The Ethnic Traditions And The Presence Of National Forces

Chinese culture is a unity of pluralistic cultures. On one hand, Chinese culture is composed of multiple ethnic cultural traditions. On the other hand, the pluralistic cultures must be integrated under the national dominant forces, going through modern transformation. Therefore, it is an important question confronting the culture elites of every nation that how to interact between ethnic traditions and national forces. Among many minority ethnic groups, as the main inheritor of the ethnic cultures, the singers are faced with a universally significant question:how to maintain the tension between the tradition and modern culture, carrying out the ethnic cultural traditions while responding actively to the integration of national forces and challenges of modern culture. Tang Dehai, the research focus of this dissertation, is a singer of the Miao ethnic group, who once on behalf of the minority ethnic groups, sang a toast song to the national leadership in the People’s Great Hall. His life experience, culture inheritance strategy and his legacy of a large quantity of numerous folk songs, are typical cases in this aspect.The Miao ethnic group enjoys a long history and rich cultural traditions. As its cultural inheritance is limited by its language, for a long time, its cultural traditions can only be inherited by oral forms. Therefore, the main inheritors of the Miao cultural traditions are elites of all walks of life. The folk singers, as the elites of the Miao cultural traditions, shoulder the irreplaceable responsibility of carrying on the Miao folk literatures, develop the heritage areas of the Miao folk literatures and stimulate the vitality of the Miao folk literatures heritage. Thus they are an important carrier of tracing the Miao ethnic group, depicting and experiencing its ancestors’ historical footprints, disseminating its Kizu knowledge, sustaining the mysterious link of ancestral and modern life, and maintaining the survival and development of the ethnic group. The study of the Miao folk literatures cannot go without the study of its elites of all walks of life, the study of its cultural elites and the study of Miao folk singers. Only through the study of Miao cultural elites, can we better dive into the Miao cultural habitat, understand the Miao culture perspectives in an appropriate way and effectively carry out the cultural heritage of the Miao folk literatures.This dissertation takes the Miao folk song representative Tang Dehai and his inheritors as the subjects. Under the folklore’s framework, this research aims to sketch out the life journey of the Miao cultural inheritors and the development of the Miao folk literatures and their relations to multiple complex ethnic cultures and sociological and ecological networks, thus let people have an access to the Miao ethnic group through the access to Tang Dehai and understand the origin, inheritance and development of the Miao culture and trace the destiny of the Miao culture. This dissertation is divided into six chapters, including the introduction, the body parts and the conclusion.The introduction states the theoretical and practical significance of this research, reviews the related literature in a longitudinal and horizontal way and based on these, outlines the research contents, ideas, methodology and innovations.Chapter One takes "culture" and "habitat" as the breakthrough points. On the basis of the analysis of the origins, culture and history of the Miao ethnic group, it elaborates on the current economic and sociological development of the Miao ethnic group by integrating the national policies, and points out the liaison of Tang Dehai as the important inheritor of the Miao ethnic folk literatures and the humanistic and geographical feature of Leishan.Chapter Two takes a holistic perspective, clarifying Tang Dehai’s clan relationships and family status. It is held that Tang Dehai’s life experience is rich and his life has gone through three important periods:apprenticeship and struggling period, successful and creative period, the period of cultural revolution and the period of reform and opening up. It is shown that Tang Dehai displays an image of rigidity. In the eyes of the younger generation, Tang Dehai represents an individual instead of a group, a legend instead of history, while in the eyes of the elder generation, Tang Dehai brings about more economic benefits rather than cultural benefits, far from both economic and cultural benefits. Chapter Three makes a thorough study of the narrative texts as the Miao ancient songs, Lici, Wuci, and the Ga songs. It focuses on the analysis of the cultural connotations of the Miao ancient songs. It is found that Tang’s folk song texts display a strong sense of folklore and consciousness of identity. It emphasizes that the Miao ancient songs went through changes during inheritance and the further research needs to be carried out by stripping off its coat of ancient songs and exploring the original ecological Miao ancient songs.Chapter Four focuses on analyzing the Miao folk singers in the traditional context. It is held that in the traditional context of the trivial singing procedures, rigorous taboos, significant ritual occasions, the Miao folk singers at least plays a role in cultural heritage, education, entertainment and religion. At the same time, it studies the Miao folk singers’ performance in Miao’s "Summoning the Dragon" rituals, and it points out that the Miao’s folk singers play an important role in organizing the rituals bidding for blessings.Chapter Five explores the question as how to interact between ethnic traditions and national forces, as the nation is consisted of multiple cultures and it is a question confronting each and every nation. The folk singers, as the ethnic culture elites, are also confronted with the challenges of how to maintain the tension between the tradition and modern culture. In particular, in China’s society of the "isomorphism" of family and nation, the presence of national forces highlights individual identity. It stresses that although the presence of national forces brings out the encouraging and supporting policies towards the inheritors of the Miao folk singers, at the same time, the inheritors of the Miao culture are still faced with problems like aging, no successors, the impact of political movement towards the Miao culture inheritors; the invasion of foreign culture impacting the existing heritage traditions, bad surviving environment, difficult life experiences and apprenticeship.Chapter Six takes "self-representation" and "holistic representation" as the research points. It compares the similarities and differences between singers of "self-representation" and singer of "holistic representation". It is held that the folk singers in the tourist cultural performance has undergone dramatic changes in the singing genre, singing style, emotions and cultural modes, with the Miao folk singer Ayouduo as the case study so as to show the transitional role of folk singers in the "tradition to modern" continuum.The conclusion part summarizes the main idea of this dissertation:the relatedness of the folk singers in carrying out folk culture and the ecological environment; the rigid image of the folk singers in the holistic viewpoint; the variety of the folk singers’folk culture inheritance; the folk singers’social roles; the impact of national forces towards the folk singers; the folk singers as the "transition" in the "tradition to modern" continuum.