Yang Tielong performs "The Legend of Qiang Hu" in Habaqi Village, Shala Town
Yang Tielong , a national representative inheritor of Uliger, a Mongolian folk art of storytelling. The performer who tells a story while playing sihu, a four-stringed bowed instrument, is called “Huerqin”.
Yang’s father, Maha, is a well-known Huerqin locally and knows very well the hardships of folk artisans who are usually struggling to make a living. So, he was determined that he wouldn’t allow his son to continue his legacy. However, Yang Tielong went against his father’s will and became a Huerqin upon graduation from Mongolian Senior High School in Fumeng county.
Yang travels and performs across the place in the slack season. In 2008, he was granted the title of a national representative inheritor of intangible cultural heritage. In 2009, he recorded a program of 60 hours with a radio station in Mongolian language in Fuxin city, and later the program was broadcast in seven radio stations including the Inner Mongolia Radio Station.In 2010, he performed in Shanghai World Expo together with many inheritors of intangible cultural heritage. Also, in 2012, he went to Russia and performed at the event of “Chinese Culture Year” .
In 2012, Yang Tielong taught Russian audiences to pull four hus at the "Year of Chinese Culture" intangible cultural heritage exhibition and performance event
On the way to Habaqi Village, Fuxin Mongol Autonomous County, Fuxin City, Liaoning Province, I secretly looked forward to seeing the scenery of "wind blowing grass and low seeing cattle and sheep", although I have been told that the Mongolian people here have long become "walled tribes" under the influence of agricultural civilization. Along the way, what you see is an authentic nostalgic scene: there are donkeys lying next to the haystacks, and there are white geese swaying, swaggering through the market, and they don't avoid our cars when they see us.
The car had just arrived in front of a crop yard when a thin man in his 50s stepped out, his appearance vaguely recognizable of Mongolian ancestry. He is the person we are looking for on this trip, Yang Tielong, the representative inheritor of Urigel's national level.
Yang Tielong's Mongolian name is "Alatanlu", which means golden dragon, and the iron dragon was originally a nickname, but later it was called "True Lord". Every time he came, Yang Tielong would be invited to play and sing, sitting under the jujube tree in the courtyard in the summer and sitting on the kangtou in the house in the winter. His voice is slightly hoarse, but it is low and beautiful, and with the same low four beards, it produces an indescribable sense of harmony, which makes people a little fascinated... If it were not for the fact that more than 800 years ago, the Mongolian Lejin tribe migrated east from the Hetao region to the Fuxin region to live in the pastoral, there would not be the song of Huerqin wafting here, and there would not be such a beautiful name as "Mongolian Lejin". To this day, the Mongolian residents here are still willing to call this place Mongolian Lejin, as Yang Tielong said: "This is called, more hometown taste." ”
01 Genghis Khan and Hurqin speak
If you want to understand Yang Tielong, you must first say Huerqin, and if you want to say Huerqin, you must first talk about Urigel.
"Urigel" is a Mongolian word meaning "storytelling". There are two forms of Urigel: one is a cappella rap called "Yabagan Uligel"; the other is accompanied by an accompaniment rap called "Chaoren Uligel", and the one sung with the accompaniment of the four hu is called "Huren Urigel". Because Sihu is called "Hur" in Mongolian, the artist who plays the Sihu Laishu is called "Huerqin". Yang Tielong is a Huerqin in the Legin region of Mongolia. Regarding the origin of the Hurqin narrative, the Secret History of the Mongols records a legend that once Genghis Khan led several of his subordinates to a banquet in the Kezhiti tribe, and one of them was drunk at the banquet and lost his attitude at the banquet. After returning from the feast, an enraged Genghis Khan wanted to kill the subordinate who had humiliated himself. The subordinate hurriedly said to Genghis Khan, "Please let me tell you a story, and then you will kill me again." So, this subordinate picked up a handful of Hur, played and rapped a paragraph, and everyone present listened to it with fascination and applauded. Genghis Khan, who cherished talents, then spared him the death penalty, and later took him to participate in the social activities of various tribes, but instead of letting him drink, he let him perform rap for everyone and cheer for the banquet.
Yang Tielong firmly believes in the authenticity of this story, repeatedly stressing that "this is not a legend, this is true". He believed that Hurqin's melodious playing and singing had an irresistible charm, and even a generation of arrogant Genghis Khan would be conquered. It is no longer clear who this surviving subordinate is.
