China News Service, Shanghai, February 14th: Title: Intangible Cultural Heritage Folk Art "Xiangyin" Talks about "Nostalgia"
China News Service reporter Li Shuzheng
"Pursuit after the incident is called 'asking for debt'" "Mediating conflicts is called 'settling things off'" "Being humorous and witty is called 'Hao Baixiang'" "Getting together is called 'Ga Nao Meng'"... Wearing a long gown and holding a cymbal in his hand, The two teenagers, who are only fifteen or sixteen years old, speak to each other in Pudong dialect and are practicing intensively for the performance after the Spring Festival holiday.
"The rhythm here is tighter... This sentence is like 'pidgin beach'." Kang Yi, who is over sixty years old, listened carefully in the audience, sometimes giving suggestions and sometimes demonstrating himself.
This southern folk art with equal emphasis on rap and beautiful tunes is a national intangible cultural heritage - Pudong Storytelling.
Pudong storytelling, also known as "cymbal books", "Shanghai books", "peasant books", etc., originated in the Pudong area of Shanghai during the Daoguang period of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty and spread in the suburbs of Shanghai and Pinghu City, Zhejiang Province. Pudong storytelling has local characteristics and was once the second most popular type of music in Shanghai after "comedy".
If you "travel" back to the 1960s and walk into a teahouse and bookstore in Pudong, you can see a storyteller with a cymbal in his hand: dressed in a long gown and speaking in a local accent, he tells historical stories and folklore; in the audience, The tea guests held teacups in their hands, sometimes looking solemn and sometimes smiling as the storyteller performed.
"Cities are developing rapidly, and people have more and more leisure ways. As teahouses and bookstores gradually disappear, the 'soil' for Pudong storytelling is gradually becoming thinner." As the representative inheritor of Pudong storytelling at the Shanghai municipal level, Kang Yi recalled that since 1987 in Shanghai After the Shichunjianghu Book Troupe was transferred to business, "from then on, Shanghai's professional Pudong storytelling performance groups ceased to exist. Only sporadic folk artists still persisted."
At a time when its survival was in danger, with the joint efforts of private enthusiasts and Shanghai officials to promote protection, Pudong Storytelling was included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists in 2008. A rescue operation for endangered musical species began.
"Including intangible cultural heritage is the first step to save Pudong storytelling," Kang Yi said. To truly make Pudong storytelling "alive", what is more important is the "inheritance" and "spread" of local accents.
"We need to make more people, especially young people, interested in Pudong storytelling." Kang Yi said that many of the younger generation in Shanghai can no longer speak Shanghai dialect, and they are even more ignorant about Pudong dialect. This is why they understand , accepting and loving Pudong storytelling has set up a big obstacle.
In February 2024, Kang Yi (offstage), the representative inheritor of Pudong storytelling at the Shanghai municipal level, was instructing students to practice. Photo by China News Service reporter Li Shuzheng
In order to inject more fresh blood into the traditional folk art, Beicai Town, Pudong New District, Shanghai not only established the Pudong Storytelling Institute, but many primary and secondary schools in the town have also been included in the inheritance system. Pudong storytelling performances are held every week in the training center, and intangible cultural heritage inheritors regularly offer singing, body movement, and storytelling classes in schools to create conditions for children to get in touch with this local folk art.
"The most difficult thing is for children to be able to speak the Pudong dialect." In order to help the children lay a "language foundation", Kang Yi often encourages them to communicate with their family members, especially the elderly at home, in the local dialect. Occasionally, when Kang Yi meets one or two children with "foundation", Kang Yi's eyes often light up. "My young apprentice Lu Jiahao is a post-2000 generation, but he speaks the local dialect well and also likes traditional folk arts." Kang Yi pointed at a young man on the stage.
Inheriting the local accent, Kang Yi always has a sense of urgency. Taking Pudong Storytellers to campuses and kindergartens in the town; the performance on the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month ended, and during the New Year holiday, preparations continued for the performance on the tenth day of the first lunar month... "The local accent carries the nostalgia, which cannot be given up." Kang Yi said.
After more than 30 years of development and opening up, Pudong, once a vast farmland, has undergone earth-shaking changes. Pudong storytelling uses local accents to convey nostalgia, and also uses its humor to record the changes in this land. What used to be "raw cucumber, cooked cucumber, soft broad bean, hard broad bean, plus a dried radish" on the dining table of Pudong people became "fresh egg, salted egg, meat floss, bean paste, and hoof croissant" in the Newspapers 30 years later. Soup, rice, and old wine." What used to be "a house in front of my house and a field behind me" is now "the World Expo is held at my doorstep".
As a new generation, Lu Jiahao also has new ideas about the inheritance of Pudong storytelling that are different from his predecessors. ""Flowers" is popular, and the Shanghainese dialect is also popular on the Internet. We are trying to catch the traffic and make more short videos to introduce the local Pudong dialect." Lu Jiahao said, "This is all to let more people watch and understand it." (over)