漁歌唱晚

With a mountain range at the back and the South China Sea in front (to the south), Huizhou in southeast Guangdong is a perfect haven to escape city life. Be prepared to be entranced by age-old fi shermen's songs that echo from antiquity, devout prayers that are murmured in Mazu temples, the numerous medicinal herbs that grow in the Luofushan Mountain, and many more.

背靠仙山，面朝大海，惠州讓人聯想到詩和遠方。那些來自遠古的歌謠，媽祖廟里虔誠的祈禱，羅浮山上的綠野仙蹤，生發(fā)出亦真亦幻的意境。

Boat Dwellers' Songs

“Guess what part of a boat is straight, what has two ends, what gives shelter from the wind, and what swims in the water?”

“I guess that the mast of a boat is straight, that the mooring rope has two ends, that the canopy gives shelter from the wind, and that the rudder swims in the water.”

Duets like this one are being sung often in the fi shing villages of Huidong County in the eastern part of Huizhou, especially at sunset when fi shermen come home from a day's fi shing.

66 year old Li Quemei is a villager in one such fi shing village. Due to health problems, she no longer works on the boat, so she devotes most of her time to the care of her restless grandson –sometimes by singing traditional songs. When it came to fi shing songs, Li beamed with delight. “I was already quite good at it when I was only fi ve years old,” she said with a giggle.

As a child, Li spent a lot of time in the boat. She recalled that her parents often traded fi sh for rice, sweet potatoes and other things for the two meals they had every day, and that when caught up in storms or big waves, they had to endure completely soaked clothes. “Back then, they nicknamed us “Dans”, meaning boatmen or boatwomen,” she recalled.

She also remembered that whenever her father caught a large lobster, he would sing a little tune of some sort in a raised voice.

It was not until the 1960s when shelters were built by the local government to house fi shermen that these boat dwellers bid farewell to a drifting life on the open waters. They created a song to express their gratitude to the government. That was when Li was about eight years old.

Today, fi shermen's songs of various themes are still being sung across Huidong County. These themes include the joys and sorrows of life as a fi sherman, and youthful love. Songs are sung on occasions of homecoming, festivals, wedding ceremonies or funerals, or when people offer prayers to Mazu for blessings.

Li Quemei （middle）and her friends singing a fishermen's song.李卻妹（中）與姐妹開心地唱著惠東漁歌。

DAN PEOPLE疍民

疍民之歌

“你知什么直溜溜，你知什么彎球球，你知什么趕風走，你知什么海底游？”

“我知大桅直溜溜，我知繩纜兩條繩，我知風蓬趕風跑，我知船舵海中游。”

惠東漁村，這樣的漁歌對唱在灑滿夕陽的海天之際唱響。

66歲的李卻妹因身體原因，如今已少到海邊走動。更多時候，她哼唱著漁歌哄滿地亂跑的小孫子。唱了大半輩子惠東漁歌，李卻妹談起仍眉飛色舞。“5歲還住在船上時，我的漁歌就唱得很棒了?！?/p>

李卻妹幼時在海上過活，她回憶，當時父母打了魚蝦，便拿到陸上換米、地瓜，一天吃兩餐，遇見大風大浪、刮風下雨，衣服濕透沒得換?！澳菚r候，陸上的人叫我們疍家婆、疍家仔?！?/p>

李卻妹還記得，小時候每當打到大龍蝦，父親就會扯起嗓子歡唱：來（?。┏鳎ò。┧烁筛桑模?，一對龍蝦藏礁（?。┠_。

直到上世紀60年代，疍民才告別海上漂泊，當地政府為上岸的漁民建起屋舍。漁民們創(chuàng)作了一首名為《黨是漁民親爹娘》的漁歌，感謝黨和國家。長到8歲，李卻妹開始移居陸地生活，惠東漁歌也正式上岸。

如今，惠東漁歌仍在傳唱，惠東漁民用漁歌歌唱生活的酸甜苦辣，既有反映打魚生活的，也有描述青年男女愛情的，在回港避風、節(jié)慶、婚喪等場合大唱漁歌?；輺|漁民信奉媽祖，每年祭祀，漁民都要唱漁歌祈福。

Liao Zhizhong, Sixth generation inheritor of Herbal Oil.廖志鐘，羅浮山百草油傳統(tǒng)制作技藝第六代傳人。

A Cure-all Herbal Oil

The Mountain and the Sea have endowed Huizhou with abundant natural resources. Luofushan herbal oil is one such gift given by Nature.

Born and growing up in a village at the foot of the Luofushan Mountain, Mr. Liao Zhizhong was no stranger to the many kinds of medicinal herbs.

Luofushan herbal oil became popular in the mountain region a long time ago and for a time was one of the most widely used herbal oils in southern China and Southeast Asian countries. According to Liao, almost every household had this herbal essence and no one left home to travel without it at the time as it can help relieve headache, dizziness, noxious dampness and mosquito bite symptoms.

According to local people, the herbal medicine dates back more than 1,600 years to the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420) when Ge Hong, a noted physician, alchemist and Taoism theorist of the time, discovered it while doing alchemical research. It later became widely accepted in the Lingnan region as an effective treatment for common diseases like epidemic inf l uenza. Even today, traces of the physician's work, including alchemical furnaces and medicine-cleaning pools, can still be found around the mountain.

Luofushan Mountain is home to more than 3,000 species of plants, including 1,200-odd medicinal herbs. The Luofushan herbal oil is produced from 68 herbs and 11 essence oils. The method of extracting herbal essences is similar to that used by Chinese Nobel laureate Tu Youyou in the extraction of artemisinin, which is widely used to treat malaria.

