venerated in shrines in the late imperial era. 26. The magua (馬褂) was a waist-length jacket worn by men before the contemporary era. 27. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 162‒166; Wuge yichan jicui, 262‒265. 28. One dan (担) is around 110 pounds or 50 kilograms. In other words, a huge amount. 29. In the original transcripts the saosao declares that Fifth Daughter, a fresh flower, has fallen into a pile of ox shit with Atian. 30. Turtle (wugui 烏龜) refers to a cuckold. This stanza is only found in Wuge yichan jicui. 31. A jin (斤) is equivalent to around 0.5 kilograms or 1.1 pounds. Ten (or sometimes 16) liang (兩) made up a jin. 32. The popular saying goes “the mosquito bites the statue of the bodhisattva, believing it is alive” (wenzi ding pusa rencuo ren 蚊子叮菩薩 認錯人). 33. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 205‒206; and Wuge yichan jicui, 296‒297. 34. The Western Heaven is paradise in the Buddhist faith. Yang rejoices that he no longer needs to go to the expense of a dowry to marry off his younger sister.

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35. A common saying expressing hypocrisy. Cats eat mice and do not mourn their deaths. 36. A gesture when someone departs. Here it is a histrionic gesture signalling her spurious intention to harm herself. 37. That is, those who have done pious deeds and acts of mercy will be rewarded. 38. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 224; and Wuge yichan jicui, 306. 39. Wu guniang ziliao ben, 225‒227; and Wuge yichan jicui, 307‒308. Only the first twelve stanzas are presented here. 40. At the Qingming festival, which occurs in spring, it was customary to visit the tombs of deceased family members. The ox-herder sitting on an ox and playing his flute is a traditional image indicating the coming of spring. 41. These are phosphorescent lights representing the spirits of the dead. 42. Huanglian is a bitter herbal medicine and famine food.

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Index

abduction, xxxi, 57, 62, 74, 115–116, 129, 139, 151, 153, 167, 171, 217–218 abortion, xxv, 51, 54 agency, xxi, 220 creativity, xx, 188, 204, 214, 218 agrarian ideal, 2, 8, 48 agricultural songs. See also songs of the rice paddy agricultural tools, 211 harrow, 8, 18, 38, 40, 212, 234 iron-nailed rake, 8, 38 pedal water wheel, 28 spike-toothed harrow, 18 square pallet chain pump, 9 agricultural work, xviii, xxii, xxix, xxxvi, 3, 32, 103, 122, 212 agriculture, 2–3, 33, 40–41, 44, 62, 77, 79–80, 84, 87, 106, 203 innovations during the Song era, 7 prime duty of the emperor, 8 See also rice cultivation Aguilar JR, Filomeno V., 41 Ahuja, S.C., 39 Anagnost, Ann, xxxvi ancestor, xix, xxx, 3, 9, 19–20, 34–35, 79, 81, 88, 99, 103, 106, 127, 133, 181–182, 202, 221–222 ancestor of rice cultivation, 82, 87 See also “Shen Seventh Brother” ancestral rituals, 66, 163, 181 Andersen, Poul, 107 animals, 11, 78, 92–93, 95, 101, 103,

animals (continued), 198, 217 See also birds, locusts, oxen, rhinoceros, spiders annual round, xxix, 2, 12, 20–21, 28, 34, 83–84, 86, 89, 119, 121, 216, 220, 222 See also calendar antiphonal songs, 11, 17, 40, 46, 59, 123 aolang ge (Songs of love longing), xiv army for justice, 172, 175–178, 187, 190, 202 Asia, ix, xxxv, 12, 21, 39, 41, 220 Assman, Aleida, 213–214, 224 Austronesian people, 41, 104 authenticity, xiii, xx, xxiii, xxxii–xxxiii, 50, 72, 191, 203 Baimao, 21, 24, 26–30, 41–43, 50, 59, 67, 74 Bai Liujie, 54 Bakker, Egbert J., 214, 224 ballad, viii, xxiii, 106, 119, 122, 135–136 banditry, xix, xxxi, 171–173, 177, 179, 181, 185, 205, 244 Bao Liujie, 54, 116 Barber, Karin, xxxvi, 220 beds, xiv, 150, 162, 217–218, 231, 236–237, 239, 241 Beecroft, Alexander, xviii Beijing, xvi, xxxiii–xxxiv, 175 belief systems, xxx–xxxii, 2, 9, 17–18, 20–21, 36, 63, 112,

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belief systems (continued), 114–115 See also birds, deities, demons, fertility, Fierce General Liu, Goumang, Governor cult, Grain Spirit, Rice Goddess, ritual technology, sacred rules Bell, Lydia, 205 Bender, Mark, xxxiv–xxxvii, 189, 207–208 Berezkin, Rostislav, 74, 189, 202, 208 Bernhardt, Kathryn, 176–177, 205, 207 birds, 68, 82–83, 85–86, 88–89, 92–94, 97, 100–103, 115, 124, 148, 150, 197–198, 200, 220, 244 “bird fields,” 99 bird motifs, 96 bird song, 96 guardians of the rice crop, 9, 18, 99 hundred birds motif, 19, 98–99 Lantern Dance of the Hundred Birds (bai niao deng hui), 108 Birrell, Anne, 70 Blackburn, Stuart H., xxiv, xxxvii–xxxviii boats, xxviii, xxxv, 5, 10, 36, 39, 46, 48, 51–52, 56–57, 59–60, 73, 113, 117–118, 121, 126, 129–130, 132, 135, 140–142, 144–146, 148–149, 151–152, 155, 157–161, 191–192, 201, 211, 213–214, 217–218, 231, 240 boatman, 11, 29–31, 162 dredger, 147 rocking boat, 29, 43, 86 boat carvings, 141–142, 146, 217 boat songs, xxxv book market, 46, 57, 73

Børdahl, Vibeke, ix, xxxiv Boretz, Avron A., 175, 205 bound feet, 29, 168, 231, 241, 254 Bray, Francesca, 8, 12, 31, 33, 37–41, 43 Breuer, Rüdiger, x bridal laments, xxxv Briggs, Charles L., 105 Brook, Timothy, 38 Broom Star (comet), 238 brothels, 49–50, 53, 56, 71–72, 217 Buddhism, 14, 23–24, 56, 60, 106, 115, 128, 156, 161, 168, 247, 254 Bunzl, Matti, xxxvi Bussche, Eric Vanden, xxxv Cai Fengming, 41, 107 Cai Limin, xxxiii calendar, 14, 20, 41 Cao Haoliang, 24 Carpenter Lu, 86, 105 Cass, Victoria, 71 Celestial Master Zhang ("Zhang Tianshi", "Celestial Master"), 17, 40, 89, 93, 107 censorship, 55–57, 66, 73, 90, 141, 154, 182 Chabrowski, Igor Iwo, xxxv Chang, Te-Tzu, 18–19, 41 changben (song texts), xxvii, 55–58, 73, 90, 119, 140–141, 144, 154–156 Chang’e (Lady of the Moon), 18–19 Changshu, 5, 21, 24, 26–30, 39, 47, 50, 59, 67, 70–71, 144, 149–150, 179, 189 chastity, 116–117, 143–144, 146, 150–151, 155, 163–164 Che Xilun, 73 Chen Fan Pen, 72–73 Chen Qinjian, 39–40, 108, 206

