Singing on the River: Sichuan Boatmen and Their Work Songs, 1880s–1930s

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Notes

1 One could add that since the introduction of the Chinese register of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the twenty-first century, numerous “transmitters” of folk traditions, including the Sichuan River haozi, have been identified by cultural authorities all over China,. The identified “transmitters” tend to be either elderly people who learned the tradition before 1949 or younger individuals who have set about to learn the tradition in the contemporary period.

2 A short list would include the shange of the lower Yangzi delta studied by Antoinet Schimmelpenninck, the folk songs of Shaanbei studied by Stephen Jones, and the Yi narrative songs and Miao creation epic songs investigated by Mark Bender. For examples of these song traditions see Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender, eds., The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

3 The website Youku (优酷) has a number of video clips on Chuanjiang haozi. The following item comprises an audio track of haozi songs and a set of photographic slides, including black and white photos from as far back as the 1890s. Most photos are of modern-day reconstructions portraying naked or semi-naked men (and the occasional topless woman) harnessed to boats as they work their way through the shallows, or painfully inch ahead, bent over double, along narrow tracks set into the cliff. The songs are spell-binding. See “Yaoyuan de chuanjiang chuanfu la qian” 遥远的川江船夫拉纤 http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTYyNjc0NjEzMg==.html?from=s1.8-1-1.2&spm=a2h0k.8191407.0.0 (accessed February 23, 2017).

4 See “The Haozi of the Yangtze Boatmen,” Chongqing Cultural and Historical Museum, http://www.china.org.cn/english/2003/Apr/61350.htm (accessed February 23, 2017).

5 See page 252. The line chuaner guolu yao fenqing 船兒過路要分清, translated here as “The boat boy is on his way, he has to part from his lover,” could possibly be read as “The boat boy passing by has to understand [distinguish clearly].” The song goes on to speak of clear water and muddy water (male and female), originally distinct streams but ultimately converging. The final couplet restates the need for fidelity, “[Just as] one river does not contain two different streams/ So lovers do not bear two different hearts.” Similarly, the song on the top of page 253 appears to relate to a girl complaining that her mother has not yet married her off (perhaps the bride price offered was too low) rather than that the male “is a rather unwilling and unreliable lover.” Songs on this theme put in the mouths of young women are commonplace in the lower Yangzi delta. The song on page 254 is reminiscent of the numerous songs where a boy falls literally sick with love-longing and his lover tries to “cure” him. She is aware that “drinking cold water will make him sick.” The only solution is the confluence of the muddy water from the great river flowing into the small river, as expressed in the final line. In this interpretation, the song is not about the male lover having “multiple sexual adventures” (p. 254). The song on page 258 is possibly simpler than the analysis offered here. In the final line the male is expressing the kind of intense love-longing that occurs when one has been lucky enough to get a love token from a willing partner: “I'm just worried I'll be stupefied by love.” To construe this as the girl suspecting “their love is just a trifle or an infatuation” appears to be an over interpretation of a relatively direct song about love requited. Of course the above interpretations are also speculative and highlight the ambiguity of the songs and the difficulty in arriving at a definite set of meanings.