Blind singer Dou Wun (right) with Bell Yung, c1975.

I rarely presume to cover south China, but further to my series on blind performers such as bards, a counterpart to the fine work of Bell Yung 榮鴻曾 on the elite qin zither is his study of folk narrative-singing from the Hong Kong region—notably naamyam 南音, [1] as well as the related styles of baan’ngaan 板眼, lungzau 龍舟, and yue’ou 粵謳.

Bell Yung has produced eight CD sets of naamyam songs, mainly his 1975 recordings of the blind singer Dou Wun 杜煥 (1910-1979) accompanying himself on zheng zither. Each set includes a booklet of essays and the complete song texts.

The first CD set was recorded live in 1975 at the Fu Long teahouse in Hong Kong. The second set, Blind Dou Wun remembers his past: 50 years of singing naamyam in Hong Kong, is remarkable for consisting of a six-hour autobiographical song created at Bell Yung’s request. As he comments, it is both ordinary in its story of “displacement, alienation, trials, and triumphs” and extraordinary in that he was the last surviving professional singer of an important genre; and it gives a folk perspective on a turbulent period of Hong Kong’s history.

CD 5 The Blind Musician Dou Wun Offers Auspicious Songs for Festive Occasions contains songs from old Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou, sung for calendrical festivals, opening of a business, and private family celebrations such as birthdays and weddings—including The Eight Immortals’ Birthday Greeting and The Heavenly Official Bestows Blessings.

CD-set 6 The Birth of Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy, with three discs, contains songs that Dou Wun sang for Guanyin’s birthday celebrations on 3rd moon 19th.

For more, the instructive article

• Bell Yung, “Voices of Hong Kong: the reconstruction of a performance in a teahouse”, Critical zone 3 (2009)

has thoughtful reflections on the history and cultural identity of Hong Kong, as well as Bell’s own early background growing up there after the family fled from the Communists in 1948, still largely estranged from Cantonese culture. As Dou Wun’s stories seemed increasingly out of step with the glossy skyscrapers, pop music, and the modern educational system, he was discovered by intellectuals who realised his art was precious but did not quite understand it, and his performing venues moved from opium dens, brothels, and teahouses to concert stages and colleges.

In 2004 Bell also issued a fine documentary, A blind singer’s story: 50 years of life and work in Hong Kong.

For the Cantonese diaspora in the USA, note

• Bell Yung, Uncle Ng Comes to America: Chinese narrative songs of immigration and love (2013),

a translation of six Toisan (Taishan) muk’yu 木魚 songs sung by Uncle Ng (Ng Sheung Chi, 1910–2002), with four introductory essays, audio recordings, and a documentary. And for temples of early emigrants from the region to California, click here.

For fine recordings of Italian immigrants in 1960s’ America, including zampogna and ciaramella in New York, click here! Cf. Accordion crimes. For Cantonese music in London, see here.

Bell introduces the folk music and local culture of Hong Kong in this lecture:

In Chinese, for the sheer variety of local narrative-singing traditions all around China, a good starting point is the vast Anthology of folk music of the Chinese peoples 中国民族民间音乐集成, province by province, under the separate headings of Zhongguo quyi zhi 中国曲艺志 and Zhongguo quyi yinyue jicheng 中国曲艺音乐集成.

[1] Not to be confused with the Hokkien nanyin in south Fujian, or other genres around south China that use the term!