An old minstrel once told tuneful, never-ending stories here of ancient China or, sometimes, of his own times. Always, he accompanied his "fullmoon" voice on a four-stringed, plucked instrument, the yueh chin, named for its fullmoon-shaped sound box.
Old Chen Ta—voice of old China, there in age-old Hengchun, both getting by, weathering the foehn, the hot-dry wind that clasps the southernmost promontory of Taiwan each winter and to the end of spring- both enduring symbols to modern Taiwan of the living Chinese folksong.
It all began for the rest of the island when Professors Hsu Tsang-houei and Shih Wei-liang—engaged in a movement to collect and preserve the Chinese folksong heritage-discovered Chen Ta, then 62 years old, in his dilapidated cottage in remote and moody Hengchun.
It was the end of July 1967. And it seemed that in no time, the melody to Su Hsiang Ki, a Hengchun area folksong to which Chen Ta fitted countless lyrics, had spread across the island. From that time, whenever Chinese folksongs were discussed, Chen Ta and Su Hsiang Ki were lovingly mentioned. Since the old man's death in an auto accident in 1981, as he most certainly would have wished, his loved folksongs have lived on.
Su Hsiang Ki, like many another folksong, has no definite composer, nor are its musical score and words precisely fixed. It has been traced to the nostalgia of laborers who came from the mainland to Hengchun about a century ago.
According to Kuo Ssu-lang's historical discussion in The Landscape and Features of Hengchun, the origins of the song arose in a Ching Dynasty effort td build a defensive two-kilometer-long Heng-chun city wall. Shen Pao-chen, an island governor during the reign of emperor Kuanghsu, brought over from the China mainland a large member of workers for the purpose-civil architects, brick and masonry workers, etc.
At that time, general immigration from mainland areas across the Strait from Hengchun was rising sharply. Among the new immigrants were a father and son- Wu A-tung and Wu Yung-shen, from Swatow, Kwantung Province-charcoal burners on Mt. Tiaoshih.
In the quiet evenings at Hengchun, the father and son would gaze westward, thinking of home. They, historian Kuo believes, began to improvise the rambling tune and lyrics that would later become known as Su Hsiang Ki—Thinking of..., a "natural" for expressing the emotions of immigrants in an untamed land, far from the familiar scenes of their home villages.
Almost spontaneously, any vocal rendering would draw forth a large chorus—and added improvisations—and the sound would reverberate from the strange island village, carrying its longing out across the Strait.
To sing Thinking of... really means to sing whatever words come to mind; the lyrics are often partly or totally extemporaneous, and the melody may change too, naturally, in accord with the pent-up feeling of the singer. That is the creative ambience characteristic of "living folksongs."
Such "living folksongs" of the Heng-chun area have been long nourished via a warm custom of the peninsula's Manchou Village.
The night before a Manchou girl is to be married, her uncles, maternal or paternal, advise her of traditional family duties via free lyrics set to the old folk tune, So Sways the Cow's Tail.
The singing goes on till daybreak. (Sometimes this melody serves a different purpose at a banquet: bottle companions appraise each other, often venting personal feelings.)
Spring in All Four Seasons, another Hengchun folktune, is largely associated with descriptions of scenery. In Checheng Village, whose mountain district inhabitants make a living by producing charcoal, one charcoal burner communicates with another on an opposite slope by singing out to this tune. The response is equally melodious. This tuneful communication resembles that of the Hakkas, famous for their mountaineering song-dialogues.
Composers of contemporary pop songs do not hesitate to draw inspiration from folksongs. An example is the popular Three Sighs for My Destiny, a song about a resentful woman, drawn from The Taitung Tune, which originally narrates the experiences of a Heng-chun youth who travels to Taitung in eastern Taiwan to find work. Because the tune is short, and light on the ear, it has also been adapted for the Farmer's Song, in both Mandarin and Taiwanese.
The richness of Hengchun's folksongs springs, also, from inter-cultural origins. The area's Taiwanese speakers, Hakkas, and island aborigines have long mixed their customs, creating a complicated lifestyle. The Taitung Tune, for example, has roots in the music of both the Taiwan aborigines and the Han (Chinese) people.
Generally speaking, folksongs of the countryside—such as those of Hengchun—are categorized as shan ko (mountaineer's songs), and live on in the lives of country people; everybody can hum a passage, any time. Since country people traditionally hate to leave their native places, such songs often display very distinctive local color.
The folksongs originating among urban peoples—hsiao tiao (ballads) -are distinguished, mainly, by greater variety. They may be witty, humorous, amorous, or even sarcastic, about political affairs as well as people. Since professional balladeers arise (or made good) in the cities in company-that is, not isolated as in rural communities of the past—the words and melodies of their songs gradually become uniform, the local color fading away, sometimes so much so, it is now hard to identify a ballad's origins.
