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Discard CCP Folk Songs and Restore Authentic Folk Songs
By Lu Zhenyan
(Clearwisdom.net) The author of this article left China and settled down
overseas many years ago. Like many other overseas Chinese, though I study
foreign books and have learned another language, the five-thousand-year old
Chinese culture is still rooted deep in our hearts. It's not just the Chinese
food we eat, but it is reflected in our love for traditional Chinese drama,
dance and music. However, what embarrasses me is that the songs we sing are not
traditional Chinese songs but fake ones that have been distorted by the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP). Then what are "fake folk songs"? They have the form and tune of
folk songs but contain CCP culture and socialist ideology. This is described
euphemistically as "filling new wine into old bottles." Take for
example a typical love song from northern Shaanxi Province, which is frequently
quoted and widely loved but has been filled with new words. The original words
of love and longing for her lover have been quietly changed to the words
depicting people's deep gratitude towards their "great leader" Mao. A
folk song from southern Jiangxi Province, which depicts a scene where a wife is
seeing her husband off. However, the moving scene and admiration has been
changed to "infinite love" for the Red Army (the predecessor of the
present Chinese People's Liberation Army). Whenever these folk songs have been
filled with "revolutionary contents" no one dares to sing the original
words any longer. If you continue to sing or pass it on, you would be considered
having a "political problem." After one or two generations, the
original words of these songs will have been forgotten and the party songs and
music have taken their place and are labeled as "national classics".
The party culture has virtually become the national culture. This in essence has
destroyed the Chinese national culture but in the dictionary of the CCP it is
misleadingly called "carrying forward" the national culture. The way the CCP has used these fake folk songs to instill the party culture
is very well concealed. On one hand, these songs have been perfected generation
after generation and some even had been polished over dozens of generations,
therefore they are all characterized with beautiful melodies. They are smooth
and easy to sing. As a result, they are quite suitable for popularization. This
is why the CCP had almost no trouble in pushing the party culture in the form of
folk songs ever so quickly. On the other hand, the folk songs have rich local
cultural flavor and are closely related to the life of the local residents,
therefore they have a natural affinity for them. Once they have been plagiarized
into "revolutionary songs" their affinity would easily create a false
appearance of people having "deep affections for the party". This is
one of the methods the CCP has been using to create a false popular will. When
the author was a child and learned to sing these fake folk songs in school
representing various nationalities in China, he even naively believed these
songs were created spontaneously by various nationalities out of their
"love for the party" and naturally thought the people from all corners
of China all "love the party" from the bottom of their heart. As a matter of fact, the most prominent characteristic of these fake folk
songs is that none of them is spontaneously created and passed on by the people.
They have all been, without exception, directly crafted or "recreated"
by the party's "art workers" after plagiarizing the essence of the
national music and stuffing it with party culture contents. The "Boat Song of the Wusuli River" sang by the Hezhe National
Minority was a typical example of a fake folk song. It has been
"recreated" after being stuffed with party culture contents. The
author used to love to sing this song. The melody of the song comes from a folk
song of the Hezhe National Minority. Its sonorous, sweet and beautiful melody
was basically accepted and loved by almost everyone without any reservation.
This is because the composer stole the essence from the folk song and used it as
the boat song's main melody. The contents of the party culture have been
ambiguously hidden in the last two paragraphs of the song - "Speed up the
rowing and steady the helm to win a year of bumper harvest with both of our
hands. Hezhe people have embarked on the road of happiness and the people's
state power will last forever." Its aim is to hint that the "party
leads the people to embark on the road to happiness," which shares the same
meaning of today's "main melody, harmonious movement". This song was created in 1962 when the Chinese people just experienced the
most severe famine in the human history. More than 10 million people died of
hunger. Though the CCP described it as the "three years of natural
disasters." Even today, when the CCP can no longer continue to shamelessly
call it three years of natural disasters, it still describes it as the
"three difficult years". Today's researchers have checked all the
historical records and found that during 1959 to 1961 the weather was no
different than any other normal years. Although there were some droughts or
floods in some areas, the natural disasters in the country as a whole had no
marked increase. However, the areas of disaster and the number of population
involved were unprecedented. The disasters actually were the result of human
error and man-made. At the time the CCP dragged the manpower away from the
fields to make iron and steel. Exaggeration became a common practice. Because
the quota of grain delivered to the state was set too high, the rural population
had no grain for themselves. Besides everyone ate in the canteen free of charge
and finally they even ate all the seeds. In the international arena, the CCP and
the Soviet Union each went its own way ideologically. At the time the CCP was
beset with crises both at home and abroad. In order to relief its crises and
deceive the people, the CCP urgently needed "art workers of the party"
to beautify "socialism" and present a false picture of "peace and
prosperity". The Boat Song of Wusuli River which "sang the praise of
hometown and life" was published. The composers of the song might not have
had the intention to cover up the CCP's crimes. However, these "art workers
of the party" themselves were soaked with the party culture, so they would
naively believe that the severe famine was a result of a "natural
disaster" and the "blockade" by the Soviet revisionism. In turn
they created art works of the party culture to poison people's minds and help
the CCP to tide over the crisis. During the 50 years of communist rule, this type of folk art work possessed
by the party culture can be found everywhere. Today, the "classical
charts" of the folk songs from various Chinese national minorities are full
of such works. After a large number of fake folk songs had been spread around,
the Chinese people began to take the party culture as the national culture. This
is one of the reasons why many Chinese can not distinguish between the CCP and
China. The vitalization of the nation needs a profound base of national culture. The
items that enter the International Chinese Vocal Competition run by the New Tang
Dynasty Television (NTDTV) are authentic Chinese folk songs. The aim of the
competition is to rectify the origin of the folk songs and discard the fake folk
songs of the party culture. It would be a grand occasion of restoring the
authentic folk songs, therefore it is worth the concern for and support of the
event by every Chinese.
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