Index Chen the Tiler (Chen Wapian), xxv, 67, 208 Chen Third Daughter, 113, 132 Chen Yaode, 15 Chen Yixin, 44 Cheng Wei, 43 chinaberry tree, 115, 131, 247, 249 Chinese character script, xxvii, xxxii, xxxviii Chinese Communist Party, xxii, xxviii, 41, 177, 181, 186, 205, 207, 224 Chong Jiu, 57, 73 chuanben (strung together texts), xxvii, 225 Chuansha, 143, 166 City God, 131, 180, 246–247, 249 Chuci (Songs of Chu), 70 Clark, Hugh R., 104 Classical Chinese, xvii, xxxiv Clifford, James, xxi, xxxvi, 208 clothing, 10, 27–28, 30, 36, 79, 95, 97, 114, 117, 123, 126–128, 135–136, 140, 142, 148, 154, 162, 197, 217, 228–229, 240–241, 254 Coblin, W. South, xxxiv Cohen, Myron L., xxxvi Cohn, Bernard S., xxix, xxxviii, 189, 208 communal identity, xv, xxiv communal labor, 3 community, vii, x, xiv, xvi–xix, xxii–xxiv, xxvi–xxvii, xxx–xxxii, xxxv, xxxvii, 2–3, 9–10, 19, 23, 31, 33–35, 41, 45, 63, 65–66, 69, 79, 82–84, 89, 92, 95, 101–103, 111, 113, 116, 124, 132–133, 151, 153, 165, 171, 173, 179–180, 188, 190, 203–204, 211, 214, 216, 218–222, 224, 231, 233 Condominas, Georges, xxxv–xxxvi,

283 Condominas, Georges (continued), 35, 44 Confucian Analects, The (Lunyu), 104 cosmopolitan culture, xiv, xvii–xix, 2, 41, 48, 69, 77, 81–82, 103, 216, 220–222 courtesans, 46–47, 49–50, 71, 134 Cui Fanzhi, 104 cultural intimacy, xv, xxxiii Cultural Revolution, xxii, 14, 85, 181, 187, 212 culture of the locality, xvi–xix culture heroes, xv, xxv, 78, 80, 102 cursing, 19, 61, 126, 226, 229 Da Yu (Great Yu, flood-myth hero), xvi–xvii, 84, 99, 105 Daoism, 40, 75, 87, 89, 101, 106–107, 175, 201, 251, 254 See also Celestial Master Zhang, Sacred Grotto, Three Mao Lords, Zhang Daoling, Zhang Liang Davis, Sara L.M., xxxvi deforestation, 10 deities, xxx, xxxiv, xxxvi, 13–14, 16, 18, 21, 32, 35–36, 40–41, 56, 79, 86–88, 96, 102, 105–107, 109, 133–134, 158–159, 174, 178–180, 183, 186, 190, 196, 202, 205, 221, 238 rice spirit. See Rice Goddess See also God of Hell, God of Millet, God of Wealth, Goumang, Governor Cult, Grain Spirit, Fu Xi, Nüwa, Pan Gu deities controlling nature, 195, 200, 226–228

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demons, xix, 16–19, 26, 39, 95, 107, 130, 136, 145, 173, 178–179, 183–184, 187, 194, 196, 203, 205–206, 217, 221–223 baleful comet, 224, 238 demon baby, 195, 218 fatal airs, 242 plague demon, 195 Deqing, xvi, xxxiii Dikötter, Frank, xxxv, 43–44 diluo sheng (song style), 121 Ding Richang, 56, 72–73, 90, 107, 141, 154 Ding, Shumei, 72 Dingzha, viii, 11 Dong Jianbo, 224 Dong Yong, 108 Dongting, vii, xxix, 18, 66–68, 75, 82, 85–86, 107, 175, 181, 183, 185, 192 Dongyang, 14, 96 Dongyue (Eastern Peak Deity, 87, 106 dragon, 2, 11, 35, 88–89, 91–92, 94, 98, 106, 113, 118, 135, 143, 151, 161–162, 173–176, 178, 185, 187, 189, 193–202, 207, 218–219, 234–235, 240 Dragon Lady, 113 Dragon Mountain, 88, 91, 94, 98, 175 Dragon Pavilion, 193 Dream of the Red Chamber, 56, 73 Duanwu Festival, 20, 118, 135 Eastern Jin Dynasty, 7 Eastern Ocean, 2 editor, ix, xxvi, xxix, 123, 182, 188–189, 191, 225, 305 Eighteen Gropes, The, 57 Elvin, Mark, 38, 42–43

embroidery, 29, 52, 64, 118, 123, 127, 135–136, 145, 150, 158, 217, 233 Emperor Jianwen, 7 environment, 2, 6, 37–38, 42, 46, 65, 96, 177, 215 ecological knowledge, 3 influence on song traditions, xxxvi, 12, 61 marshlands, xix, 83 polder environment, 12 waterscape, xix, 5 wilderness, 77, 81, 83, 88, 91–93, 101, 103, 109 See also birds, deforestation, flowers, images of the south, Lake Tai, land reclamation, rice cultivation, sacred mountains, sense of place, water epichoric texts, xviii–xix, xxxvi, 103, 222 epics, vii–x, xii, xiv–xv, xvii–xix, xxi–xxvii, xxix–xxxii, xxxv–xxxviii, 1, 4, 9, 18, 25, 30–31, 39, 42–43, 45–47, 49, 51–54, 62, 65–69, 77, 79–84, 87, 89, 95–96, 99–101, 103, 107–109, 111–112, 115–116, 122–124, 130, 132–134, 136, 139, 143, 153–156, 159, 162, 164, 167, 171–174, 176–177, 180, 182, 185, 187–192, 202–205, 207–209, 211, 213–220, 222, 224–225, 253 See also folk epics erotic material, xv, xxvi, xxxii–xxxiii, 31, 35, 44, 46–49, 53–56, 68, 72–73, 90–91, 107–108, 111, 115, 123, 128, 130, 133, 151, 154, 164, 219–220, 230, 233

Index erotic material (continued) and rice imagery, 51 double entendres, 29 ethnic revival movement, xxxvi ethnicity, vii, xvii–xviii, xxiii, xxxv, xxxvii, 189 See also images of the south, Han Chinese exorcism, 18, 89, 171, 178, 194, 201 See also Celestial Master Zhang, demons Fabian, Johannes, xx, xxxvi face, notions of, 114, 134, 147, 150–151, 244 family honor, xiv, 143, 145, 152, 163–164, 220, 245 famine, 34, 43–44, 255 Fan Chengda, 47, 70, 220 Fan Shuzhi, 73 fangyan (regional language), xiii, xv–xvi, xxxiii–xxxv, 49, 75, 135 See also language Fei Xiaotong, xxxiv, 22, 39, 42, 114 Feng Menglong, x, 49–50, 54, 70–71, 140, 168 Fenghua, 14–16, 21, 107 Fengshen yanyi (Investiture of the Gods), 238 Fengxian, 163, 166 Fentress, James, 224 fertility, xviii, xxx, xxxii, 23, 27, 34, 36, 79, 101, 133 and song, 2, 63, 84 and human sexuality, xxxi, 2, 12, 28, 35, 100, 220 and rice, 12 fertilizer, 9, 13, 19, 33, 38, 40 Feuchtwang, Stephan, 221, 224

