Memory Making in Folk Epics of China

Memory Making in Folk Epics of China is a new contribution to the fields of Chinese literature, folklore studies, and Chinese performance arts. The book deploys an extensive repertoire of shan'ge (“mountain songs,” or folk songs) from the lower Yangtze delta region to trace what the author calls the “local” and the “intimate” in the rice-cultivating regions of southern China. Utilizing a cross-disciplinary methodology, McLaren investigates both the oral and the written transmissions of folk songs mainly performed in the Wu dialects, charting the historical metamorphosis of regional folk voices that express romantic, sexual, gendered, and social sentiments across significant historical eras. The book contributes to Chinese literary and cultural studies by bringing scholarly attention to the traditionally neglected topic of ethnic Han folk epics. McLaren argues that “folk epics served as an aesthetic medium to commemorate distant ancestors and noted individuals from the local community” (xix). In studying both the textual and aesthetic features and the social life of regional folk songs, this book presents itself as a valuable source to scholars interested in Chinese regional cultures and will contribute to any Chinese and Asian culture classroom that seeks to engage students in the rich intersections of oral literature, performance, and the social function of the “text.”The book is divided into six chapters, each with a thematic focus on one particular genre of shan'ge in the lower Yangtze delta region. Chapter 1, “Where Sky Meets Water,” historicizes the importance of rice cultivation in shaping local identities and collective memories in the lower Yangtze delta region. This chapter immerses the reader in the rich symbolic world of rice cultivation: the rice shoots, the field, and the water all serve as important metaphors of the local imagination of fertility and fecundity, both in nature and in humans. This chapter offers vivid descriptions of local farmers’ imagination of the reproductive power of the rice paddies as it is often intertwined with the maturation and coming-of-age of girls and women.The dual function of the rice paddy as both a place of labor (farming work) and a place of sexual imagination plays itself out in the following chapters of the book. From chapter 2 to chapter 5, the book takes a deep dive into the topic of gender and sexuality, particularly as the author unpacks the multifaceted familial dynamics and the relationship between the sexes. The rice field becomes both a symbolic and a physical “theater” for the deceits, tricks, and dramatic liaisons between sisters, lovers, and other family members to unfold. Particularly, McLaren's discussions of “songs of secret passion” (chapter 4) and songs of “illicit lover affairs” (siqing, “private love affairs”) are striking in how she reveals the emotional and moral world underpinning these popular songs.Showcasing a wide range of local variations in the song traditions, the author depicts the seductions and attractions that happen between unmarried maidens and physically robust young men, as these themes recurred frequently in local songs. These songs of secret passion and illicit love affairs usually involve transgressive sexual liaisons that threaten the stability and honor of the family unit: the young maiden plots to enjoy sexual consummation with her secret lover by tricking her family, only later to be found out and punished to death by her own family; the brother-in-law covets the pretty little sister of his wife and abducts the attractive young woman to replace the wife—the wife hangs herself out of humiliation and comes back to take revenge in the form of a bird. The author infuses verses of local songs with occasional historical contextualization and discussions of the elite/literati interventions that tried to contain the excessive libido in the narratives. This combination of “mass” sources and “elite” interpretations enriches the hermeneutic capacities of these songs—the reader and students can perform these songs to enact the different social roles and sentiments embodied in them. As McLaren articulates, “Folk epics projected a sense of identity based on the strength and dignity of ordinary individuals, even those involved in scandalous love affairs” (69). Despite being labeled as lewd and inappropriate by certain elites, songs of secret passion enjoyed perpetual popularity among local rice farmers, and different versions of the songs celebrated the boldness and smarts of the brave lovers and revenging ghosts. In this sense, the book presents a picture of class consciousness and class-determined aesthetics in the production and circulation of local songs.The sixth and final chapter of the book, “The Song of ‘Hua Mountain Lifter,’” shifts the focus from the tenderness and agonies of love tragedies to the heroic acts of social movements in the region. The author discusses the local legend of the “Hua Mountain Lifter,” inspired by the rent resistance movement “that erupted in the lower Yangzi Delta from the final decades of the Ming dynasty to the late nineteenth century” (176). The author contextualizes the historical and social environment of Wuxi and the Delta region from the late imperial era to the mid-twentieth century. This chapter also zooms in on an individual singer, Zhu Hairong, exploring his creative agency as he reproduces Wu song traditions for a broader audience. The sixth chapter engages in the theorization of the concept of the “creative scribe” (204). This chapter, together with the coda, elevates the theoretical contributions of the book as the author analyzes the creative remaking of local traditions by singers who freely “traverse” local legends, collective memories, and the elite expectations of what a tradition “should be.”The rich invocation of verses and voices in this volume would be even more appealing if more detail is given to who sang these songs after their initial creation. For example, were mothers and older sisters singing songs about the punishment of secret love affairs as admonitions to their daughters and younger sisters so the young women could dodge getting into a similar fate? How may different singers (male versus female, older versus younger) have interpreted and performed the songs differently, depending on their own social standings and perspectives? The book's already solid case study would be even more multifaceted if the author supplied information on how the enactment and performance of the songs may have been different due to the varying intentions of the performers.In summary, Memory Making in Folk Epics of China presents wide-ranging materials and a plethora of perspectives across different historical periods to engage the reader in the folk world of song traditions in the fertile lands of the lower Yangtze delta. It is an inspiring volume that invites the reader to examine the tensions between the elite and the folk, the personal and the public, and love and morality, all of which are long-lasting themes in the study of literature and culture

Archaeology · China · Chinese culture · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Chinese history and philosophy · History