"Gansu's Ballads - Words", Yuan Fuli (Song Weekly No. 82 front page)
Cover of "West and Beggar Song"
The first "Small Qi of Flowers" published in the supplement of Gansu Republic of China Daily. (Details)
"Afterword to Flowers" published in the supplement of Gansu Republic of China Daily.
Qi Xiaoping
A hundred years of vicissitudes, white colts through the gap. A century ago, the Peking University Song Movement, which originated from the May Fourth New Culture Movement, gathered academic elites from all walks of life across the country for the first time in Chinese history to participate in the collection and research of folk songs. Influenced by this, in the 1920s and 1930s, the study of Gansu song also shone brightly, and left several precious academic documents, which have been handed down to this day.
In February 1918, Mr. Cai Yuanpei collected national songs from recent times in the Journal of Peking University, which later developed into a nationwide song collection campaign with the Peking University Song Research Association as its working body, and its academic position was "Song Weekly". The modern study of Gansu ballads has a deep relationship with the "Song Weekly" and the song movement.
The publication of The Weekly ballads was divided into two phases, the first of which was the publication from December 17, 1922 to June 28, 1925, with a total of 97 issues, and the second was the resumption of publication on April 4, 1936 and the suspension of publication on June 26, 1937, with a total of 53 issues. The inaugural issue of "Song Weekly" was written by Mr. Chang Hui, and the reissuance number of "Song Weekly" was reissued by Mr. Hu Shi.
As far as the inaugural issue of Song Weekly is concerned, in addition to the words, there are two other important pieces of information related to the modern study of Gansu songs that deserve our attention. According to the information in the inaugural issue, on December 1, 1922, the "Song Weekly" received 2 Gansu songs provided by Fan Shu; on December 3, 1922, the "Song Weekly" received 8 Gansu songs provided by Dust. The dust here seems to be a pen name, and who is not yet known. Fan Shu here is most likely Fan Shu (Zi XinRu), a Jingyuan man who graduated from Peking University, that is, the eldest son of Mr. Fan Zhenxu. These two pieces of information show that the academic collection of Gansu ballads by the elite has been on the rise since the beginning of the song movement, and it is very likely that it is the culturally conscious action of Gansu intellectuals.
The elite's academic research on Gansu ballads began with the 82nd Issue of Song Weekly. Yuan Fuli (1893–1987), a native of Xushui County, Hebei Province, was a pioneer in Chinese geomorphology and Quaternary geology. From 1923 to 1924, Mr. Yuan Fuli conducted a geological and mineral survey in Gansu, and the exploration intermittently recorded the incessant "words" along the way, and published it in the "Song Weekly" No. 82 on March 15, 1925, entitled "Gansu Song - "Words"" in the "Song of Gansu". A total of 34 "Gansu Songs" were published in this article, including 30 mountain songs "Flowers" and 4 minor songs. Among them, 30 "flowers" were circulated in Qinzhou, Hezhou, Didao, Ganzhou, Liangzhou and other places at that time, and belonged to the category of Hehuang-type flowers.
What is particularly valuable is that Mr. Yuan Fuli not only published the "Hua'er" singing texts he collected, but also marked the inheritance areas of these "Hua'er" and their singer groups, vividly and meticulously recording the existence of "Hua'er" songs in the lives of the people in Gansu in the 1920s.
"As soon as the people of the provinces enter the territory of Gansu, they can hear a very high-pitched song, and the height of the tone and the peculiarity of the interval and scale transformation can especially make the people of the provinces pay special attention." The spread of the word is very common, in the east of Pingliang, Guyuan, northwest of Liangzhou, Ganzhou, have heard, from Lanzhou to Didao, along the road to hear a lot. In addition, there are still merchants in Xining TongheZhou, and the porters of Qinzhou and Qin'an can sing. —Quoted from Ballad Weekly, No. 82.
"Gansu's Ballads - "Words" has made the Gansu ballads represented by "Flowers" go out of Longyuan and attract the attention of the world, becoming the pioneering work of modern academic research on Gansu songs.
With the continuous advancement of the Peking University song movement, the Gansu intellectual class, which is located in the northwest corner, has also launched a boom in the collection and research of songs. They gradually realized the multiple literary and academic values of Gansu Song and began to deliberately collect and study it. In this process, the Gansu song collection activities and achievements of Mr. Zhang Yaxiong and Zhao Zixian completed the academic response of the Gansu song research community to the Peking University song movement, leaving a good story in the history of Gansu song research.