285 Fierce General Liu (Liu Mengjiang), 74, 105 “Fifth Daughter,” viii, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, xxxi, xxxviii, 10, 42, 52–53, 59–60, 67, 111, 114–123, 125–132, 134–137, 164, 213–214, 216, 219, 224–233, 238, 244, 246–247, 249–250, 252–255 filial piety, xxxvi, 84–85, 87–89, 101–103, 106, 108, 173, 220 Finnane, Antonia, 42 Finnegan, Ruth, xxxviii Five Watches of the Night, 56–57, 68, 75, 136, 158, 168, 241 Flath, James A., 41 flood, 6, 10–11, 92, 99, 105, 217, 245 flowers, 13, 15–17, 20, 27, 36, 53, 55, 57, 68, 89, 91, 96, 100, 109, 119, 121, 123, 125, 127–128, 142–143, 150, 157–158, 160–161, 198, 200, 211, 218, 228, 234–235, 241, 244, 254 Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter, xxiv, xxxvii–xxxviii folk culture, xxxvi, 13 folk epics, vii–x, xii, xiv–xv, xvii–xix, xxi–xxvii, xxix–xxxii, xxxv, xxxvii–xxxviii, 1, 4, 9, 18, 25, 30–31, 36, 39, 42–43, 45–47, 49, 51–54, 61–69, 77, 79–84, 86–87, 89–90, 95–96, 99–101, 103, 107–108, 111–112, 115–116, 119, 122–124, 130, 132–133, 136, 139, 143, 153–156, 159, 162, 164, 167, 171–174, 176–177, 180–182, 185, 187–192, 202–205, 208, 211, 213–220, 222, 225, 253 aesthetics of, xix, xxxiii, 51, 63, 70, 174, 189, 203

286

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folk culture (continued) and commemoration, xix, 133 and community, xxiii and laments, xxxi, 111–112 and length, xxiv and rice cultivation. See “Shen Seventh Brother” as commentary on rice cultivation, 83 categories of, xxiv definition of, xvii, xxiii–xxiv early development of, 45 recreation in the present day, xx–xxii, 123, 212 singing roles, 64, 74 stanzaic style, 50 stock material, xxx, 31, 50–51, 57–58, 69, 72, 123, 136, 203, 214, 217, 219 structure, 63 transmission of, xxvi, 65 folk imaginary, xviii, 9, 12, 83 folklorists, viii, xv, xx–xxiv, xxvii, xxxii, 21, 65, 87, 90, 122–123, 130, 154, 204, 211, 216 folksongs. See song folk stories, xxix, 81, 86, 192 Fortune, Robert, 5–6, 37 fortune-teller, 158–159, 179 funerals, 98, 108, 115, 119, 121, 132–133, 184–185, 199, 216 funeral laments, 134, 160, 167–168 grave mounds, 250 See also mourning, qiqi Fu Xi (ancient deity), 20, 40, 156, 221 Fuyang, 61–62, 74 Ganany, Noga, 190, 208

Ge Liangyan, x gender, xviii, 26–29, 38, 40–41, 43, 73, 150 gender divide, 31, 135 See also women Gengzhi tu (Tilling and Weaving Pictures), 38, 40 ghosts, xxxvii, 43–44, 95, 112–113, 116, 132–134, 139, 152–155, 163, 190, 234–235, 247, 249–250, 255 ghostly masquerades, 178–180 Gibbs, Levi S., ix, xxxv, 44, 107 God of Hell, 19, 178 God of Millet (Hou Ji), 78 God of Wealth (Liu Hai), 19, 41, 197 goldthread tree (huanglian shu), 6, 37 Golden Mean, xxviii Goossaert, Vincent, 107, 202, 208 Goumang (spirit of spring and trees), 9 Governor cult (zongguan), 179 Grain Spirit (gushen), 15 grain stories stealing grain from the gods, 96, 108 Grand Canal, 7 Great Leap Forward, 14, 33–34, 211 Green Dragon Mountain (Hui Shan), 88, 106 Gros, Stéphanie, xxxv Gu Jiegang, xiv, xvi, xxxiii, 57 Gu Xijia, 41, 105, 134 Gu Xiuzhen, viii Gu Yewang, 87, 105 Gu Youzhen, viii guanhua (language of officials), xvii, xxxiv, xxxviii, 52, 150, 245 Gunn, Edward M., xxxiv Guo Wei, 182, 187–188, 206–208

Index Hahn, Thomas, 107 hair style, 149–150, 231–232, 246 Hakamies, Pekka, ix Hakka ballads, xxxiv Hamashima Atsutoshi, 179 Hamilton, Roy, 41 Hammers, Roslyn Lee, 8, 38, 40 Han Chinese, vii, xvii–xviii, xxxv, xxxvii, 45 Hangzhou, 7–9, 62, 70, 117–118, 154, 158–159 haohan (tough guy), 173 Hargettt, James M., 70 Hay, Jonathan, 221, 224 Heavenly Waterways (Milky Way), 107 Hemudu, 6, 99 Hengtang, 158, 168 Henry, Eric, 104 Herd Boy and Weaving Maiden, 168 heritage, viii–x, xx–xxii, xxxvi, 54, 130, 204 heroism, xxv, 18–19, 66–69, 78–79, 82–84, 87, 99, 102, 105, 171–174, 176, 184–185, 202, 216 Herzfeld, Michael, xv, xxxiii Heyang, 47, 50 history, ix, xix, xxi, xxx–xxxi, xxxiii–xxxvii, 38, 40–41, 43, 46, 61–62, 104, 112, 172, 204, 222, 224 and songs, 70, 82 of folk epics, 45 of ancient Wu songs. See Yuefu shiji of polder development, 6, 37, 39

287 history (continued) See also Cultural Revolution, Taiping movement, Ming Dynasty Honko, Lauri, xxiv, xxxviii, 134, 204, 209 Hou Yang, 167 “Houlang and Erniang,” 132 Howard, Keith, ix Hu Qiulei, 134 Hua Baoshan., viii–ix, xix, xxi, xxv, xxvii, xxix, xxxi, 2, 37, 66, 68, 171–176, 180–182, 185, 187–192, 203–208, 216, 218–219, 224 apotheosis as deity, 200 grave site, 184 incense texts relating to, 202 veneration of, 201 Hua Cha, 67–68, 75, 193, 208 Hua Zurong, xxi, xxviii, 2, 66, 105, 174, 181–183, 187–188, 206 huaguxi (Flower Drum Plays), 55 Huanxi yuanjia, 55 Huang, Philip C.C., 37–39, 42 Huangdai, 61, 144, 151 Huaxia culture, 79 Hubei, 42, 172 Hung, Chang-tai, xxxiii, 41, 121 Huzhou, 7, 12, 16, 75, 147, 231–232 Idema, Wilt, x, xxxiv, 43–44, 106, 108, 253 identity, xiv–xvi, xviii, xxiv, xxvi, xxx, xxxv, xxxvii, 69, 71, 79, 102–103, 219 Ifugao people, 41 images of the south, 12, 48, 78–81, 103–105 immorality, xiii, xxii, 55–56, 73, 236–237, 245

288

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immorality (continued) See also norms incense texts (xianggao), 87, 185–186, 202 India, xxxvii–xxxviii, 5, 21, 37, 41, 109, 168 Indian village epics, xxxvii inequality, 117, 172 infanticide, xxv, 52–54, 111 Ingram, Catherine, ix, xxxv Intangible Cultural Heritage, xxii intimacy. See also cultural intimacy, erotic material, language of intimacy irrigation, 6–7, 9–11, 28, 42, 83 Jade Emperor, 96 Japan, xxii, 21, 25, 41, 44, 109, 181, 186, 212 Java, 21 Jay, Jennifer, x Jen, Yu-wen, 72 Ji Fengyuan, 43 Ji Zha, 104 Jiang Bin, xxvii, 13, 59, 70, 74, 123, 137, 163 Jiang Huihong, viii Jiang Yong, viii Jiangnan region, xix, xxii, xxvii, xxxii–xxxiii, 8, 10, 14, 41–43, 55–56, 71, 73–75, 78–81, 87, 104–107, 134, 136–137, 166–167, 169, 179–181, 205–207, 224, 253 Jiangsu, vii, xv, xxxv, 5, 13–14, 42, 48, 61, 65, 70, 73, 141, 254 Jiao Bingzhen, 43 Jiashan, 5, 11, 17, 61, 65, 144, 146, 162, 166 Jili, 78 Jin Derun, 179–180

