Huangdaichen, a beautiful folk song sung for generations by the Yugur people, an ethnic group living in northwest China's Gansu Province, is in danger of dying out since the recent death of its last singer, Tuo Yuyue.
Tuo was believed to be the only person in the ethnic community who could sing the song completely in the Yugur language.
Huangdaichen is only one of a range of Yugur folk songs on the verge of vanishing.
Studies show that in terms of melodies and form, Yugur folk songs incorporate characteristics of songs of the ancient Hun people and of the Tibetan, Mongolian, Hui and Tu ethnic groups.
Descendants of the ancient Ouigour people and Mongolians, Yugur people have lived at the foot of the Qilian Mountains and along the Hexi Corridor for more than 600 years. Their folk songs have been passed down orally as no written forms exist.
Owing to neglect of the Yugur language and songs, currently only a few young Yugur people intend learning their national songs. Even older people are able only to hum fragments of them.
Dismayed by Tuo's death, Huang Jinyu, a researcher on folklore and vice chairman of the Gansu Folk Literature and Art Association, has called for setting up a program to save the Silk Road folk culture, including Yugur folk songs.
Huang hopes the local governments of Gansu and the ethnic peoples in the province will raise awareness of the need to preserve folk cultures.
In July and August this year, a team of Chinese researchers into folk literature and UNESCO specialists on East Asian and Chinese cultures made a field inspection of folk songs in the regions inhabited by ethnic groups in Gansu and Qinghai provinces, northwest China.
(Xinhua News Agency September 5, 2002)
