Ethnic ChinaLit

In the latest edition of Oral Tradition (Processing Epics), Mark Bender explores—via highly readable notes on his field-work—how the Miao myth-epic Mai Bang (Butterfly Mother) and the Nuosu’s creation-epic Dragon-Eagles have gradually been rendered in written form:

My title also contains the word “processing”—and by that I mean the process through which traditional texts are performed and received by local audiences. It also refers to the process by which some versions of stories are recorded, transcribed, translated, edited, and released in print or electronic format—a process the late Finnish folklorist Lauri Honko called the “folklore process.”

The term “processing” also carries, at least for me, a sense of the sorts of compromises and distortions inherent in the manner in which the recorded texts are preserved and communicated to new audiences. Just as natural foods or textiles are processed and marketed into products for consumption by target audiences, so too are items of oral literature. We now have genetically engineered corn, soybeans, and hemp. A box of “heart healthy” oat cereal may contain a whole list of additives, supplements, and fillers—sometimes mimicking original, truly wholesome products and directed at consumers open to healthy, natural, and eco-friendly foods.

But we increasingly know it is necessary to read the fine print—just as Lauri Honko reminded us that it is necessary to understand the process of the “processing” of oral texts that occurs behind the book or website banner.

He notes the tendency for compilers in China to strive for what they term a “complete” (完整), official version that involves “negotiations” and even deletion of “taboo” content:

Although the appreciation of multiple versions gathered in specific performance contexts has a growing place in folklore circles in China, there is still a strong tradition of creating “complete” versions of a given song cycle or story tradition that will serve as part of an ethnic group’s official tradition of oral literature. These versions usually combine several versions collected from a number of singers.

In some cases the participating singers and elders may be involved with editors in the negotiations concerning the makeup of the final master version. In theory, such master texts—which might be best described as “collective versions”— are intended to reflect and preserve the richness and completeness of the tradition in a format that can be read and appreciated to its fullest by present or future generations without access to multiple live versions. In the past, much more so than is usual now, this stage of editing also allowed for selection or omission of content deemed crude, backward, divisive, or otherwise taboo.

The 10th Junma Ethnic Literary Awards (骏马奖) have been announced. Open to works published in the PRC during 2008-11 by members of ethnic groups other than the majority Han, the competition is a politically correct affair co-organized—predictably—by the state-sponsored Chinese Writers Association, which claims more than 1,000 non-Han writers among its 8,000+ members, and the State Ethnic Affairs Commission. One of the judges is the omnipresent Li Jingze, editor-in-chief of People’s Literature (人民文学) and the new quarterly of Chinese literature in translation, Pathway (路灯), and also a long-time judge for China’s most prestigious literary competition, the Mao Dun Literature Prize (矛盾文学奖).

Here’s the list of the winners:

The works of two Miao and three Tujia authors were put under the magnifying glass at the recent “Conference on Chongqing Ethnic Minority Writers” held in Beijing (重庆少数民族作品). The conference was co-sponsored by five heavyweight organizations including the Chongqing chapter of the China Writers’ Association, Nationalities Literature Magazine (民族文学) and the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission of Chongqing.

Novels by the following minority authors based in Chongqing—home to more than 2m members of non-Han ethnic groups—were discussed at the conference:

• Ran Zhongjing (冉仲景):  99 Fatal Love Poems for Sister Mao (献给毛妹的 99 首致命情诗) (shown above)
• Wu Jiamin (吴加敏): Lantern (花灯)
• Di Daidong (第代冬): Spirit Bird (灵雀)
• He Juxue (何炬学): Walled Village (摩围寨)
• Ku Jin (苦金): Injured Trees (残树)

According to the report, all five will take part in the upcoming competition for writing by non-Han authors, the Junma Ethnic Literary Awards (骏马奖).  First held in 1981 and six times since, the competition recognizes winners in several categories including novels, short stories, poetry, movie scripts and translations. Entries by minority writers may be in Chinese or other languages native to the PRC. It is managed by the China Writers’ Association and the State Ethnic Affairs Commission.

China media’s recent high-profile reportage of the launch of volume one of the first-ever bilingual version of King Yalu (亚鲁王), a Miao historical epic passed down orally, has been labelled “unscientific” (媒体对 《亚鲁王》报道不科学) by an academic whose views carry weight.

Traditionally sung over several days at a funeral, King Yalu is the story of war, defeat and migration of the western Miao tribes in Guizhou from their traditional homes in places such as Anshun (安顺). Legend has it that King Yalu was the 18th in a line of Miao rulers.