Jin Ping Mei, 56 Jing man (“Jing barbarians”), 78–80 Jing Man (two original settlements of Wu Taibo), 78–80 Johnson, David, xxxv, 41, 222, 224 Jones, Philip P., xxxvi Jones, Stephen, xxxvi Journey to the West (Xiyou ji, storycycle and novel), 40, 168 Kaixiangong, 39, 41–42 kai yangmen (opening the door of the rice-shoot), 108 Ke Jinhai, viii, 134 Keulemans, Paize, xxxiv King of Hell (Yan Wang), 176, 178–179, 221 King Wen, 78 kinship roles, 10, 111, 116, 132, 164, 171, 182, 201, 220, 248 Kipnis, Andrew B., xxxvi Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, xxxvi Knapp, Ronald G., 253 Ko, Dorothy, 71 Kouwenhoven, Frank, ix, 44 Kunshan, 48 Kuzay, Stefan, 73 laboring song, xxx, 2, 35 Laing, Ellen Johnston, 40 Lake Fen (Fenhu), 5, 11, 65, 67, 122, 124, 126, 129–130, 136, 227, 231 Lake Tai (Taihu), viii–ix, xv, xviii, xxii–xxiii, xxvi, xxxi, xxxvii, 1–2, 4–7, 10–11, 21–23, 37, 39, 45, 47, 49–51, 65–68, 75, 79–80, 82–83, 88, 93–95, 99, 106–107, 113–114, 118, 132, 143–144, 149, 151, 172, 175–176, 179, 193, 199, 205, 214–215, 217, 231

Index Lake Tai region, 5 lament, xix, xxv, xxxi, xxxv, 111–112, 115, 122, 130, 133–134, 160, 167–168, 198, 216, 219, 242 land reclamation, 83 landlord class, xxx, 62–63, 114, 174–177, 205 language, vii–x, xiii–xviii, xxii–xxiv, xxvii, xxix, xxxii–xxxv, 10, 12, 41, 46–47, 49, 65–66, 70, 75, 104, 121–123, 128, 135, 159, 178, 180, 191, 203–204, 217, 219, 225 See also Wu language, guanhua language of intimacy, 123, 219 language of water, 10 Legge, James, 71 Leibold, James, xxxv Lewis, Mark Edward, 37, 104 Li Bozhong, 38, 42 Li Ning, 203, 208 Li Xiucheng, 183 Li Yongliang, viii Li Zicheng, 173, 175–176, 187 Lian Dagen, 61 Liangzhu, 6, 99 literacy, xxvii–xxviii, xxx, xxxviii, 58, 73, 85, 122, 156, 174, 182, 188–189, 222 and incense texts, 185–186, 202 and objectification of tradition, xxix, 191 and song tradition, 204 Liu Bang, 106 Liu Bei, 18 Liu Chang, 205 Liu Erjie, 55, 61–62, 132, 137 Liu Hai, 19, 40–41 Liu, Jin, xxxiv Liu, Li, 37 Liu Shijie, xxxviii, 203, 208

289 locality, x, xiii–xvi, xviii–xix, xxv–xxxii, xxxiv, xxxviii, 3, 14, 18, 22–23, 25, 39, 41, 45–46, 56, 61–62, 65, 67, 69, 71, 77–79, 81–82, 84, 96, 99, 101–103, 107, 111–113, 120, 122, 135, 149, 151, 153–154, 171–174, 177–181, 184, 186, 189, 192–193, 198, 202–206, 213, 215–216, 219, 222, 231 See also epichoric texts local culture, xxix, 102 local identity, xix, xxvi, xxx, 45, 219 local knowledge, 33 local memories, xix local politics, 46, 62, 204 local understandings, xxxi as opposed to cosmopolitan, 77 locusts, 60, 83, 94 long narrative songs., vii–viii, xiv, xvii, xxii–xxv, xxvii, xxxv, 36, 45–46, 58, 61, 64–65, 67, 86, 111, 181, 188, 216 Lou Shu, 8–9, 40, 45 love affairs, xiv–xv, xix, xxv, xxviii, xxxi–xxxiii, 26–27, 42, 46–48, 51–54, 59, 61–62, 67–69, 83, 89–90, 96–97, 107–108, 111–113, 116–120, 122–123, 125–128, 130, 133, 143, 154–159, 161–162, 167, 169, 187, 197, 208, 214, 216–217, 219, 227–228, 230, 233–235, 242, 246–247, 251, 253 Lowry, Kathryn A., x, 71–72 Lu Ada, 90 Lu Amei, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, xxviii, 54, 59–60, 64, 67, 111, 114–115, 122–123, 128, 130–132, 134, 137, 148–149, 159, 163–164, 166, 213, 225–226, 230, 233, 235, 238, 241, 247, 249, 253 Lu Qun, 123

290

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Lu Rong, 48, 70 Lu Ruiying, 24, 27 Lü Shiqiang, 73 Lu Shiyi, 48–49, 71 Lu, Weijing, 167 lute ballads, xvii Luxu, vii–viii, xii, xxvii, xxxviii, 21, 39, 43, 60, 67, 75, 105–106, 111, 119, 122–123, 134, 141, 148, 156, 159, 166–169, 206, 211 Lysenko, Trofim, 33 Ma Hanmin, 123 Macheng County, 172 magic, 1, 9, 17, 34, 41, 68, 89, 93–95, 98, 101, 106, 109, 171–172, 175, 202, 205, 221, 253 Mair, Victor H., xxxiv–xxxv, 305 Maming Pond, 11 manuscript literature, x, xvi, xxx, 55, 58, 73, 87, 90–91, 140–141, 143, 154, 156, 167 Mao Zedong, xxii, 3, 14, 32, 34, 43–44, 75, 180, 200–202, 208, 211, 217 Marcus, George E., xxxvi, 208 marginalized groups, 179 market towns, xix, xxx, 5, 10–11, 58, 90, 118, 212 marriage, xxxi, 2, 27, 36, 40, 46, 52, 62, 67, 83, 90, 94, 99–101, 107, 113, 122, 132, 137, 140–141, 143, 148, 156, 159, 161, 171, 214–217, 220, 239, 244, 253 betrothal, xxv, 112, 115, 117, 120, 139, 154–155, 157, 162, 164 bolted-door marriage (banniu qin), 151–153 bride price, 153 deception in marriage, 144–147, 151, 155, 164, 219

marriage (continued) dowry, 15, 116, 129, 131, 153, 237, 254 exchange of dates on marriage (bazi), 158 exogamous marriage, 13 ghostly marriage, 139, 154–155, 160 marriage by abduction, 151, 153, 167 replacement of the wife, 139 sororate marriage, 153, 213 unorthodox marriages, 154 uxorilocal marriage, 139, 163 wedding rites, 158 martial arts, 172, 175, 177–178, 181, 199, 202 Marxist frameworks, xxx Marxist historiography, xxxvii material culture, 41, 211, 217–218 See also agricultural tools, beds, boats, boat carvings, clothing, embroidery, hair style, opium water pipe, screen wall, shoes, tea pot, Yixing spout-pot Mather, Richard B., 37 Maze, Sir Frederick, 43 McDowell, John M., 135 McLaren, Anne E., xii, xxxv, xxxvii, 39, 72, 108, 135–136, 167–168, 253 Meicun, ix, 79, 105, 185 melodic modes, 121–122, 135 memory, xxiii, xxv–xxvi, 83, 173, 179, 184, 216–217, 220, 222, 224 and historical change, 213 as a cultural construct, 214 collective memory, 172 of rent resistance, xxxi, 174, 176 of the past, 82

