A Brief History of the Tujia—Promotion and Innovation of Traditional Tujia Culture (Part Two)
II. Main Features of the Transformation of Traditional Tujia Culture. After the founding of New China, traditional Tujia culture underwent major changes amid promotion and innovation. These changes had two prominent features: First, the reorganization of form and content. One aspect was the artistic transformation and refinement of traditional forms and content, making them more beautiful and artistically appealing...
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2. Main characteristics of the changes in traditional Tujia culture
After the founding of New China, traditional Tujia culture underwent major changes in the course of promotion and innovation. These changes mainly have the following two prominent characteristics:
First, the reorganization of form and content. One aspect is the artistic transformation and refinement of traditional forms and content, making them more beautiful, more artistically appealing, deeply memorable, and easy to spread, such as the folk songs "Dragon Boat Tune" and "Huangyang Shoulder Pole," and the dance "Bashan Dance." Another aspect is injecting new content into traditional forms, such as adding content reflecting the characteristics of the times in the creation of folk songs, making them more vivid and interesting. A third aspect is using new artistic forms to express the connotations of traditional culture, such as the creation of song-and-dance dramas and paintings; the forms are novel and add vitality to the life of traditional culture. In addition, film and television art forms have also played a great role in promoting and innovating traditional Tujia culture.
Second, the relocation of cultural fields. Cultural fields are the space for the survival and display of traditional Tujia culture. The traditional cultural fields of the Tujia were mainly concentrated in rural courtyards, threshing grounds, and similar places. After the founding of New China, cultural fields gradually shifted from villages to towns and cities, and towns and cities became the space for the performance of Tujia culture. Many cultural festival activities organized by the government and spontaneously by the masses are held in towns and cities, showing an obvious trend toward stage performance.
The main reasons leading to the relocation of cultural fields: First, towns and cities possess the main cultural venues and facilities. In addition to cinemas, theaters, and plazas, many towns and cities have also relocated and rebuilt traditional Tujia cultural facilities. For example, the hand-waving hall, formerly an important venue for Tujia hand-waving activities, was mainly built on flat land in the mountains at the head of villages. After the founding of New China, in order to publicize ethnic culture, many towns and cities built hand-waving halls. For example, in 1988 Laifeng County built in the county seat the first hand-waving hall with modern architectural features in the Hunan-Hubei-Chongqing-Guizhou Tujia inhabited area; it was grand in scale and majestic in momentum, and was praised as "China's Number One Hand-Waving Hall." In addition, Enshi City also built a hand-waving hall in the Ethnic Culture Palace, and so on. Prefectural and county art troupes often go down to townships and use cultural facilities in towns and cities to perform traditional literary and artistic programs. Second, many tourist attractions often organize performances of traditional Tujia literature and art in order to add tourism projects. Third, local governments also hold traditional ethnic culture festivals centered on towns and cities, which can both enrich the cultural life of the masses and give play to advertising benefits, expand local influence, and achieve the goals of attracting investment and developing the economy. During the Spring Festival of 1983, Qianling Town in Baojing County held an unprecedentedly grand Tiaonian festival, with 3,000 performers and 65,000 spectators. The performers carried out many performances in Baojing Square, including traditional Tujia dance performances, antiphonal folk singing, folk music performances, opera, and sports. From 1993 to 1995, Longshan County successively held the grand "China Hunan (Longshan) Tujia Hand-Waving Festival." In 2001 Laifeng County held the first Tujia Hand-Waving Festival, and all townships and county-level units formed teams to compete, performing the Tujia hand-waving dance. In October 2008, Laifeng County held the second festival, named "China Gem Flower · Laifeng Tujia Hand-Waving Festival." The theme of this hand-waving festival was "Hand-Waving Praises the Prosperous Age, the You River Shines as a Bright Pearl." It lasted four days and was grand in scale, including the opening ceremony, signing ceremonies for related projects, a Tujia ethnic economic development forum, a special local products exhibition and sales activity, an exhibition of achievements over 30 years of reform and opening up, an ethnic customs display, and a large concert. In Liye, western Hunan, on November 18, 2007, an event named the Xi'an Lintong–Western Hunan Longshan "Qin Culture Journey" and the China Hunan (Longshan) Second Tujia Hand-Waving Festival was held. Fourth, when Tujia farmers go to towns and cities to work, in order to entertain themselves they also bring traditional literary and artistic forms into towns and cities. For example, in Min'an Town of Longshan County, Xiangfeng Town of Laifeng, and Zhushan Town of Xuan'en County, every night hundreds of farmers (including some urban residents) sing Sanbanggu, mountain songs, Nanxi opera, and so on at street intersections.