*Huidong Fisherman’s Songs

9.*Huidong Fisherman’s Songs

Nominating Unit: City of Huizhou

Ordinarily called “back-boat songs”, Huidong Fisherman’s Songs are mainly distributed in Gangkou, Xunliao, Nianshan, Yanzhou and other fishing villages. According to Records of Huidong County, ancestors of Huidong fishermen are called “Back-boat Tan People” who immigrated from Fujian Province and Chaozhou in the Song Dynasty together with their fisherman’s songs. In the passage of time, the songs gradually fashion their own tune, style and performing form.

The songs’ lyrics fall into two categories: one is echoing of one line after another with ornamental characters or sentences at the beginning or the end; the other is four-line structured with a rhyme on line one, two and four or every other line. Plain and easy to understand, the lyrics mainly express fishermen’s feelings for the seas, the fish, the harsh life and memories of families, a true and typical reflection of the bitter and intense grief of the discrimination they suffered for generations. Ancient fishermen sing the songs to dispel bitter feelings as the songs have become their anchorage of hopes. Therefore it is sung by people of all ages in the boat and later integrated into folk activities of festival celebration, sacrifice ritual, marriage and funeral, etc.

Sung in Chaozhou dialect without accompaniment, the songs are performed in solo, in unison or in chorus. Rich in tune such as Ah-ah, di-du, wise-brother, luoxi, the tune number totals twenty-nine. Some of them have assimilated the drawl of Haifeng opera sung in Cantonese, and the oh-tone (also called grieving tone) mixed with the melody of Mazu Temple music, which helps create a special charm of local opera music combined with temple music.(https://www.daowen.com)

Huidong Fisherman’s Songs are outstanding in their musical mode and musical scale. With a fi ve-note scale as the leading mode complemented by Gong and Wei tones and supplemented by Jiao and Yu tones, the songs can also be in the six-note or even seven-note scale.

Huidong Fisherman’s Songs have preserved not only the ancient music’s plain style but also its rich and unique pattern of manifestation and lasting appeal, and therefore prove to be of special importance to the study of society, culture, and folk music, and of referential significance to contemporary music composition.

In 2008, it was added to the list of the second batch of state-level intangible cultural heritage.