Index memory (continued) local and cosmopolitan memories, xix memory frameworks, 215 sequential numbering, 218 singers, 64 techniques, 215 transmitting through recollecting, 187–188 Menshikov, Lev, 41 Mencius, The, xxviii Meng Jiangnü, xxvi Meulenbeld, Mark R.E., 179, 206 Meyer-Fong,Tobie, 207 Miao people, xxxvi Midnight Songs (Ziye ge), 112–113, 134 migration, 2, 6–8 Milburn, Olivia, 37, 104–105, 108–109 Milky Way, 92, 107, 168 millet, 8, 78, 81 Ming Dynasty (Ming, "Ming era"), 66, 173, 176, 193, 224 miracle stories, xxxi, 174–175, 202 Miu Qiyu, 37–39 Mnong Gar (people of Vietnam), xxxv modernity, xiv socialist modernity, xxii moral codes. See norms morality tales, xxvi Morgan, Lewis H., xxxvii mountain song, vii, xxii, xxvi–xxix, xxxiv–xxxv, xxxvii–xxxviii, 3, 17, 23–27, 29, 31–32, 34, 36, 42, 48–50, 55, 59–61, 63–64, 68, 71–72, 77, 79–82, 84–85, 88, 93, 95, 98, 101, 106, 115, 118, 126–127, 132, 156, 161, 166, 168, 171, 183, 186–187, 190–191,

291 mountain song (continued), 211–212, 214–215, 219–220, 227 circulation of, 65 definition, xxiii mountains, xviii, 1, 67, 80, 83–84, 88, 91–92, 186, 195, 198, 216–217, 224, 228 See also sacred mountains, Mount Hou, Mount Tai, Green Dragon Mountain, Dragon Mountain, Wushan mourning, xix, 111, 115, 131–133, 139, 143, 150, 158–160, 162–164, 168, 200, 219, 247, 251, 255 calling back of the soul, 70, 152 See also Qingming Festival, qiqi Mount Hou, ix, 66, 75, 175, 178, 180, 184–185, 187, 190, 200–202, 216–217 Mount Tai, 106 Mu Guiying, 32 Mueggler, Erik, xxxvi–xxxvii, 43–44 Mullaney, Thomas S., xxxv myth, xxiii, xxxvi, 18, 48, 69, 77, 79–82, 99, 103, 105 mythological framework, 34 myths of origin, 102 naming practices, 116, 135 nangeng nüzhi (men plough and women weave), 27 Nanhui, 143–145, 166, 212 Nanjing, 7, 201 narrative, vii–viii, xiv–xv, xvii–xviii, xxii–xxv, xxvii, xxx–xxxi, xxxv, xxxvii–xxxviii, 36, 45–46, 51, 54, 58, 61, 63–65, 67, 82, 86, 90, 101, 111, 114–115, 119–120, 132, 135–136, 146, 177,

292

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narrative (continued), 180–182, 184, 188–189, 191–192, 204, 225, 242 episodic nature of, 216 nationalism, xxiii, xxx, xxxiii natural disasters., 92, 95, 103 See flood, plague, locusts natural world, xxxii, 103 New Culture Movement, xvi New Year, 17, 20, 41, 119, 123–124, 126, 174, 176, 181, 185–186, 194–197, 199, 202, 235 New Year prints, 14, 20, 41, 43 norms, xxxii, 27, 31, 36 family norms, 112, 155, 220 norms of rice cultivation, 83, 118, 173, 178, 190, 220, 222 See also chastity novels, xvii, xxxiv, 56, 104, 168, 172, 184, 205, 238 Noyes, Dorothy, xxx, xxxviii Nun Huang (Huang Daopo), 240 Nüwa (ancient deity), 84, 105 Ocko, Jonathan K., 73 Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko, 41, 44 Oki Yasushi, 54 Ong, Walter J., xxix, xxxviii opera. See village opera opium water pipe, 239 oral and literate domains, xxvii oral culture, xiii, xxxv oral traditions, xvi, xx–xxi, xxvi–xxvii, xxx, xxxii, xxxiv, xxxvii–xxxviii, 50–51, 57, 73, 77–78, 82, 102, 135, 167, 202, 204, 214, 224 Osborne, Anne, 39 Ouyang Xun, 70–73, 104, 134 ox, 11, 18, 38, 78, 94–96, 129, 198, 254–255

Pan Gu (Creator), 84, 105, 156, 167 Pan Hu, 108 pan-Chinese, xvii–xix, 105, 167 parades of statues, 179 Peony Pavilion, The, 137 Peoples Liberation Army, xxviii performance arts, xvi, xxi, 56–57, 203 performative culture, xvii, 221 Pfaffenberger, Bryan, 3, 37 Philippines, 21 Pingwang, 5 plague, 92, 178, 195, 221 plays. See village opera Pollock, Sheldon, xvii, xxxiv precious scrolls, 74 print, xxx, xxxviii, 14, 20, 32, 40–41, 43, 55–56, 88, 90, 140–141, 172, 236 prohibitions. See censorship prostitutes, 71 punishment, xv, xix, xxv, 53, 96, 111–112, 133, 171, 180, 205, 220 Qian Afu, xxi–xxii, xxvi, xxviii, 1, 22–25, 32–35, 40, 58, 79–80, 84–86, 88, 90–93, 95, 97–98, 100, 107, 151, 182, 187, 206, 211, 213 Qian Liu, 47, 70 Qian Lucan, 70 Qian Minquan, 38 Qian Shunjuan, xxxiii, 67, 75, 105–107, 128, 144, 167, 181–182, 206–207 Qian Yong, 113, 134 Qian Zai, 28 Qingming Festival, 148, 249, 255 Qingpu, 135, 166, 231 qiqi (mourning rituals), 158

Index Rajah, Ananda, 41 Ramachandran, C.N., xxxvii rape, xxxi, 139, 150, 171, 217 “readable texts,” xxvii readership, xvi, xxvi–xxvii, 55, 141, 191, 225 rebellions, xix, xxxi, 174, 177, 205 See also resistance rebels, ix, xv, 171, 173, 175–176, 178–179, 184, 203, 207 as cult leaders. See Jin Derun, Hua Baoshan regional culture, xxxiv, 222 regional identity, 71, 102 regional literature, xiii, xxxiv religion, xv, xviii, xxiii, xxxi–xxxii, 1–3, 9, 11–13, 17–18, 20, 23, 35–36, 39–41, 63, 66–68, 80, 82, 84, 87, 89, 92–96, 100–103, 113, 132–133, 144–145, 148, 156, 158, 161, 171–172, 174–175, 180, 184–186, 190, 192–193, 198–199, 202, 214–215, 217, 220–221, 223, 239, 246, 255 See also belief systems, Buddhism, Daoism, parades of statues, spirit medium religious movements, 56, 107, 180 religious songs, xxxvii resistance, xiv, xxxiii, 34–35, 41, 84, 139, 147, 149–151, 171, 173, 180, 186, 202, 206, 218, 234 community of resistance, 219, 224 individual and collective, 176 rent resistance, xxxi, 172, 174, 176–177, 190, 194, 205 rhinoceros, 11–12, 39, 217 rice culture, xxxii, 39