Zhang Yaxiong (1909-1989), male, from Yuzhong County, Gansu Province. Mr. Zhang Yaxiong received a good education since childhood and has been engaged in journalism for a long time since he became an adult. During his studies, he was taught and influenced by Mr. Zhang Yiwu, Shao Piaoping, Xu Lingxiao, etc., learned about the development process of the "Song Movement" of Peking University, established the ambition of song research, and began to collect the "flowers" in his hometown. In 1931, on the eve of graduation from the Department of Journalism of Peking Civilian University, he wrote and published a research paper entitled "Flower Order". On July 8 and July 9, 1933, Mr. Zhang Yaxiong published his paper "Flower Order" under the pseudonym "Yazi" in the "Lifeline" column of the "Gansu Republic of China Daily". From August 11 to 16, 1936, he published his "Flower Afterword" in the supplement of The Gansu Republic of China Daily for 6 consecutive days. On August 22, 1936, Mr. Zhang Yaxiong followed the song collection method of the "Song Movement" and published the "Small Qi of Flowers" in the supplement of the "Gansu Republic of China Daily", and since then began the collection and publication of "Flowers" with the "Gansu Republic of China Daily" as the position. On August 22, 1936, he began to publish the "Flower" song he had collected in the Gansu Republic of China Daily. This landmark "Flower" is excerpted below:
Half a child qing, half a child yin, half a xiao (note) red person, two bodies and a woman, beating you is my pain. (Note: Xiaoyin whistle, native language.) Cai Xia also, the townspeople to occupy the sky clear, the sky is cloudy. ）
Since then, "Hua'er" has opened a column in the "Gansu Republic of China Daily", sometimes "One Flower a Day", that is, publishing a "Flower"; sometimes "A Bouquet of Flowers" or simply reducing it to "Flowers", publishing several "Flowers"; sometimes publishing a group of "Flowers" on related themes, such as "Journey to the West", "Beautiful Moon Ling Song", "Xue Rengui Zhengdong" and so on. With the increase in the number of harvests, Mr. Zhang Yaxiong sequenced the "flowers" published. This kind of collection and publication lasted for several months in the Gansu Republic of China Daily.
Zhao Zixian (1908-1980), male, from Xihe County, Gansu Province. Mr. Zhao Zixian participated in the Third Northern Expedition in his youth, and later studied and worked in Kaifeng, Tianjin, Lanzhou, Yinchuan and other places. In the early 1930s, he returned to his hometown of Xihe because of his filial piety and engaged in education. Influenced by progressive ideas, before the summer vacation of 1936, he mobilized and organized the students of Gulou South Senior High School, the highest school in Xihe County at that time, to collect beggar songs that were circulated throughout the villages. In the middle of the holiday, it coincided with the Tanabata Beggars Festival, and the students collected a lot of beggar songs. According to the recollection of Mr. Jiang Rui, a student who participated in this collection activity, the geographical scope of the beggar songs collected by the students was "from Yanguan and Qishan in the north to Heba and Hengling Mountains in the south". After the summer vacation, Mr. Zhao Zixian instructed the students to summarize, check, deduplication, classify, proofread, and transcribe the collected beggar songs. He then inscribed his understanding of Xihe and Beggar Song in poetry on the inner page of the book.
The two inscriptions read: "The heartstrings on the paper are terrified, and the daughter is sad and bitter." Pus and bleeding were sentenced to half death, and marrying a dog and marrying a chicken was sentenced to life. Beggars only pray for less bad luck, and seem to walk towards the cliffs. Pavilion jewels in the home treasure, parents who smell the sound of singing. There is no sound in the poem, and the afterglow of the Qin wind reverberates from the echo. Millennia beggars sing for thousands of years, the same survival as the same sound. The water and drought soldiers are desolate and suffering, and the seasons are cultivated to sow rich customs. True poetry has gone with the wind since ancient times, and the rivers and rivers are far away. Since the two inscription poems were written at the time of "Chengzi Chongyang", it can be inferred that this "Beggar Song" from the fieldwork was "written" before October 23, 1936.
After more than 70 years, under the planning of the Xihe County People's Government, Professor Zhao Kuifu, the son of Mr. Zhao Zixian, revised mr. Zixian's posthumous work and published it in Hong Kong Galaxy Publishing House in April 2010. In July 2014, the book was republished by Shanghai Far East Publishing House.
Although Gansu during the Republic of China period was a closed place in the northwest, the progressive youth and the idea of change brought fresh blood to this land. Under the influence of the "Song Movement" of Peking University, they re-examined the folk songs that have been passed down for thousands of years in this land, and the seeds of local cultural self-confidence have awakened in the hearts of advanced intellectuals. In addition to the precious documents left by the three representative figures introduced above, there were many intellectuals who were influenced by the "Song And Ballad Movement" of Peking University during the Republic of China period, and there were many intellectuals engaged in the collection and research of Gansu songs, and there were also many Documents of the Republic of China left behind. Yuan Fuli, Gu Jiegang, Fan Changjiang, Wang Shumin, and others all wrote articles for Gansu songs during their inspection in Gansu; intellectuals in this province examined the folk customs of their hometowns to excavate the cultural charm of this local art; Mr. Zhang Yaxiong, Zhao Zixian, Ya Hanzhang, Mu Shaotang, and others all left modern classic works that collected and studied Gansu songs. At the same time, Longyuan Xianda, who wrote Articles on Gansu Songs and Ballads in major publications and newspapers of the Republic of China, and his research results were many more, such as Lu Tai'an, Meng Ping, Xie Runfu, etc., who left valuable documents for the modern study of Gansu songs and ballads for future generations.
Source: Gansu Daily