Shanwei Fisherman’s Songs

8.Shanwei Fisherman’s Songs

Nominating Unit: City of Shanwei

Fishermen in Shanwei live either ashore or offshore. Those who live offshore can be subdivided into towboat fishermen and small boat fishermen. Sung by fishermen during their work and daily life in the coastal city Shanwei in east Guangdong Province, the traditional fisherman’s songs refer to those sung in small fi shing boats, which are commonly known as the Tan Ethnic Minority, and therefore the songs are called Tan Songs. Mainly distributed in Xingang, Jiesheng, Magong in Shanwei downtown, Houmen in Haifeng County, Xiaomo, Jiazi and Jieshi towns in Lufeng city, the songs’ were originally related to the Tan People in the Song and the Yuan Dynasties.

Touching upon a variety of topics, namely fishing, love, marriage, fighting, the spice of daily life and logistics, etc., the songs express fishermen’s feelings of the unsettled life in the water and the hard work of fishing. Fishermen ashore will also hum songs unconsciously while spinning, webbing, making boats, rowing and fishing net mending.

The lyrics are mostly in the pattern of four seven-character lines with ornamental expressions inserted into each line. It is neat in structure and unique in meter. The figurative rhetorical device is frequently employed with fish, birds, boat and mast, colors of sea water, ocean waver and spray as the object, making the lyrics more vivid, full of fun and a refreshing taste of life on the sea.(https://www.daowen.com)

Sung in Chaozhou dialect, the songs are performed in solo, in unison or in chorus. In terms of tune, the representative forms include umbrella-carrying, east wind, harvest, aunt-and-sister, prosperity, and so on. Apart from the five basic musical scales, the songs have functional drawls and repetition; the melody, too, has its own rhythm and unique stem sounds and ending sounds. The slow rhythm, harmonious tone and pleasant melody create a precious music treasure that provides nourishment for the development of violin music, piano music and songs written by contemporary composers.

The settlement of fishermen living ashore brings great changes to their way of life and culture, hence seldom do they sing songs in everyday life. Older generations of fishermen singers are now senior in years; some have already passed away, bringing the songs to the predicament of being lost. In the light of this, strong protection measures are urgently needed to preserve this tradition.