293 rice cultivation, xxx, 2–3, 7–10, 18, 27, 32–33, 43, 45, 48, 51, 61–62, 69, 79–80, 86–87, 96, 99, 102, 164, 211, 220, 223 and songs, 39, 84, 101 as sacred, 82 early domestication of, 6 feminized rice spirit, xviii, xxxii, 12–13, 15–17, 20–21, 26, 31, 34–36, 41, 83, 85, 89, 93, 95, 100–101, 103, 173, 212 “marrying off” of the rice seedling (transplantation), xxxi, 12, 34, 83, 118, 133 mythical origin of. See “Shen Seventh Brother” pictures of rice cultivation. See Gengzhi tu sequence of rice cultivation, 20 Rice Goddess, xviii, 13–15, 20–21, 35, 41, 83 rice rituals, 14–15, 40, 42 ritual, xviii, xxii, xxix–xxx, xxxii, xxxv–xxxvi, 9, 14–16, 21, 33, 35–36, 39, 41–42, 44, 56, 66, 69, 79, 81, 83, 86, 88, 99, 102, 105, 113, 115–116, 131–133, 139, 143, 156, 158–165, 180–181, 189, 201, 203, 205–206, 208, 221–222, 224, 251 and agriculture, 3 ritual technology, xviii, xxxv–xxxvi, 3, 35, 44, 83 Roche, Gerald, x, xxxv Rocking the Boat, 57 Rodgers, Susan, 208 romantic love, 68, 127, 216 Rowe, William T., 172, 205 Rulin Waishi, 104–105 rural life, xxxv rural populations, xvii, xxvii, 48, 50,

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rural populations (continued), 212 Sacred Grotto (Dongting), 12, 39, 68, 82, 87, 89, 92–96, 101, 103, 171, 220 sacred knowledge, 82, 94, 217 sacred mountains, 66–67 sacred rules, 80, 214–215 sacred text (shenshu), 113, 132 Sanbai Lake, 60 Sanskrit, xxxiv Santangelo, Paolo, 54, 71–72, 166, 168, 253 Schimmelpenninck, Antoinet, ix, xxxv, xxxviii, 24, 42, 44, 64, 72–74, 90, 105, 107, 134–136, 181, 206 Schneider, Laurence A., xxxiii Scott, James, 84, 105 screen wall, 145 secular entertainment, xxxii, 3 seduction, 30, 89, 106, 133, 142, 153, 156, 217–220 sense of place, xviii, 216 sexual attraction, 25, 30, 34, 36, 123, 133, 142, 153, 156, 217–220 sexuality, xv, 16, 27, 51, 53, 68, 118, 128, 142–143, 149, 153, 156, 158, 164, 217–218, 220, 223 and rice-growing, 28 and the power of song, 36, 127 courting, 25, 30, 34, 36, 123, 133, 219 love making as a battle, 233 lovers bathing, 123 sexual assault, 150, 155 See also erotic material, fertility, intimacy, rape Shandong, xxxvi, 106 shan’ge (mountain song), vii–viii,

shan’ge (mountain song) (continued), xxiii, xxvii, xxx, 21, 24, 41–43, 46, 48–53, 55–58, 61, 63, 65, 70–74, 79, 82, 90–91, 112, 118–119, 122–123, 140–141, 143–144, 166, 168, 188, 190, 203, 212, 219, 225, 253 Shang Wei, 81 Shanghai, vii, ix, xxxiii, 5, 38, 65, 67, 74, 132, 166, 212, 231, 305 Shan’ge (song anthology), vii–viii, xxiii, xxvii, xxx, 21, 24, 41–43, 46, 48–53, 55–58, 61, 63, 65, 70–74, 79, 82, 90–91, 112, 118–119, 122–123, 140–141, 143–144, 166, 168, 188, 190, 203, 212, 219, 225, 253 Shanxi, 222 Sharma, S.D., 41 Shen Defu, 58 Shen Hai, 47–48 “Shen Seventh Brother” (Shen Qige), xxi, xxv, xxx–xxxi, 1, 18, 67–68, 77, 80–83, 85, 87–91, 95, 98, 101–103, 108, 117, 127, 171, 215, 224 as founder of rice cultivation, 79 as model of hard work, 86 Shen Shaoquan, 11 Shen Weixin, 135 Shennong (God of Agriculture), 20, 40–41, 80, 87–88, 102, 106, 221 shenshu (sacred text), 113 Shengze, 58, 75 Shi Hemei, 184 Shiba, Yoshinobu, 37–38 Shih, Chin, 37, 75, 205, 305 Shirane, Haruo, 109 shishi (history in verse), xxiii, xxxvii, 205

Index shoes, 27, 97, 237, 240–241 Sichuan, xxxv Sieber, Patricia, ix Silberstein, Rachel, 135 silk, 5, 8–9, 162, 245 Sima Qian, 70, 104 Simmons, Richard VanNess, xxxiv, 75 sinification, 103 siqing ge (songs about love affairs), xiv See songs of secret passion singer, xiv, xviii–xx, xxiii–xxiv, xxvi, xxviii–xxxii, xxxv, xxxviii, 1–3, 5–6, 10–12, 16–21, 23–32, 34–36, 42, 46, 50–52, 54, 58–64, 66, 68–69, 72–75, 79–80, 82–84, 86–89, 91–95, 97–98, 100–103, 105, 107, 111–112, 114–119, 121–122, 124–127, 129, 131, 133–136, 139, 142–146, 148, 150–151, 154–155, 158–159, 161, 164, 167, 169, 171–172, 174, 177, 179–180, 182–185, 189, 191–194, 196, 198, 201, 204, 206, 211–219, 221–222, 230, 233, 235, 238, 241–242, 247, 249 lived experience of, xxii, 203 persecution of, 85 singer transcripts, vii–viii, xxi–xxii, xxvii, 90, 123, 130, 162–163, 225–226 Siregar Baumi, G., 189 Siri epics, xxiv Snow, Don, xvii, xxxiv social class, 117 bourgeoisie, xv educated classes, xvi, 55 imperial elites, xxii literati, xv, 28, 31, 46, 71, 79, 81, 103, 220

295 social class (continued) peasants, xv, xxii, xxx, xxxiv, xxxvi, 33, 37–39, 41–43, 75, 134, 155, 172, 177–178, 202–205, 207, 212 poorer classes, 42, 49, 153 social order, 32, 54, 133 class antagonism, 214 grievances, 43, 113, 176–177 social breakdown, 171–172 tenant alienation, 177 See also army for justice, inequality, marginalized groups, rebellions socialism, xx, xxii, xxxvi–xxxvii, 14, 41, 211, 224 socialist agriculture, 3 solar periods, 20, 215 Sommer, Matthew H., 71, 150, 167 song, vii–x, xv–xvi, xviii, xxi, xxiii–xxiv, xxviii–xxix, xxxii–xxxviii, 7–8, 11–12, 16, 27–29, 32–34, 37–38, 40–43, 45, 53, 66, 70, 74–75, 77, 79–80, 82–84, 91, 93–95, 97–98, 102, 106–107, 113–116, 122–124, 126–128, 130, 132, 134, 136–137, 140, 142, 145, 148–150, 157–159, 161–163, 165–166, 168, 171–173, 180–183, 186–187, 189–190, 192, 195, 197, 199, 201–203, 205–207, 211–212, 215–216, 218, 220, 223–228, 230–231, 233, 235, 238, 241, 253 and courtesans, 71 and memory, xxvi and spiritual power, 23 anthologies, xvii, xxx courting songs, 25 embodied act, 9, 18, 22, 214 emotional effect, 5–6, 63, 112,