However, Fuxin's Ruiying Temple did indeed come out of a legendary figure - Dansen Nyima, who was known as the "god Huerqin". Yang Tielong said that Dansen Nyima (1810-1889) was a recognized grandfather of The mongol Lejin Hurqin, born in the town of Buddhist Temple, served as a lama, had an amazing memory, and later left the temple to speak. The footprints of this grandfather, all over the Zarut Banner in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, not only left a large number of popular bibliographies, but also cultivated a large number of outstanding Huerqin disciples. It is said that even Zharut's huerqin ancestor Chao Yubang was his disciple. The Five Biographies of the Book of Tang (including the Biography of Bitter Joy, Family Portrait, The Tale of the Demon Demon, the Tale of the Obscure One, and the Biography of Qianghu, a total of 2.12 million words), based on the stories of the wild history of the Tang Dynasty, are still the most widely circulated and famous long books in Mongolia.
02 Hurqin's sorrow and joy
Recalling the hardships and twists of his time when he first studied art, Yang Tielong was full of emotions.
Yang Tielong's father, Maha (1920-1994), was a well-known local Huerqin. During the agricultural leisure or Spring Festival, several artists gather in the Yang family to play the piano, tell books, sing folk songs, and sing good Noble, which is lively and lively. Yang Tielong, who had been immersed in the sound of singing since childhood, asked his father for a doctrine book, but was strongly opposed by his father. Yang Tielong said that looking back now, his father understands the hardships of the survival of folk artists, so he is determined not to let his son also take this road.
Yang Tielong wrote for the villagers
Playing the four beards, singing freely, watching the sun rise and the moon set, the warblers flying grass long... The romance of the bard is limited to imagination, and the reality is "more sorrowful Hurqin". This widely circulated saying shattered the dream aura that hung over Hu Erqin's body, reflecting the hardships of Hu Erqin in the past.
In the face of his father's strong opposition, Yang Tielong, who was only 9 years old, was surprisingly firm. He often took advantage of his father's absence to secretly play with his father's four beards. Later, when his father discovered his "small movements", he sighed a long time, accepted that he would no longer stop him, and began to teach him to pull four beards. Yang Tielong said: "The four hus are much more difficult than the erhu, and people who have no foundation at all have to learn at least four years to learn." I remember that the song card of "Dragon and Tiger Fighting" alone, I practiced for three years. But this is also the most difficult of all the songs, practice this, the rest is not a problem. After learning hundreds of songs, Yang Tielong began to endorse the bibliography. In order to grasp more books, he insisted on listening to mongolian storytelling programs of radio stations such as Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia, and also used a tape recorder to catalog the festivals and record them while listening. Yang Tielong memorized long books such as "Luo Qingming Zhengxi" word by word, and the thick notebook used up 14 copies.
In 1985, after graduating from high school, Yang Tielong joined a folk theater troupe organized by Han Qixiang in The Buddhist Temple Town, with a monthly salary of 30 yuan, and was forcibly taken home by his father a year later. His father scolded him for not doing his job, and yang Tielong still remembered the words of reprimand. He said he understood his father's intricate state of mind: on the one hand, he felt empathy for his son's love of storytelling, and on the other hand, he was deeply worried about his son's future.
As a result, the scene was repeated at the age of 9. Yang Tielong once again went against his father's wishes and became a mobile Huerqin, performing everywhere when he was idle. He also paid the price for that choice. After 1996, the performance market deteriorated, and Yang Tielong's income became more and more meager. The Yang family's life has always depended on about eight acres of land, coupled with two children going to school, the cost is not small, and the life is a bit stretched.
Yang Tielong could have made another living, like most people in the village, to dig coal in the coal mine and have no worries about food and clothing. But why not give up? This question has been asked many times. Yang Tielong pointed to the four hu hanging on the west wall of the room and said, "There are many worries about Hu Erqin, but I can't do without it in my life." Whenever I pull up the four beards, the sorrow and bitterness are all integrated into my hul, and I really taste the heavenly happiness of the spirit in the sound of the piano. ”
"Music soothed my painful soul," says John Christopher. This sentence is like a commentary on Hurqin's life: sorrow is also happiness.
