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Fengyang Flower Drum
Fengyang Flower Drum () is a traditional Chinese folk song, a form of Quyi, from Fengyang County, Anhui Province that was developed during the late Ming Dynasty. Originally, it was performed by two seated female singers (usually sisters-in-law). It was typically performed in public for gratuities, as Fengyang County was prone to flooding from the Yellow River. History The Fengyang Flower Drum song was associated with beggars from Fengyang County which experienced a disastrous series of flood and drought during the late Ming Dynasty, forcing residents to sing for money. It is classed as one of the speech-song () folk arts of Quyi. The form was popularized by its appearance in ''The Good Earth'', the 1937 film adaptation of a novel by Pearl S. Buck. Chou Wen-Chung Chou Wen-chung (; July 28, 1923 – October 25, 2019) was a Chinese American composer of contemporary classical music. He emigrated in 1946 to the United States and received his music training at the New England Cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quyi
''Quyi'' ("melodious art") and ''shuochang yishu'' ("speaking and singing art") are umbrella terms for over 300 regional genres of traditional Chinese oral performing arts. ''Quyi'' is distinguished from ''xiqu'' (Chinese opera) by its emphasis on narration, as opposed to acting, although they share many elements including the same traditional stories. ''Quyi'' artists generally wear no to little makeup. Musical instruments like drums, wooden clappers, ''pipa'', ''yangqin'', or ''sanxian'' are commonly seen in ''quyi'', as are hand fans. History While the storytelling art concept has been around for centuries, the narrative art concept was mostly recognized in the 1920s. Only after 1949 with the founding of the People's Republic of China did the term ''quyi'' become widely used. Prior to this, it was just classified as ''shuochang yishu''. This is one of the art category that gained momentum since the New Culture Movement. With the exception of the Cultural Revolution period, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fengyang County
Fengyang County () is a county in north-central Anhui Province, China. It is under the administration of Chuzhou, a prefecture-level city. The county was home to 765,600 people as of 2013. Administrative divisions Fengyang County is divided into 14 towns and 1 township. The county seat is in Fucheng Town. 14 Towns The county is home to the following 14 towns: 1 Township The county's sole township is : * Huangwan (). Geography The county's northern border is formed by the Huai River and neighboring Wuhe County. The county is also home to the Huayuan Lake, which totals about 30 square kilometers in size. Climate The average annual temperature for Fengyang County is 14.9 °C, and the average annual precipitation is 904.4 mm. History Pre-Ming Dynasty During the Xia, Shang and early Zhou dynasties, the Dongyi peoples inhabited this area and were collectively known as the Huaiyi after the Huai River. During the late Western Zhou Period and the early Spring an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anhui Province
Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, bordering Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a short section in the north. With a population of 63.65 million, Anhui is the 8th most populous province in China. It is the 22nd largest Chinese province based on area, and the 12th most densely-populated region of all 34 Chinese provincial regions. Anhui's population is mostly composed of Han Chinese. Languages spoken within the province include Jianghuai Mandarin, Wu, Hui, Gan and small portion of Zhongyuan Mandarin Chinese. The name "Anhui" derives from the names of two cities: Anqing and Huizhou (now Huangshan City). The abbreviation for Anhui is "" after the historical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han Chinese, Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump state, rump regimes ruled by remnants of the House of Zhu, Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662. The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the naval history of China, navy's dockyards in Nanjin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Street Performance
Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries, the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performance is practiced all over the world and dates back to antiquity. People engaging in this practice are called street performers or buskers in the United Kingdom. Outside of New York, ''buskers'' is not a term generally used in American English. Performances are anything that people find entertaining, including acrobatics, animal tricks, balloon twisting, caricatures, clowning, comedy, contortions, escapology, dance, singing, fire skills, flea circus, fortune-telling, juggling, magic, mime, living statue, musical performance, one man band, puppeteering, snake charming, storytelling or reciting poetry or prose, street art such as sketching and painting, street theatre, sword swallowing, ventriloquism and washboarding. Buskers may be solo performer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Standard Beijing Mandarin, Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai province of Western China, it flows through nine provinces, and it empties into the Bohai Sea near the city of Dongying in Shandong province. The Yellow River basin has an east–west extent of about and a north–south extent of about . Its total drainage area is about . The Yellow River's basin was the Yellow River civilization, birthplace of ancient Chinese, and, by extension, Far East, Far Eastern civilization, and it was the most prosperous region in early Chinese history. There are frequent devastating natural disasters in China, floods and course changes produced by the continual elevation of the river bed, sometimes above the level of its surrounding farm fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Good Earth (film)