296

Memory Making in Folk Epics of China

song emotional effect (continued), 121 impromptu singing, xx, xxvii, 24, 36, 50, 64, 71–72, 188, 204 laboring songs, xxx, 2, 35 loudness, 2, 9, 23–24, 26, 30, 47, 219 metalanguage of song-making, 191 rapid style (jiji ge), 30 revolutionary songs, 3 See also antiphonal songs, folk epics, long narrative songs, Five Watches of the Night, Twelve Months of the Year Song song booklets, xxvii, 55–58, 73, 90, 119, 135, 141, 144, 154–156 song community, xxii, xxvi, 23, 221 song competitions, xxx, 10, 17, 23, 36, 46, 58–61, 69, 85, 87, 96, 101 song pavilions, 10, 59 song troupes, xxv, xxx, 46, 61–65, 69 Songs for Throwing Sticks (jirang ge), 48 Songs of Flourishing Grain (maixiu ge), 48 songs of harvest blessings, xiv, 18–21, 31, 221 songs of love longing, 47, 242 songs of praise to deities, 86–87 “Song of the Four Seasons, The,” 15 songs of the rice paddy, xxx–xxxi, 1–2, 20–21, 35–36, 39, 48–49, 81, 86, 100–101,

song songs of the rice paddy (continued), 103, 105, 222 songs about how to grow rice, 22 songs of secret passion, xiv, xix, xxv, xxxi, 35–36, 44, 51–52, 54, 67–68, 86, 88–89, 111–112, 117–118, 133, 139, 164, 167, 213, 217 Song Geng, 205 Song Jiang, 172 Songjiang, 61–62, 87, 137 Song Maocheng, 71 space, x, 19, 60, 133, 135, 161 notions of, 215–216, 222 spiders, 253 spirit medium, 179, 221 storytelling, ix, xvii, xxxiv, 133, 142, 168, 172, 186, 190, 192, 203, 217, 238 suicide, xxv, 111, 114–115, 121, 129, 132, 134, 139, 143, 148, 150, 152–153, 155, 167, 216, 219 Suzhou, xiv, xvi–xvii, xxxiii–xxxiv, xxxvii, 5–6, 12, 25, 39, 47–51, 54–58, 61–63, 67, 73–75, 117–119, 123, 135, 154–156, 158–159, 161, 167, 179, 241 Suzhou literature, xvii Sword, George, 188 symbolic world, xviii, 9 Taibo (Great Earl, Wu Taibo), xix, 11, 75, 80, 85, 101, 103, 105, 194 and regional identity, 102 and sedentary culture, 78 as agricultural deity, 79 cult, 82

Index Taibo (Great Earl, Wu Taibo) (continued) Taibo and “the three yieldings” (san rang tianxia), 79, 104, 109 Taibo Song and Dance Mound, 79 Taibo Temple, 77, 81, 109 Taibo Tomb, 77, 81 Tai Lüe people, xxxvi Taicang, 48 Taiping movement, 56, 172, 174, 176, 183–184, 206, 219 as celebrated in song, 207 Tam, Gina Anne, xxxiii Tan Hanren, 109, 207–208 Tang Jianqin, vii, 80, 90, 151, 182, 188, 215 tanhuang (type of folk opera), 55, 72 Tangseng (the Tang Monk, Xuanzang), 168 Taoyuan, 75 Taozhuang, viii, 11–12, 59, 162 tea pot, 235, 237 tenant-farmers, 177, 220 ter Haar, Barend, xxxv textualization, xxvi, 209 textualization of folk epics, viii, xxvii, xxix, 14, 46, 51, 90–91, 123, 129, 136–137, 151, 154, 161, 167–168, 187, 225 Thailand, 21, 41 Theiss, Janet M., 134 Thirty-six Songs of the Wharf, 56 Three Character Classic, The, xxviii, xxxviii Three Kingdoms story-cycle, 18 Three Mao Lords (Sanmao gong), 75, 180, 200–201, 208, 217

297 time, xvi, xx–xxii, xxxi, xxxvi, 6–7, 15, 18, 20, 22, 27, 36, 42, 50, 52, 54, 58, 60, 63–64, 66, 68, 73, 75, 81, 89–91, 94, 100, 109, 118–120, 122, 124, 126, 131, 133–134, 143, 148, 156, 160–161, 164, 167, 174, 177, 179, 181–182, 186–188, 194, 201, 205, 212, 214–215, 221, 239, 242, 250–251 notions of, 216 See also calendar Tokita, Alison, x tradition, xi–xii, xviii–xxiii, xxvi–xxvii, xxix–xxx, xxxii, xxxiv–xxxv, xxxvii–xxxviii, 2–3, 8–9, 12, 33, 45, 50–51, 62, 67, 70, 73, 77–78, 95, 99, 104–105, 119, 122, 124, 131, 136, 143–144, 150, 154, 156, 174, 177–178, 181–182, 184, 187–190, 192, 201–204, 206–207, 213, 219, 224, 233, 253, 255 tragic endings, xxvi, xxxi, xxxviii, 53, 133, 219 Tuohy, Susan, xxxvi Turtle Head Isle, 87, 95 Turtle Mountain, 39, 95, 107 Twelve Months of the Year Song, 15, 56–57, 68, 119, 162, 216, 218 Twenty-four filial sons, 87–88 urban centers, xix, xxx, 5, 10–11, 58, 90, 118, 212 verbal artistry, 51 verbal dispute, 219 vernacular culture, xxxiii vernacular literature, xxxi–xxxii Vietnam, xxxv, 7, 21 village opera (shexi), 41, 55–56, 58, 222

298

Memory Making in Folk Epics of China

violence, xxiii, xxv–xxvi, xxxi, xxxvii, 52, 54, 95, 97, 124, 132–133, 135, 148, 158, 163, 174, 179, 181, 198, 219, 244 and exorcism, 178 mediation of violence in folk epics, 203 models of violence, 172 von Glahn, Richard, 106, 109 vulgarity, xiii, xv–xvi, xxii, xxxiii, 35, 45, 50, 57, 71, 73, 217 Wa people, xxxvi Wadley, Susan S., xxxvii Wagner, Donald B., 104 Wan, Margaret B., ix Wan Zuxiang, 26 Wang, Fan, 73 Wang Fang, 143, 167 Wang Liqi, 73, 107, 166–167 Wang Mingke, 79, 104 Wang Ping, 75 Wang Quanji, 108 Wang Shucun, 41 Wang Xiaolong, 71 Wang Yizhi, xiii–xiv, xxxiii Wang Zhongmin, 108 water, xv, xix, xxii, xxiv, 1–3, 5–7, 9, 11, 14, 17, 23–24, 26–33, 35–40, 42–43, 51, 56, 59, 63, 65, 67, 78, 83–84, 86, 93, 95–96, 98–99, 101, 105, 107, 118, 121, 125–130, 141, 143, 145, 147–149, 154, 159, 171–172, 175, 183, 192, 199, 205, 211–213, 217, 221, 228, 231–232, 234–235, 239, 242 the language of water, 10 Water Margin, The, 56, 172, 205 Watson, Rubie S., 135 Wei Songshan, 37–38 Wen Yuzhen, 61

Wenzel, Jennifer, 109 Werner, E.T.C., 106 Western Jin Dynasty, 6 White Snake, The, xxvi Wickham, Chris, 224 women, xiii–xv, xix, 10, 14, 29, 31–32, 34, 36, 48–49, 51, 55, 71, 73, 92, 101, 112, 116, 120, 125, 153, 159–160, 167–168, 171, 180, 202, 217, 219, 226, 253–254 as deities. See “Rice Goddess” as protagonists in folk epics, 172 faithful maidens, 155, 164 female warriors, 184, 207 See also Mu Guiying gratitude to mothers, 87, 173, 186, 199 images of, 54 in the Taiping movement, 184 labor, 9, 27–28, 42–43 maltreated women, 113, 134 misogyny, 172, 205 pregnancy, 53, 106, 194 women singers. See Lu Amei, Tang Jianqin See also abduction, bound feet, chastity, marriage Wu Changling, 107 Wu Cuncun, ix, 71–72 Wu guniang. See “Fifth Daughter” Wu Jusheng, viii, 12 Wu kingdom, xix, 6, 84, 102, 193 Wu language, viii–x, xiv–xv, xvii–xviii, xxii–xxiv, xxvii, xxxii–xxxiii, xxxv, 46–47, 65, 70, 75, 104, 121, 180, 191, 203 Wu Limo, 57 Wu songs history of, vii–ix, xiv–xv, xvii, xix, xxi–xxv, xxvii,

