Something asks 丨 Junko Inoguchi: How does Chinese folk rap "living culture" reach the heart?

Junko Inoguchi: How does Chinese folk rap "living culture" reach the heart?

China News Service, Beijing, May 6 Title: Junko Inouchi: How does Chinese folk rap "living culture" reach the heart?

China News Service reporter Gao Kai

In the interaction between China and the outside world, not only the comprehensive economic and social development has aroused widespread interest, but also the rich and diversified traditional Chinese culture has also attracted more and more attention. Junko Iguchi, a Japanese ethnomusicologist and professor at Osaka University of Music, is a foreign scholar who has long been concerned and researched chinese folk rap art.

Junko Inoguchi has been conducting fieldwork in China for a long time, conducting artistic research on Chinese folk rap from the perspective of ethnomusicology, and observing traditional Chinese culture from the perspective of "other". She views Chinese folk rap art as an "oral tradition" in rural areas, believing it to be a highly valuable "living culture."

Junko Inoguchi recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East and West Question", sharing her findings in this special research field, looking back at the "encounters" and "touching" in the in-depth fieldwork in China, and telling her thoughts on the sino-Japanese folk cultural exchanges.

The interview transcript is summarized below:

China News Service: What kind of opportunity made you interested in the relatively "narrow" field of Chinese folk rap art and decided to study it? What did you find out about it?

Junko Iguchi: In 1987, when I was a graduate student majoring in ethnomusicology at Osaka University, I learned that there are more than 300 kinds of music in China, while there are only a few classical rap arts in Japan. How did so many genres of music in China develop? What are their characteristics? And as art of cultural homogeneity, what are the similarities between them? I had a lot of questions all at once, and as far as I knew at the time, there were a lot of songs that originated in rural China, which surprised me to be honest. All of the above intrigued me.

In order to study Chinese folk rap, from 1988 to 1995, I came to China five times to conduct field research, and took the rap theme of "Leting Big Drum" circulating in Leting County and Luannan County in Hebei Province as the research object, and explored the rural oral culture, including rapping. From 1993 to 1994, I conducted a nine-month literature survey based in Beijing.

Folk rap art is basically centered on oral transmission in rural China and does not require textual words. Long rap is highly improvised and can insert "jokes". Depending on the occasion, the words of the book will also change vividly. The interaction between rap and the listener is very active.

In the book "Oral Culture in Rural Areas of Northern China: Rap Books, Documents, and Performances", I made a detailed analysis of the long book words of the Loud Drum "Flowing Water". At the point of "living art", the singers known as "flowing water" adopted words that could change freely, clarifying what was fixed and what was changing.

However, oral transmission does not mean that these arts have not been influenced by engravings such as Drum Words and Big Drum Words. There are also "writers" among rap artists in rural China, who organize old editions and create new bibliographies.

Junko Iguchi is the author of Oral Culture in Rural Northern China.

China News Service: You said that Chinese folk rap culture is a kind of "living culture", what does the so-called "living" refer to? As a culture, there is always a core content that has always been passed down, what do you think are the core elements that remain unchanged?

Junko Iguchi: For example, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a well-known classical drama in China, and Mr. Storyteller will not change the core part of the story and the words, but will express it innovatively in a way that attracts the attention of modern people. Depending on these different factors, the performance will be very different depending on these factors, such as whether the performance is located in a grand urban bookstore or a rural square, whether the performance is limited to one day or many consecutive days, what kind of audience the audience is, and how the scene reacts. The better the performer, the better at making all kinds of flexible adjustments.

This kind of "performance" has been the core of folk rap culture since ancient times. Not a fixed "literary work", but exists as a performing art, and none of them is the same performance. I think this is the spiritual core of rap culture, and its cultural charm not only crosses borders, but also reaches the heart.

In Xuchang, Henan, folk storytellers perform at the Duzhai Book Fair in Xuchang County. Photo by Niu Shupei, China News Service

China News Service: You mentioned that "it is important to look at each other's countries with your own eyes, and direct communication", in the process of conducting fieldwork in China for many years, what do you feel most deeply?

Junko Iguchi: There are many "writers" in rural China who have rich life experience and great talent, and everyone's experience is very colorful. For example, Mr. Zhang Jianguo (1939-2018), whom I met during my fieldwork, was not only proficient in the three folk arts of film drama, big drum and commentary in Laoting County, but even created his own script.

Many of Mr. Storytellers and accompanists are knowledgeable and virtuous, and they are teachers of researchers. Through my dealings with them, I learned about the source of "jokes" rooted in the depths of life in Chinese folk rap. For example, a blind accompanist I met has experienced a lot of hardships in life, but he has become more tolerant and kind to others and life. This makes me feel that the inheritance of art can never be separated from the warmth of human nature in connotation.

