Chants in the hills

Members of the Miao community are striving to keep a folk tradition - verses in praise of King Yalu - alive in the face of China's rapid modernization, Chen Nan and Yang Jun report.

Yang Xiaodong's main inspiration is his uncle, Yang Changrong, a folk singer from Guoshiguan, a remote mountainous village in Ziyun county, Guizhou province.

This area, where Yang Xiaodong, a 28-year-old singer, grew up, is also home to the Miao people.

Yang Changrong, 60, is a local celebrity as he is the only villager who can still chant verses in praise of King Yalu - the ethnic community's revered ancestor - in the old Miao language.

The old language doesn't have a written text and is almost forgotten.

China's other popular ethnic epics include songs about the Tibetan King Gesar, the Mongolian King Jianggar and the Kirgiz King Manas.

During his childhood, Yang Xiaodong used to follow his uncle to funerals, where Yang Changrong would chant verses from King Yalu's oral epic.

The ritual, which went on for days to honor the departed, fascinated Yang Xiaodong and he started to learn the art form from his uncle at the age of 13.

Yang Xiaodong completed middle school in 2005. Like many other rural youngsters, he left the poor village for a better life in the city.

Though he went to Shenzhen in the south to work, he couldn't forget the songs. In 2010, Yang Xiaodong returned to the village to be a teacher.

In 2014, he joined the King Yalu Cultural Research Center, which was founded by the Ziyun government in 2009 to focus on research, translation and recording of the King Yalu epic.

"For the Miao people, King Yalu (the epic) is important - it is the root of our culture and is also about our history," says Yang Xiaodong over the phone.

The verses are the remains of the oral history of the legendary King Yalu and chronicle how he led his people to fight in wars.

Due to the country's rapid modernization, such folk traditions are fading, especially because very few Miao people seem to be interested in carrying on with it.

Chen Xinghua, 73, is among the few members of the community who can sing the epic. He learned it as a teenager from his uncle, Wei Changxiu.

Like Yang Changrong, Wei is also the only dong lang, or singer, in his village, Daha, located in the same county in Guizhou.

"It is said that completing all the verses of the King Yalu epic takes at least 10 days and the acts are performed by at least four people. But now, we perform a shorter version because nobody can sing it entirely," says Chen.

Invited by rural residents to conduct funeral rites, Chen gave over 50 performances in 2016. But he gets paid more in kind (meals) than cash.

In 2015, Huang Laojin, who was considered the only dong lang capable of singing King Yalu in its entirety, died in Gejing village in Ziyun county, aged 99.

Huang was known for his singing of all six battlefield scenes from the epic.

"His death is a big loss," says Chen.

"I am afraid the tradition will die someday. I spent my whole life learning and preserving the songs, and they are priceless to me. I hope to pass them to the young generation," he adds.

There are some 3,000 dong lang among a population of 300,000 in western Guizhou's impoverished Mashan area, says Yang Zhengjiang, director of the King Yalu Cultural Research Center.

Yang Zhengjiang, himself a member of the Miao community, started his research on the epic after he graduated from Guizhou Minzu University in 2002.

Since 2009, the 32-year-old has interviewed hundreds of folk singers, including Huang and Chen, to make video and audio recordings about King Yalu.

"Most dong lang are very old. Once they are gone, the history of King Yalu and possibly even Miao culture will be forgotten," he says, adding that the average age of the dong lang is 70, which makes the preservation of this tradition urgent.

In 2009, the epic was included in the State-level intangible cultural heritage list.

In 2012, with the help of the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Society, King Yalu was published in Chinese for the first time.

By 2014, Yang Zhengjiang helped the county set up 17 teaching and learning centers across five towns to protect the folk art. He hopes to do more in the future to preserve the heritage.

Besides research, it would be a good approach to bring wider attention to the unique Miao culture by combining tourism with performances of the songs of the King Yalu epic, says Yao Xiaoying, a deputy to the National People's Congress and vice-president of the Guizhou Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles.

"I have watched the performances of King Yalu several times. It is about Miao history and religion. I believe people, even those who are not from the ethnic group, will be enlightened by it."

Contact the writers through chennan@chinadaily.com.cn

The chanting of verses from the King Yalu epic is a common feature at funerals and festivals of the Miao ethnic group. Chen Xinghua (above left) is one of the few in Ziyun county, Guizhou province, who can sing the epic. Photos Provided To China Daily