Cantonese children's songs are declining? Writer Zeng Yingfeng talked about inheritance and innovation

On January 23rd, under the guidance of guangdong Volunteer Federation, sponsored by the Southern Intangible Cultural Heritage Communication Volunteer Service Team, guangdong Provincial Revitalization Of Traditional Crafts Workstation, Guangzhou Greater Bay Area Cultural Exchange Promotion Center, and JIA Bay Area Bookstore, the sixth lecture of the Southern Intangible Cultural Heritage Academy was held at the JIA· Bay Area Bookstore in Pearl River Park.

Zeng Yingfeng, a first-class writer of the Guangzhou Academy of Literature and Art Creation and a member of the Expert Committee on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Guangdong Province, systematically introduced the emergence and development of Cantonese nursery rhymes and their inheritance in contemporary times with the theme of "Folk Chanting in the Cultural Memory of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area - Talking about Modern Cantonese Nursery Rhymes".

Folk chants of "events for a specific historical era"

Poetry spread from the Central Plains to Lingnan very early, and Qu Dajun, a Cantonese in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, mentioned in the book "Guangdong New Language": "Cantonese customs are good songs." "Song" refers to a variety of folk songs, including Cantonese minor, Cantonese and Cantonese children's songs. Zeng Yingfeng introduced that among these folk songs, Cantonese children's songs are spread in the Pearl River Delta (that is, the Guangfu area) centered on Guangzhou, which absorbs the living memories of cantonese people in the countryside and the inner houses in the fields, condenses the local feelings of Cantonese people, and is a bright pearl in Lingnan folk culture. It includes various types of current politics, life, customs, games and other types in content, and has different performances in different historical periods and places.

It is believed that folk nursery rhymes were widely disseminated after the 1919 song and ballad study movement initiated by Peking University professors Liu Bannong, Shen Yinmo, Qian Xuantong, and Shen Jianshi. However, Zeng Yingfeng found after systematic examination that as early as the Opium War, Cantonese nursery rhymes had become popular. She listed the nursery rhyme "Sanyuanli Anti-British", each sentence of the work begins in numerical order, vividly reflecting the tenacious struggle of the people of Sanyuanli to resist the British, and clearly reflecting the fighting spirit and courage of the people of Guangzhou against foreign aggression, which was especially widely circulated at that time.

"Cantonese nursery rhymes are folk chants of specific eras and years, leaving traces of life in the modern period of the Canton area." Zeng Yingfeng said. In addition to current political songs, cantonese nursery rhymes have more works that reflect daily life, such as "Moonlight" and "Chicken Doll", covering social, natural, historical, geographical and other aspects. Through these folk chants of "origin of events", nursery rhymes have become a bridge for teaching children to learn language, recognize things and recognize words, and have also become oral and intangible cultural heritage of human beings, with rich cultural and social values.

Contemporary heritage of Cantonese nursery rhymes

In this day and age, the tide of economic integration on a global scale is fierce, posing a certain threat to the world's cultural diversity. The oral transmission of Cantonese nursery rhymes is particularly vulnerable in this situation. As Zeng Yingfeng described: "Children's knowledge comes from books, interest is in electronics and on the Internet, and not singing nursery rhymes has become the norm." As a result, a generation of children can't sing nursery rhymes, and when they grow up, they won't teach their descendants to sing nursery rhymes, and traditional nursery rhymes will gradually be 'forgotten'. ”

For this phenomenon, as a cultural scholar, Zeng Yingfeng had a certain anxiety. She said: "To rescue and protect folk cultural heritage is to protect the roots of national dignity and national culture, so that the ancient Chinese civilization can be passed on in an orderly and endless manner." Folk literature is the mother of all literature, to pass on the declining Cantonese children's songs, to rely on the promotion of society and education, to let our college, middle and primary school students from an early age to understand folk culture, inherit folk culture. ”

Zeng Yingfeng shared the measures taken by all sectors of society in recent years to inherit and protect Cantonese nursery rhymes. She introduced that some schools in Guangzhou not only let children sing traditional Cantonese nursery rhymes, but also encourage children to find interesting life scenes and create new nursery rhyme works, which have produced many results.

Written by: Nandu reporter Xu Xiaolei intern Ren Ziwei