Recently, I have become completely engrossed with Chinese Ethnic (non-han) and han folk music from China. I spend a good 2-3 hours every day after work researching and watching videos on Youtube with performances from these artists.
To clarify, China has 56 different ethnicities, the Han people being the typical image or the typical "Chinese" you will see. If the concept isn't clear to you, for example, Tibetan and Mongolian, Manchurian and Chaosen (Korean) are also some of the minor ethnicities present in China. These people are often bilingual in both Han Yu (Chinese, in this case, mostly Mandarin, the official language of China), and their own ethnic language. Their facial features, especially those in the Northwestern and Southwestern China, are much more distinguishable than the ethnic Han. Uyghur, even Kazahk, is a good comparsion to what some "Chinese" might look like, just to challenge that common perception of what a Chinese is.
People from Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau, or Chinese-Malaysians usually can still trace their roots back to China. Being Chinese is just one part of a Chinese's person's identity. To specify, a Chinese commonly identify his or her own background based on regional geography, specifically the 28 provinces of China. Within certain provinces the differences are even more flamboyant- Canton province for example, people tend to cling on much closer to the city where they/their ancestors are from, not so much the province in itself. And this regional allocation is based on your father's ancestry. With the exception of a few maternal socities (Muo Shaw, Hubei), ancestry, language and regional cultures are defined by paternal lineage.
My father comes from a mix of Han and Tujia ethnicity (mid-East China, Hunan province- just below the Lake), and he claims that his pops told him the Pang clan migrated from inner Mongolia 10 generations ago. How much of this can be retraced is beyond me. On my mom's side, my maternal grandma claims Mexican and French heritage, yet in terms of her own Chinese "allocation" she is Cantonese. So long story short, my family has always told us colourful stories from anywhere in the world, and it was easy to grow up being fascinated with diverse traditions and cultures.
A combination of this fascination and a recent search of some good music to listen to these days got me to bump into a couple of breathtaking performers in present day China, who often perform in their ethnic languages, Mandarin, or both, singing traditional songs from their region. Here's a few:
The can't-fail list of first time listeners to folk music in China click on the links to see the videos on Youtube.
1. mid-North China: 陕北
Style: 信天游 Performer: 阿宝 (A-bao)
天下黄河九十九道湾 (99 bends in the Yellow River)A-bao is a peasant singer who can reach a pitch of "double 8C", a voice unprecedentedly high and is often unmatched even by trained tenor voices. 信天游 (Xin Tian You) is a style that in Mongolia or Northern China is often known as "Mountain Climbing Yukele". Each line of the verse is usually based on 7 syllables, and usually rises and fall on a similar note but with lots of dynamic changes in between the first climb of octave to the end. Both men and women can sing this.
信天游 as a style is known to reflect the characteristics of the geographical location that harbours such voices and verses, as well as the content of the lyrics. Northern China (Shaanxi, Shaanbei) are particularly harsh for habitation - the terrain is rough to live on; water is scarce, weather is extremely humid and plantations few. In such tough conditions, 信天游 performers can be heard to reflect the specific "Plateau culture" - it is a collective voice that can sound nostalgic, lonesome, low and occasionally mournful; however, if you ever come across one of these songs and can get a hold of translated lyrics, or pay attention to the change in octaves, 信天游 can also be very positive, the performers' peak in high notes a direct vocal imagery as the area's tough will to fight against misfortune and living in tune with Nature.
Mid-Western China:
Tibet ：西藏Style: ?
Performer: Soinam Wongmo 索朗旺姆
To familarize yourself with the unique voice of Tibetan soprano, try this one rock-tuned version - I see a good hip hop rendition of it, i wonder if Jay Zhou or even Rick Rubens/Jay-Z would be interested to turn something like this over?
Rubens should be able to make this even more fantastic than it already is:
Walk out of the moutain rangesNow THE famous tibetan folk song:
青藏高原(Tibetan Plateau)An original tibetan song, Soinam Wongmo sang first in Tibetan than in Han, with lyric contents being fairly similar to each other. Lyrics roughly translates to:
Who brought in that call from antiquity
Who left behind that age-old longing
Are there any more of such wordless songs?
Or is it the longing which would not depart or be forgotten
Chrous: I see a range of mountains
I see all the mountains and all the rivers
The ranges and the rivers connect together
Ya-Lah-So, this is the Tibetan plateau
Who watches the sky from afar night and day?
Who is longing for that eternal dream?
Are there any more songs of such praise?
Or is it that grandeur that existed long before time?
(repeat Chorus)
As I am getting tired, if someone is reading this; next up: inner Mongolia, and music during The Great Leap Forward (1950-60s).
p.s. Please, do let me know if i made mistakes with reference to anything. i had to research maps to know how many provinces china has, for example!
