Busy Farming (Folk Songs)

  • dscn5388This was $4.  This is exactly the kind of music I am experimenting with on this site. For the past ten years, Sugar Land has been one of the growing areas of Houston.  In the same respect, more and more people from different places in the world are calling Sugar Land home.  As a result, the Half Price Books in Sugar Land has become a treasure trove of international music.550838-262956-14

This record is from the China Record Company, the oldest and largest state owned record company.  They formed in 1949 when they “liberated” themselves from EMI.  At least I think.  I am going off a sketchy Google Translate.  Anyway, they have released over 60,000 records detailing ethnic, classical, and folk music from China spanning over 5,000 years. They have also been working towards moving towards the digital age.  They are headquartered in Beijing (this record shows Peking as that was its name at the time).

CRC’s Webpage

As I love going off on tangents, I will use this post to show one of my favorite Chinese propaganda posters and tell the brief story of Lei Feng (1940-1962), who may or may not have existed.  Lei, an orphan, was taken in by the Party who raised him as a mother.  He was devoted to Chairman Mao and the Party as he joined the People’s Liberation Army. Under his studies he learned to “live a life of extreme frugality, to eschew selfishness and to devote himself body and soul to the revolution and to the people”.  Known as an extremely helpful individual, he performed many good deeds as well as reminding people to be happy with what little they had and to let the party do the thinking for them.  Lei met his fate in a manner that is in dispute.  Some say he was electrocuted.  Others say he was hit on the head by a falling electrical pole.  Either way, his diary became a national study.  I like the poster below because it translates into “Develop the spirit for bitter struggle”.  I guess I like it because I have a dark sense of humor and sometimes, that is what we just have to do.  Either way, there are some very good posters and interesting stories on the webpage.e13-1

Link to Chinese Poster Web Page on Lei Feng

Back to this record, this I am assuming is a collection of Chinese folk songs from. various regions.  I believe these are work songs, marked by a leader with a call and response type interplay with the chorus.  This is a 10″ and features songs from various areas.  It is hard to say when this came out but my guess is the late 1970’s.  Very interesting stuff.  The vocals and chorus play well and the instrumentation is haunting.dscn5389

For two days in a row, I am getting lazy with samples.  I start with the title track “Busy Farming”, a folk song from Northeast China”.  Second, I am going with a Kiang Si folk song “Sending a Sweetheart Off to the Red Army”.    From the Human region, we have “Work Chant of the Lishui Boatmen”. There is no instrumentation on the next track but the call and response is pretty entertaining. Finally, I present “Going to Szechuan”.chinesepropagandapostersworkers3

Satisfactory record. Maybe, I can start using more restraint for the rest of the week and limit my samples to two at the most.