In my early years of research in rural China, because I was studying for a master's degree, I didn't have much savings on hand, and I didn't have any material rewards for the interviewees, but the local farmers did their best to prepare everything for us. After returning to Japan, I learned that the Jidong region where I was investigating at that time had been seriously damaged by the Japanese side in the war, but the villagers at that time did not mention the past to me, and I am deeply touched by the tolerance of the Chinese rural people.

China News Service: What do you think is the distinctive feature of Chinese folk oral culture? What is the difference between the oral cultures of China and Japan?

Junko Iguchi: Compared with Japanese oral culture, there are different kinds of music in various dialects in China, and the combination of language and music is very strong. Like the classical lyrics, new bibliographies of Chinese folk rap are constantly being created. In Japan, it is difficult to produce new scripts due to the social atmosphere that respects classical works too much.

I feel that Chinese music has become a part of people's culture, entertainment and life, and the types of drama, instruments and music often change. Japan's "Noh" and "Kyogen" are about 650 years old, and Kabuki and humanoid jingruri (koji drama) are about 400 years old, but Japan hardly uses new instruments. Just as Chinese Tang Dynasty instruments still exist in Japanese gagaku today, Japan has a strong tendency to "preserve as is".

For example, the Yoshio Festival of humanoid pure glass is a representative rap music in Japan, and the script, music, and Taisei sanmi line have not changed as in the Edo period, and the strings of silk thread are cherished to maintain a subtle timbre. Although there are also new scripts, the popular repertoire is the story of the 17th and 18th centuries, and beginners can enjoy japanese subtitles.

Japanese Kabuki performance. Photo by China News Service reporter Hou Yu

China News Service: China and Japan are dressed in water, and music exchanges have a long history. How do you evaluate the musical exchanges between the two countries in history and their impact on cultural exchanges?

Junko Iguchi: The cultural exchange between China and Japan, first of all, the transmission of Chinese culture to Japan, japan has completed localization while accepting the influence. Taking the guqin music score as an example, Japan is almost like a Chinese cultural relics storage warehouse, and the ancient score and the musical instruments of Shosoin can still be seen in Japan, and traditional music exchanges are an important part of the exchanges between the two countries.

In recent years, Chinese students majoring in musicology and ethnomusicology have broken through the barriers of Chinese and Japanese Chinese and published many excellent research results. I am very much looking forward to more Chinese studying Japanese music and more Japanese people studying Chinese music in the future.

Because this cultural study and heterocultural research are very different in their viewpoints and research methods, when Japanese people study Japanese music, they tend to stick to detailed themes and problems, and it is difficult to have a broad vision. When Chinese studying the Japanese shakuhachi and the Japanese kite, it is natural to have a comparative perspective.

In addition to traditional music, the spread of game music in China and Japan today is also confirming that "culture is easy to cross borders". For example, China's popular games are popular in Japan, and Chinese culture such as Peking Opera shown in the game attracts Young Japanese people.

China News Service: 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, can you talk about your feelings about the cultural exchanges between the two countries from the perspective of your research? In what ways should people-to-people cultural exchanges between the two countries be strengthened?

Junko Inoguchi: At the level of people-to-people exchanges, it is important to understand the opponents of "equal size". My new book, Dumplings for Farewell: Portraits of China's Cities and Villages (Kyoto 2021: Light House), describes unforgettable characters encountered in more than 30 years of fieldwork in China, and describes the encounters and partings with men, women and children in Hebei, Ningbo, Xiamen, Hunan and other places. The book was unexpectedly well received by many readers, and I saw some readers express this feeling: "Chinese is also enthusiastic, open-minded and charming to others in severe times and environments."

Dumplings for Farewell: Portraits of China's Cities and Villages (Japanese)

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China, continuing to strengthen people-to-people exchanges and deepen understanding of each other will help the two countries deepen their friendship between people and help the two countries better face the future. (End)

Respondent Profiles:

Junko IGUCHI is a professor at the Faculty of Music, Osaka University of Music (Musicology, Ethnomusicology). Doctor of Literature, Postdoctoral Fellow, Graduate School of Literature, Osaka University. His main research topics include "Research on Chinese Music and Artistic Energy" and "History of Western Music in Modern Asia". His major works are "Oral Culture in Rural Northern China: Books, Texts, Performances of Rap" (2003 Xiamen University Press), "Shanghai Concession and Lyceum Theater - Theater Space where Eastern and Western Art Converge" (2015, Shanghai People's Publishing House), "The Music Scene of exiles - Music and Ballet in Shanghai Concession" (2021 Shanghai Conservatory Press), "Farewell Dumplings - Portraits of Chinese Cities and Rural Areas" (Japanese) (2021 Kyoto: Light House)