In pre-contemporary China, folk epics performed at village level helped to construct a sense of regional as opposed to national identity. This is the first book-length study in the West on the folk epics of the Han Chinese people, who are the majority population of China. These folk epics provide an unparalleled resource for understanding the importance of "the local" in Chinese culture, especially how rice-growing populations perceived their environment and relational world.
In studies of Chinese culture, it is the epics of borderland minority groups that have attracted most scholarly attention. It was formerly held that the Han Chinese people did not transmit songs of epic length. In the 1980s Chinese ethnologists were surprised to discover that amateur singers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang province could sing lengthy narratives over the course of days. Close to forty folk epics have now been identified in the Lower Yangzi Delta.
The folk epics were sung by illiterate farmers while working in the rice paddy or boating along the waterways. It was believed that singing promoted crop fertility and that the rice-plant embodied a female rice spirit whose growth and development paralleled that of human sexuality and procreation. Regarded as "vulgar" due to its erotic content, this song tradition was marginalized and little understood. The erotic content is often removed in editions directed at a national readership.
Employing perspectives from memory studies, eco-criticism, and the study of oral traditions, this book examines in detail five iconic folk epics. One relates the story of an ancestor who brought knowledge of rice-growing to his community; another tells of a peasant-rebel leader and his fight with imperial authorities; three other examples relate stories of secret love affairs and their tragic outcomes. The author draws on interviews with contemporary song transmitters and ethnologists from the Lake Tai region, as well as a collection of singer transcripts and unedited song material. This study further investigates the role folk epics played in shaping a sense of both "intimacy" and "identity" in delta communities. The work contains extensive translations from the folk epics.
This book will appeal to readers interested in Chinese performance and regional culture, comparative world epics, eco-critical studies, and Chinese folk religion. It would be of benefit to readers beyond China Studies with an interest in the interaction between song, ritual, and the natural and constructed environment.
This book is in the Cambria Sinophone World Series, headed by Professor Victor Mair (University of Pennsylvania).