Index Wu songs history of (continued), xxx–xxxiii, xxxv, xxxviii, 9, 35, 42, 44–49, 57, 70–71, 73, 81, 84, 106, 112, 121–122, 136, 180, 188, 202–203, 253 Wu style (Wu ge), 49, 70 Wu Taibo. See Taibo Wu Tao, 74 Wugui shan (Turtle Mountain), 95 Wujiang, 5, 7, 58, 75, 118, 122, 135, 166 Wushan (Wu Mountain), 158–159 Wuxi, vii–viii, xxi, xxix, xxxvii, 5, 14, 18–19, 21, 25, 40, 65–67, 74–75, 77, 82, 85, 87, 90, 99, 102, 104–106, 109, 113, 134, 144, 151, 153–154, 166, 173–175, 177, 181, 183, 186, 192, 201, 205–208 Wuxian, 65, 144, 151 Wuyue kingdom, 7, 37, 47 Wu Yuying, viii Xi Shan (Western Mountain), 67, 107 Xitang, 11 Xiamu dang (Xiamu Lake), 11, 59 Xiao He, 156, 167 Xihu Yuyin Zhuren, 72 Xinbang, 62 Xu Atian, 59–60, 114–115, 117–124, 127–128, 130–132, 135, 137, 213, 217, 229–233, 238, 247, 249–252, 254 Xu Ayuan, 27 Xu Ernan, 26 Xu Peng, 71, 134 Xu Yong’an, 42 Xu Yujing, 43 Xue Liulang, 57, 115, 117, 140–141,

299 Xue Liulang (continued), 151–153, 155–156 Yacheng Lake, vii, 183, 193, 217 Yang Jingwei, viii Yang Junguang, 134 Yang, Mu, 44 Yang Wenying, viii Yang Xi, 205 Yang Zongbao, 32 Yangzi delta, vii, x, xiv–xv, xxiii–xxiv, xxxii, xxxv, 2, 4–5, 7, 12–13, 24–25, 32, 45, 47, 65, 83, 99, 111, 140, 153, 167, 172–173, 176–177, 203–204, 221–222 Yangzi River, xvi, xviii, xxviii, 1–2, 6–8, 21, 41–42, 77, 80–81, 104, 193 Yao, sage-king, 48 Ye Sheng, 48 Yellow River, 2, 8, 48, 77, 80, 82 Yi people, xxxvi Yin, Hubin, xxxvii Ying Changyu, 16 Yixing spout-pot, 237 Yongjia County, 28 Yu, Anthony, 134 Yu Dingjun, 189 Yu Pingbo, xiii, xvi, xxxiii Yu Shun (ancient sage king), 84, 105 Yu Yongliang, 70–71 Yuantou zhu (Turtle Head Isle), 95 Yue people, 99 Yuefu shiji, 46, 134 Yueyin, 70 Yuhang, 62, 154 Yunnan, xxxvi, 44 Zamperini, Paola, 167 zaju (drama), 107

300

Memory Making in Folk Epics of China

zange (song of blessings, sacred song), xxx, 87, 105 Zeitlin, Judith T., x, 71, 134 Zhang Daoling, 40, 106 Zhang Donglin, viii Zhang Fanglan, viii, xxi, 123 Zhang Juemin, viii, 119, 121, 211 Zhang Liang, 87–88, 102, 106, 156, 168 Zhang Yu (Emily), viii Zhang Zhongxing, xxxiv Zhang Ziqiang, 207 Zhao Shengguan, xxxviii, 30–31, 43, 52, 65, 67, 115–117, 141, 154–155, 158–162, 167, 216 Zhao Ye, 104 Zhao Xian, 106 Zhao Zilong, 18–19, 40–41, 221 Zhejiang, xv–xvi, 5, 13–14, 28, 37, 61, 65, 70, 74, 99, 108, 122, 132 Zhenze, 39, 75

Zheng Tuyou, viii, xxv, xxxiii, xxxviii, 24, 39, 42, 51, 66, 70, 72, 74–75, 132, 136–137, 206 Zhongyong, 78, 80–81, 104 Zhou (Zhou dynasty), viii, xvii, xxxiii–xxxiv, 16–17, 58, 73, 77–79, 82, 103, 108 Zhou Fulin, 58, 73 Zhou Xiaoxia, viii Zhou Zengyang, 16–17 Zhou Zuoren, xxxiii Zhu Apan, 80, 90, 188, 215 Zhu Bingfu, 151 Zhu Bingliang, 163, 169 Zhu Hairong, vii–ix, xxi, xxviii–xxx, 2, 37, 40, 66, 85, 90–91, 107, 154, 167, 174, 182–183, 185–189, 203–207, 211 Zhu San and Liu Erjie, 61–62, 132 Zhu Yongchang, 90, 151

Cambria Sinophone World Series

General Editor: Victor H. Mair (University of Pennsylvania) The members of the editorial board are: • Michael Berry (UCLA) • Wendy Larson (University of Oregon) • Jianmei Liu (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) • Christopher Lupke (University of Alberta) • Haun Saussy (University of Chicago) • Carlos Rojas (Duke University) • Tansen Sen (NYU Shanghai) • Shu-mei Shih (UCLA) • Jing Tsu (Yale University) • David Der-wei Wang (Harvard University)

Books in the Cambria Sinophone World Series Memory Making in Folk Epics of China: The Intimate and the Local in Chinese Regional Culture by Anne E. McLaren Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning: Shamanistic Religious Influences on Chinese Literary Tradition by Nicholas Morrow Williams Taking China to the World: The Cultural Production of Modernity by Theodore Huters Sensing the Sinophone: Urban Memoryscapes in Contemporary Fiction by Astrid Møller-Olsen The Legend of Prince Golden Calf in China and Korea by Wilt L. Idema and Allard M. Olof

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303

Chinese Women Writers and Modern Print Culture by Megan M. Ferry Reading Lu Xun Through Carl Jung by Carolyn Brown Gao Xingjian and Transmedia Aesthetics edited by Mabel Lee and Liu Jianmei Imperfect Understanding: Intimate Portraits of Chinese Celebrities edited by Christopher Rea Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture by Wendy Larson The Borderlands of Asia: Culture, Place, Poetry by Mark Bender Buddhist Transformations and Interactions: Essays in Honor of Antonino Forte edited by Victor H. Mair Chinese Avant-garde Fiction: Quest for Historicity and Transcendent Truth by Zhansui Yu Eroticism and Other Literary Conventions in Chinese Literature: Intertextuality In The Story Of The Stone by I-Hsien Wu The Sinophone Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien: Culture, Style, Voice and Motion by Christopher Lupke Supernatural Sinophone Taiwan and Beyond by Chia-rong Wu Cosmopolitanism in China edited by Minghui Hu and Johan Elverskog “The Immortal Maiden Equal to Heaven” and Other Precious Scrolls from Western Gansu by Wilt L. Idema Chinese Ethnic Minority Oral Traditions: A Recovered Text of Bai Folk Songs in a Sinoxenic Script by Jingqi Fu and Zhao Min with Xu Lin and Duan Ling China and Beyond in the Mediaeval Period: Cultural Crossings and Inter-Regional Connections edited by Dorothy C. Wong and Gustav Heldt Anglophone Literatures in the Asian Diaspora: Literary Transnationalism and Translingual Migrations by Karen An-hwei Lee Modern Poetry in China: A Visual-Verbal Dynamic by Paul Manfredi Sinophone Malaysian Literature: Not Made in China by Alison M. Groppe

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