The folklores of Xiabaoping

Year: 2006

Sort: Folk Literature

Area: Hubei province

Serial No.: I-16

Declarer: Yiling district, Yichang city, Hubei province

Xiaobaoping village lies in the mountains on the northern bank of Xiling Gorge of Yangtse River. It has been a piece of fertile land since ancient times. The education and culture was relatively prosperous but the transportation was not good.

There are over 2000 folk stories circulating in Xiabaoping and the neighboring areas. Over 100 people can tell at least 50 stories. Among them, about 20 people can tell over 100 stories, and 4 people can tell over 200 stories.

A 67-year-old peasant named Liu Defang can tell over 400 stories and sing over one million words of funeral songs, shadow play operas, mountain songs and other folk songs. On June 8, 2005, he was named as China Folklore Master by China Folk Artist's Association.

The stories Liu tells have been compiled into a book Yeshan Xiaolin, or Folklores in Wild Mountains, which is deem as a epitome of folk literatures in Yiling and the whole Three Gorges Area.

Among the stories Liu tells, some one hundred stories include poems and couplets, making them more elegant. Two pieces of long stories, the serial stories of a long-term hired laborer Dong Guotian and a tile smith surnamed Chen are respectively made up of hundreds of short stories. Such long folklores are rare to see among Chinese folklores.

However, most of the practitioners are getting old, and the younger generation has little interest in folklores, hence the folk stories are on the brink of extinction.