''The Good Earth'' is a 1937 American drama film about Chinese farmers who struggle to survive. It was adapted by Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, and Claudine West from the 1932 play by Owen Davis and Donald Davis, which was in itself based on the 1931 novel of the same name by Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck. The film was directed by Sidney Franklin, with uncredited contributions by Victor Fleming and Gustav Machaty. The film stars Paul Muni as Wang Lung. For her role as his wife O-Lan, Luise Rainer won an Academy Award for Best Actress. The film also won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Karl Freund. It was nominated for Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Picture. Its world premiere was at the elegant Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Plot In pre-World War I northern China, young farmer Wang Lung ( Paul Muni) marries O-Lan (Luise Rainer), a slave at the Great House, the residence of the most powerful family in their village. O-Lan pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Good Earth
''The Good Earth'' is a historical fiction novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931 that dramatizes family life in a Chinese village in the early 20th century. It is the first book in her ''House of Earth'' trilogy, continued in ''Sons'' (1932) and '' A House Divided'' (1935). It was the best-selling novel in the United States in both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1932, and was influential in Buck's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. Buck, who grew up in China as the daughter of American missionaries, wrote the book while living in China and drew on her first-hand observation of Chinese village life. The realistic and sympathetic depiction of the farmer Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan helped prepare Americans of the 1930s to consider Chinese as allies in the coming war with Japan. The novel was included in ''Life'' Magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924–1944. In 2004, the book returned to the bestseller list when chosen by the te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pearl S
A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate (mainly aragonite or a mixture of aragonite and calcite) in minute crystalline form, which has deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The finest quality of natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries. Because of this, ''pearl'' has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable. The most valuable pearls occur spontaneously in the wild, but are extremely rare. These wild pearls are referred to as ''natural'' pearls. ''Cultured'' or ''farmed'' pearls from pearl oysters and freshwater mussels make up the majority of those currently sold. Imitation pearls are also widely s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chou Wen-Chung
Chou Wen-chung (; July 28, 1923 – October 25, 2019) was a Chinese American composer of contemporary classical music. He emigrated in 1946 to the United States and received his music training at the New England Conservatory and Columbia University. Chou is credited by Nicolas Slonimsky as one of the first Chinese composers who attempted to translate authentic oriental melo-rhythms into the terms of modern Western music. Life Early years in China Chou was born in Yantai (Chefoo), Shandong. He grew up in China and developed an early love for music. ("Sights and Sounds" is an essay by Chou on early influences on his music.) Qin music, in particular, has proved fertile ground for his future exploration. Chou described his early explorations of musical instruments: While in Qingdao, I first discovered the meaning of music in life when I heard our household help enjoying their free time by playing instruments, singing, and drinking. I also became fascinated with harmonium pedals, whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Storytelling
Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of various ethnicities in contemporary China ** Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in the world and the majority ethnic group in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Singapore ** Ethnic minorities in China, people of non-Han Chinese ethnicities in modern China ** Ethnic groups in Chinese history, people of various ethnicities in historical China ** Nationals of the People's Republic of China ** Nationals of the Republic of China ** Overseas Chinese, Chinese people residing outside the territories of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan * Sinitic languages, the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family ** Chinese language, a group of related languages spoken predominantly in China, sharing a written script (Chinese c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Folk Music
Music of China refers to the music of the Chinese people, which may be the music of the Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ... in the course of History of China, Chinese history as well as Ethnic groups in China, ethnic minorities in today's China. It also includes music produced by people of Chinese origin in some territories outside mainland China using traditional Chinese instruments or in the Chinese language. It includes forms from the traditional and modern, Western inspired, commercial popular music, folk, art, and classical forms, and innovative combinations of them. Documents and archaeological artifacts from early History of China, Chinese civilization show a well-developed musical culture as early as the Zhou dynasty (1122 BC – 256 BC) that set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
