Despite wearing a plaster cast on her leg and needing crutches to walk, the 69-year-old Alatan Qige still took her "Voice of the Prairie Inner Mongolia Long Tune Singing Troupe" to the stage of Zhongshan ** Hall in Beijing in early February.
More than 20 days before departure, the first batch of representative inheritors of national-level Mongolian patriarchal folk songs accidentally slipped during a performance, but a leg injury could not stop her trip. At the rehearsal scene in Beijing, even if it was difficult to move, she relied on verbal commands and coordinated every detail like a general, without fatigue.
Cursing and scolding for a day. I must be fierce on my lips, not ordinary fierce. As he walked slowly to the backstage lounge on crutches, Alatan laughed and relaxed. She was still full of energy and full of energy, and while showing the details before the performance, she put on makeup and prepared to take the stage.
Mongolian long tunes don't matter about the stage, you can sing it when you go. But it is important for these children to be blessed to stand on the stage of the capital this year. In an exclusive interview with CBN, she lamented that after 16 years, she finally brought the 32 children she taught from the grassland to Beijing. The show doesn't have to be professional, but it means a lot to her and the kids.
In 2008, Alatanqige established the "Alatanqige Mongolian Changtuo Inheritance Training Center" in the desert of his hometown Alxa Right Banner to provide free public welfare training for herdsmen's children. In the past 16 years, she has taught more than 1,100 children, some of whom have even come from the United States, and more than 20 of them have finally taken Mongolian long-term transfer as a major and entered universities and graduate schools. In Qinghai, Inner Mongolia and other places, she has also built 8 long-tune bases.
I've been singing long tunes since I was a kid, and so have the love of my life and my career. "People often ask Alatan Qiqige, will the Mongolian long tune be lost, submerged and covered by other **? "I said, if we all do the inheritance, the long tune will not be lost, it's up to you how you do it. Speaking of the subject, she laughed heartily.
Yang Yucheng, a professor at Inner Mongolia Normal University, has a friendship with Alatan Qiqige for more than 30 years, and in his opinion, as a Mongolian master of long tunes, she can put down the light of a singer, face a group of children, and insist on doing public welfare popularization for so many years on her own, which is an incredible thing, "We can't imagine the suffering, but in her dictionary, there is no word bitterness, she has always said that she is very happy to do this." ”
She is not closed to do inheritance, but to open an open door for the children of herdsmen, so that they can go back to the ethnic group in their hometown at the source of Mongolian long tunes, understand the life of herdsmen, integrate into nature, know Mongolian culture, and then introduce long tunes into the real world. Yang Yucheng said that this kind of popularization of the national ** method is both difficult and valuable.
16 years, 8 bases, more than 1100 students.
The Mongolian long-term meeting in Beijing is like a gathering that has been waiting for more than ten years.
The backstage is filled with students dressed in colorful Mongolian costumes, ranging in height from 7 to 23. Among them, there are those who have just joined the group, and there are also adults like Osir Dolma, who have been studying with Alatan Qiqi since the age of 7 and are now 23 years old. Osir Zhuoma is a Mongolian long-tune professional, not only participating in performances, but also helping teachers with voluntary lessons in his spare time, which is a legacy between the new generations.
In March 2008, Alatan Qige set aside his own pasture for teaching, which is far away from the city, in a vast and vast area, with the natural environment that is most needed to sing long tunes, "surrounded by camels, sheep, desert and the Gobi."
The first group of more than 30 children came, ranging from elementary school students to high school students. The children come to live for a month's vacation, and they only need to pay three or four hundred yuan for basic food, and they eat and live together. Alatan is both a teacher and a nurturer. The older students cook with her, and the younger ones play in nature with the cows, sheep and camels around them.
She taught the children long tunes, as well as traditional Mongolian culture and etiquette, "Mongolian long tunes are not created by any composer, but are bred in the natural environment by their ancestors for generations." Our ancestors created in the scenes of the steppe, and today's children also have to learn long tunes in such nature in order to understand the core of the Mongolian soul. ”
Yang Yucheng first heard that she was going to return to the grassland and do public welfare education for children in Mongolia, but she didn't take it seriously, "I thought that when she returned to Inner Mongolia, she gathered some children in her hometown to play, but I didn't expect to do it for more than ten years."
In the past ten years, Yang Yucheng has also arranged for his graduate students to assist in teaching in the base, and when he saw the ** sent by the students, he realized that Alatan Qige really took this matter as a career.
She took the children to graze, cook, learn the traditional folk etiquette and culture of the Mongolian people, and completely immersed themselves in the life of the Mongolian people. Yang Yucheng said that this kind of continuous dedication that has been insisted on for more than ten years has impressed him.
He often asked Alatan Qige if there were any difficulties, but she never complained about the lack of support, nor did she describe this matter as a noble cause, but just buried her head in doing it year after year, "She never asked for money from **, she just did it with her own heart and got happiness in it."
Speaking of the past 16 years, Alatan Qige spoke briskly, "I have to do this if I have money, and I have to do it if I don't have money." If you can't do it, you will go to some activities, but many times, if you really don't have money, your heart will collapse, and the blow will be particularly big. Fortunately, in the past ten years, there have always been noble people to help. ”
She has received some funding from the ** society, but the base receives so many children every year, and it takes money to eat, drink, lazar, sew and mend. For this performance in Beijing, she needs 20,000 yuan in funds, and she also borrows money from parents.