Island development following the early institution of roads and railways in Taiwan's western plain and its northeastern Lan Yang district, resulted in urban-esque community patterns and, thus, in more ballads than country songs.
The island's fertile western plain was the first target of mainland immigration, mostly farmers from Changchou and Chuanchou in Fukien Province, southern China. From here, in the early time, a rose t he island's most ancient folksongs.
According to Hsu Tsang-houei, a professor at National Taiwan Normal University and executive secretary of the Chinese Folk Arts Foundation, some western-plain folksongs trace directly back to Fukien's local opera music. A few examples are: The Plowman's Song, a love song often hummed by farmers in the fields; Maiden Peach-Blossom Is Crossing the River by Ferry, a humorous exchange between a girl-passenger and the ferryman; and The Rhythm of the Night Watchman's Drum at the Fifth Watch, a prostitute's plaintive chant.
Another group appears to derive its melodies from Fukien folksongs, although it is very hard today to verify which may belong to the traditional Fukienese music and which to Taiwanese variants. Included among them are:
The Sky is Dark, a humorous picture of an old couple who quarrel over the way to cook an eel-so vehemently as to break the pot; The White Jasmine in June, a probe of the subtle psychology of a young maiden, blooming now like the white jasmine and pining for love; Just Reeds, a song concerning a plain, reedy grass which grows prosperously and complacently, even if nobody cares to take a second look at it; it symbolizes the traditional Chinese farm wife's sturdy virtues.
In any case, the pioneers flowed in waves to Taiwan, particularly after the beginning of the 17th Century, during the reigns of Emperors Hsitzung and Ssutzung of the Ming Dynasty. And their music came with them across the Strait and took root in this new land.
As the years passed, the Fukienese heritage finally gave birth to "endemic" folksongs of the same western plain, founded deeply in its own pastoral life. The witty Grasshopper Teases A Rooster describes the situation of a bumpkin teased by a young hoyden; though hot with rage, he just can't cope with her. Song of the Country tells of the joys and woes of daily farm-life-from working the ice-cold paddy-field before daybreak, to the warm homecoming at sunset.
It was, above all, a traditional society, and a superstitious people trusted every significant matter to divination. And so arose the popular Seeking Auguries. Told from the fortuneteller's point of view, it sings of new brides drawing lots to learn when they will be pregnant; of young girls, who want to know when they will meet the boy who will love them; arid of the merchants, seeking guides to making money. The fortuneteller advises each one; whether his predictions will come true is quite another matter.
Then, grounded in the traditional Chinese absorption in the family, The Song of Pregnancy describes the special appetite needs of mothers-to-be, from "perfumed pears from Shantung Province" in the early stages, to "chicken in sesame oil" after the delivery; it is particularly intimate.
The cradlesongs of the world, universal mesmerizers for infants, have multifarious variants, but in each, is a caress. For both the children and mothers of age-old Taiwan, the most familiar cradlesong is undoubtedly:
Cradle and cradle, cradle and cradle,
Cradle my beloved child;
You who love to sleep so much,
refuse to fail asleep
Unless I cradle you,
Cradle my child, cradle my child,
Love to sleep, love to be cradled....
Children also had their songs, sprung directly from folk rhymes. Although mostly recited rather than sung, children's folk rhymes in Taiwanese are very melodious. The Taiwanese language intonations resemble a musical scale of at least seven tones. In consequence, such winsome and imaginative rhymes as Tiam-A-Ka (Asphalt) and Sai-Ba-Ho (Northwest Rain, a special feature of the western plain) became very popular "children's folksongs."
Waters in the June Paddies is a pretty song whose central lyric advises, "The waters of the June paddies are hot; the golden carp shake their tails, falling into paddy waters" —a reference to the farmers' age-old irrigation experience, channeling water from the fish pools.
Though everyone claims June Paddies, its origins are really unknown. Some say it originated in Chiayi in middle-southern Taiwan; others say its birth was in Ilan in the northeast; still others, Taoyuan in the north. Perhaps because it has been so widely popular, the song has picked up so many different local flavors that its original savor is covered over.
Today, we no longer have the "natural" opportunity to hear an authentic folksong, unless we visit a remote and still-traditional countryside-that is, aside from the occasional city concert and the limited selection of music tapes. And that, perhaps, also explains why more and more professional composers try to find themes for their modern music in the old folksongs. The ancient tunes, after all, remind the denizens of our modern urban society of the deeper meanings in men's short lifetimes.