The herbal oil together with its production techniques was included in the list of China's national intangible cultural heritage in 2011. The greatest wish of Mr. Liao, the sixth-generation inheritor of the millennium-old recipe, is to carry it forward and benef i t more people.

Some herbs used to make Luofushan Herbal Oil.制作羅浮山百草油的部分藥材。

仙草神油

高山和大海為惠州提供了豐富的物產。羅浮山百草油正是來自大自然的饋贈。

廖志鐘是土生土長的惠州人，半個世紀前，他出生在羅浮山下的村落，聞著各種藥草的香味長大。

羅浮山百草油很早之前就在羅浮山地區(qū)廣為流傳，時至今日已成為嶺南和東南亞地區(qū)使用廣泛的藥用油。廖志鐘回憶，在當時，羅浮山百草油早已是居家旅行必備的物品，鄉(xiāng)親們有個頭疼腦熱，濕毒侵擾，或被蚊蟲叮咬，都拿它來涂一涂。

當地人深知，羅浮山百草油的歷史可以追溯到1600多年前的東晉時期，由醫(yī)學家、道教理論家葛洪在羅浮山煉丹時研制而成，后輾轉流傳于世，對當時嶺南瘟病時疫等常見疾患有奇效。如今，在羅浮山，仍可見葛洪當年煉丹的丹爐和洗草藥的藥池。

羅浮山有3000多種植物，其中中草藥就有1200多種。羅浮山百草油用68中草藥和11種植物精油精煉而成。與大部分中草藥高溫煎煮的方式不同，藥材經過洗凈、切片、晾干、提煉等工序處理完畢后浸泡萃取。此法與獲得諾貝爾醫(yī)學獎的屠呦呦提取青蒿素的原理相似。

2011年，羅浮山百草油傳統(tǒng)制作技藝被列入國家級非物質文化遺產名錄。與中草藥打了半輩子交道的廖志鐘也已成為羅浮山百草油的第六代傳人，年過半百的他如今最大的愿望就是將這流傳千年的藥方傳承下去，惠澤更多百姓。

Wang Hanchi, an artist of Longmen farmers’paintings.王漢池，龍門農民畫畫家。

The Joy of an Idyllic Life

Agricultural China in past years highlighted reading and learning as much as farm work. Yet the traditions of rural life in Longmen County in northwestern Huizhou are a bit different: farmers there have kept alive the unique tradition of combining farming with painting.

Longmen farmers' paintings capture festival celebrations or joyful events, unique folk customs, and fi eld labouring scenes as subjects, which are taken from the experience of the daily life in rural communities. Many unique elements of Lingnan and Hakka cultures, such as the folk dance of the local Yao ethnic minority, Hakka folk songs and gift lanterns (as a token of congratulations on the birth of a baby boy), are well captured in the farmers' paintings.

The paintings are characterised by rich colours, naive lines, and creative themes, which together depict the idyllic scene of country life. Each painting tells a unique story, says Wang Hanchi, a wellknown farmer painter from Longmen County.

Early paintings in the 1970s emphasised the use of some basic painting techniques, such as perspective, proportion and structure – what Wang would call “academic painting”. In the years that followed China's reform and opening up in 1978, true breakthroughs began to be made in Longmen farmers' paintings by drawing on traditional folk art like paper-cutting, embroidery and wood-carving.

The creation of a farmer's painting always begins with conception. After that is done, a painter will draw a rough sketch of the images with a pencil. After a few rounds of revisions, the sketch will then be enlarged and put onto a piece of rice paper. After that, the painter will wet the rice paper and add watercolours appropriately to allow them to be fully mixed with the water in a way that is very much like the skills used in traditional Chinese painting.

By taking inspiration from Hakka folk songs, which he loves dearly, Wang has created twelve Hakka folk song-themed paintings, which won him a“Shanhua Award”, China's highest folk art honour. Going forward, he hopes to add more elements of Lingnan, Hakka and Guangfu (or Cantonese) cultures to the art form, which, in turn, will help spread these unique cultures across China and internationally.

Girls to be Married, by Huang Weiping and Chen Shaoyuan.《倩女出閣》，作者黃偉平、陳少元。

田園之樂

中國農耕時代講究“耕讀傳家”。而在惠州龍門，農民則是一手鋤頭，一手畫筆，成為惠州一道獨特的風景線。

龍門農民畫以節(jié)慶喜事、特色民俗、田間勞動為主要題材，反映的都是當地農民田間地頭的生活，極富嶺南文化和客家文化特色，當地瑤族的民俗舞火狗、客家山歌、添丁的賀燈在農民畫中都有體現。

濃墨重彩是龍門農民畫的一大特色，充滿童真的線條和極富想象力的色彩將農村生活描繪得像一首田園詩。用龍門當地知名農民畫畫家王漢池的話說，每一幅農民畫都是一個故事。

創(chuàng)立之初，龍門農民畫講究焦點透視、比例、結構等基本繪畫方法，王漢池稱之為“學院派”。改革開放后，龍門農民畫才真正實現突破，開始吸收繼承傳統(tǒng)的民間藝術形式，如剪紙、刺繡、木雕等表現方法。

構思好之后，創(chuàng)作者先用鉛筆打好底稿，幾經修改后，將底稿放大到宣紙上，然后采用國畫的創(chuàng)作技巧，用水打濕畫紙，然后上色，以便讓水與水粉融合。

王漢池愛唱客家山歌，他將客家山歌與龍門農民畫結合，創(chuàng)作出12幅客家山歌農民畫，并獲得“中國民間文藝山花獎”。他希望將來可以借由農民畫將嶺南文化、客家文化、廣府文化融匯貫通并傳播開來。

ODE TO THE SEA

Text by Ge Rufeng Photos by Zeng Jian Translation by Leo