The scholar in question happens to be Chogjin (朝戈金), Chair of the Department of Ethnic Minority Literature in the Graduate School of the distinguished China Academy of Social Sciences.  He is an ethnic Mongolian and has an impressive résumé in oral literary research.

In particular, he rejects the assertion—proclaimed in the Chinese press and trumpeted in English by Chinadaily—that the origins of King Yalu doubtless go back more than 2,500 years.  In his brief but informative essay, Chogjin also notes:

• Unlike most oral epics circulating among the southern peoples of China, King Yalu not only contains elements normally found in creation and origination epics, it also has aspects of traditional heroic epics for which northern ethnicities are known;

• Strictly speaking, King Yalu is not the story of an entire people. Its distribution is more narrow, and revolves around the folklore of the Miao now located in Mashan;

• Unlike many world-renowned classics passed down by traditional story-tellers, King Yalu is not recounted for its entertainment value. Rather, it is an integral part of funeral rites, a “spiritual road map” (指路经) that is intended to guide the deceased’s soul back, step-by-step, to the homeland of its ancestors (先祖故地).

For the first time ever, the Miao historical epic King Yalu (亚鲁王), has been rendered in a written form: Chinese.  The first part—consisting of the Miao pronunciation rendered in International Phonetic Alphabet + a Chinese translation—has been published by Zhonghua Book Company (中华书局).

Traditionally sung over several days at a funeral, King Yalu is the epic story of war, defeat and migration of the western Miao tribes to the dry highlands of Mashan (麻山) in Guizhou that are much more difficult to cultivate than their former traditional homes in places such as Anshun (安顺).  Legend has it that King Yalu was the 18^th in a line of Miao rulers.

According to Baidu Encyclopedia (百度百科), in 2009 a full version of the oral epic—some 26,000 lines of verse—was discovered among traditional singing story-tellers in Guizhou’s Ziyun County (紫云县).  There are reportedly still some 3,000 Gēshī (歌师, or 东郎 in Miao) in Mashan County, a handful in most villages, capable of performing it at funerals.  However, nowadays performances generally last for just one day.

Experts believe that King Yalu may first have been chanted around the time of the compilation of China’s ancient Book of Songs (诗经), meaning its origins date to some time prior to the unification of China under Qin Shihuang in 221 B.C..

For a few more details in an English-language report, see New Page in Oral History.

Update: As of mid-June 2012, this dictionary has reportedly been published by the Nationalities Publishing House of Yunnan (云南民族出版社)

Chinanews.com reports (云南禄劝将出版《苗汉词典》) that a new bilingual reference book, the Miao-Han Dictionary (苗汉辞典), will be published by year-end 2011. Compilation began in 1996 and has been carried out by an editing committee of 45. It will include:

• Pronunciations listed in international phonetic alphabet (IPA)
• Sample sentences
• Bilingual text (Miao and Han)
• Over 20,000 entries with 410,000 words of text

I recently came upon what seems to be a fairly comprehensive look at novels by non-Han writers published since 1949 that deal directly with issues of culture and identity. Entitled Ethnic Minority Novels  (少数民族小说), the Chinese-language article is unfortunately not signed, but it appears to have been written by a scholar and published in one of China’s academic quarterlies.

I’d like to summarize parts of it here.

First, a few factoids:

• China officially recognizes 55 non-Han peoples as native to the PRC
• There are over 500 writers in the China Writers Association who consider themselves members of a minority ethnicity
• Since the 1970s, China has published over 300 novels by minority writers dealing with ethnic themes

Newsweek’s Duncan Hewitt reports on China’s discovery of indigenous music that seems refreshingly unlike today’s omnipresent muzak masquerading as re-enactments of Tang court music:

In Shanghai’s super-modern Grand Theater, a fashionable, mainly young audience applauds enthusiastically as Guo Yong takes center stage. He acknowledges the semicircle of musicians around him and prepares to play a solo. But Guo does not raise a flute, trombone,

Zhu Zheqin and ethnic music troupe

or oboe to his lips; instead, he proudly holds aloft a large bushy tree branch covered in leaves. Blowing on one of the leaves, he produces a sound that mimics the twittering of birds as he plays a traditional Buyi folk song. The other musicians on the stage include a Mongolian throat singer, an ethnic Kazakh from northwestern Xinjiang playing a two-stringed banjo, and a four-member Miao minority singing troupe from a village in southwestern Guizhou.