03 Hidden worries and hopes for the future
Mongolian Lerzin is known historically as the "ocean of songs" and the "hometown of stories". As the saying goes: Three people go together, two are Daguqin (singer) and one is Huerqin. Yang Tielong said: "At its peak, there were more than 300 Huerqin here, and now, the only people who insist on telling books for many years are me and Han Yingfu (Namjil) of The Buddhist Temple Town. "The gap from 300 to 2 reflects Urigel's dismal loss of the market in the face of modern multi-entertainment culture.
At present, the number of storytelling performances is very small, and it is mainly concentrated on occasions such as birthday celebrations, marriages, and house buildings during the Spring Festival. Sometimes, in conjunction with the county Mongolian language office, the party's policy propaganda was carried out, during which time the individual performed rapping in traditional bibliographies. But when it comes to asking for remuneration, the number of people invited becomes very small. Even if there is a performance, it is said that the bibliography is "short and fast". In an age when everything is accelerating, traditional long-form bibliographies are in jeopardy. Yang Tielong recalled: "In the past, everyone loved to listen to long books, and a book could speak for three days and three nights. I remember that in 1989, the mountain village in Daban Town invited me to tell books, and 99% of that village was Mongolian. The village chief arranged for me to live in the village, to arrange meals according to each household (eating from house to house), and to say three books in a row. ”
The shrinking of the performance space directly affects the inheritance of this art. In the past few years, Yang Tielong has been looking for apprentices, and has successively accepted seven apprentices such as Gong Tianzhu, Bai Fugang, and Bai Fuquan, but he has not taught for two years and left two. Urigel's long learning cycle and strict requirements for artists are prohibitive.
In 2010, Yang Tielong (first from right) performs Urigel at the Shanghai World Expo
Yang Tielong said that in order to become a qualified Huerqin, he must have five conditions: first, he has good character and artistic virtue; second, he can understand Both Mongolian and Chinese; third, he has a good image; fourth, he has a good voice; and fifth, he has good piano skills. It is not easy to achieve these five conditions, not to mention that it is necessary to master hundreds of songs and tunes, memorize thousands of lyrics and singing segments, memorize thousands of characters and city names in several or even dozens of novels, and hone the performance skills of improvisational singing and touching the scenery. All of this requires long-term hard work, but the meager performance income is not proportional to a lot of energy investment, and the strong contrast between the two makes many people think that the book is "not doing the right thing". The "Path of Peace and Happiness" is a noble and transcendent realm, and it is also an ascetic practice of suffering.
Along with hidden worries is hope. Since being named a representative inheritor of national intangible cultural heritage in 2008, Yang Tielong's life has also quietly changed. In the spring of 2009, Yang Tielong recorded more than 60 hours of the program "Cold Wind Transmission" on Fuxin Mongolian Radio, which was broadcast on 7 radio stations including Inner Mongolia Radio. The last time he went to radio to record a book, he said, was in the 1980s, and he didn't expect to be able to return to the studio again after 30 years. In 2010, he went to the Shanghai World Expo with the intangible cultural heritage exhibition team, went to Taiwan in 2011 to perform urigel for the people of Taipei, and in 2012, he went to Russia to participate in the "Chinese Culture Year" intangible cultural heritage exhibition and performance activities. Such a change surprised Yang Tielong, and he was somewhat overjoyed. Even his wife began to realize that his tireless pursuit of storytelling was useful, because those in the village who had become rich through coal mining did not receive such attention.
In 2014, Yang Tielong walked into the Sala Mongolian Primary School and became a teacher in the "Urigel Art Heritage Class". In June 2021, three Urigel learning bases were established in his town of Shara, and the once barren cultural soil was enriched little by little. What surprised Yang Tielong even more was that his son showed an unusual interest in traditional Mongolian culture. Yang Yang, a young man born in the late 1980s who loves computers, music, and his father, has the greatest ideal of "becoming a musician who carries forward national culture, a research-oriented and practical talent." Although whether Yang Yang can become a Huerqin is unknown, he let Yang Tielong see the hope that the traditional national art will continue in the hands of young people. It turns out that flying youth and heavy traditions can also blend and complement each other.
Yang Yang wrote in his QQ signature: "Pull the four hus well, write the score well, sing well, practice the long tune well, just like that, it's very good." "Because I like it, I do it, it's simple for a young man. With this simple like, Urigel can sing endlessly and the piano does not stop. Hopefully, in the near future, when Hulqin plays his beloved Sihu, there will be no more worries and only endless happiness.
Courtesy photo: Liaoning Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center
Author: Cao Yang
Editor: Xu Boyan
Editor-in-charge: Jing Xuefeng