Alatan Qige is very strict with education, and when faced with dozens of children, she is always gracious and powerful. At the important moment of performing in Beijing, it is difficult for her to relax even for a moment.
We went to Beijing to perform in order to let more people know about Mongolian tunes. Alatan Qige said that every detail of the performance was done with the participation of students and their parents. Some people are responsible for the design and printing of the program book, some are responsible for fundraising, some are responsible for team travel, and some are in the background to arrange affairs.
On the day of the performance, some students rushed to the scene, and flowers filled the lounge. Her first master's student, Wang Lianfu, said that Alatan Qige is not only a singer, but also an educator, and is a visiting professor at ** Minzu University, Inner Mongolia Normal University and other colleges. Alatan has produced many of the best Mongolian long-tune singers, including the lead singer of Anda, who attracted attention with his Mongolian long-tune in "Summer of the Band".
The teacher is like a general in class, and like a girl in private. Wang Lianfu still remembers that the teacher's strict requirements for art often make students tense their nerves, "I used to cry while singing, and I was ashamed to know that I didn't meet the teacher's requirements." ”
Over the years, I have taught more than 1,000 students at the base, not to train professional singers of long tunes, but to let enough children know long tunes and let them continue to grow in this land. Alatan Qige said that as long as one more child is exposed to Mongolian tunes, it is like planting a seed, and the foundation of the tunes will not break.
The Golden Sacred Mountain", the fate of three generations of women in a family.
Yang Yucheng had been to Alatan Qiqige's house and was extremely impressed by her family.
As soon as I entered the house, there were two couplets pasted on them, on which were two long Mongolian lyrics, one "Golden Holy Mountain" was dedicated to my grandmother, and one was "A Horse on the Back" was dedicated to my grandfather.
The sad and dignified "Golden Sacred Mountain" is a famous Mongolian long-tune song of Alatanqige, and it is also a song that connects three generations of women in the Alatanqige family.
In 1944, Alatanqige's grandmother went to the frontier to visit her sick sister, but just a few days after she left, the national border was divided, and the road between the two places was interrupted, and she could not return from it. The three young children grew up with their grandfather, and they couldn't imagine that they would be close to half a century.
When he was a child, he used to herd cattle with his grandfather, and found that he was always staring at the mountains in the distance, and sometimes he sang "The Horse on the Back", with a lyric to the effect, "My dear one, where are you". Every time he sang this sentence, his grandfather cried silently and was laughed at by his unwitting granddaughter.
Now that I think about it, my mother sang "Golden Sacred Mountain" at that time, and she was also missing her mother. Alatan Qiqige said that Grandma Mogu had a golden voice when she was young, and she was often invited to sing "Golden Sacred Mountain" at weddings. Grandma taught the song to her mother, Dasima, who in turn taught her the song.
She recalls living in the pastoral area where she lived when she was a child, on the edge of the Alxa Desert, "Since I was a child, I have listened to my mother sing long tunes, and I sang with her while grazing. Camels, haystacks, mountains, and white clouds are all my viewers. Sometimes they pile up rocks and treat them as spectators, singing, dancing and talking to them. ”
When you sing a long tune, it's like you're talking directly to the universe. As soon as he sang a long tune, he had a picture in his eyes. Alatan Qige said that the Mongolian people are not only "there must be songs when there is a feast", but also in the daily life of the nomads, the long tune is not only an aria for the soul, but also a daily entertainment.
She remembers that when it was time for the holidays, families would gather together to sing and dance. When she was a child, she looked forward to the festival, where she could eat steamed buns and sugar cubes, and sit under the stars with the adults and sing by the campfire. Often, the children were so sleepy that they had not yet finished the party, and "sometimes they fell asleep, dreaming, singing, dreaming that they were riding a camel and singing".
Alxa, where Alatan Qige was born and raised, is the third largest desert in the world, with a vast and sparsely populated area. If you want to visit a neighbor's house, you have to leave early and arrive late. "The long tone of Alxa is more sad and grand. Sometimes the wind blows, and the heavens and the earth are hidden. In this environment, people are like camels, with a spirit to move forward. This geography shapes the mentality, actions and actions of the locals in a way that is different from other regions. ”
The Mongolian long tune sings about life, nature, and family affection and longing. Whether the Mongolian people are sad or happy, they will express their feelings with their songs, and put those unspeakable emotions in the lyrics, floating in the wild breeze of the grassland.
The Golden Sacred Mountain is more like the spiritual connection of three generations of women in the Alatan Qige family. In 1993, Alatan Qige won the gold medal for this song at the first International Mongolian Long Tune Competition held in Ulaanbaatar. After winning the award, her singing voice appeared on the Mongolian radio, and when her grandmother Mogu, who was in her 80s, heard the song, it was like opening a time tunnel and believing that the person who sang the song must be the child of her own family. Grandma finally found Alatan Qiqige and reunited with her three old children to spend the last days of her life.
In 1995, the story of Alatan Qiqige's family was filmed as a Mongolian documentary called "The Golden Sacred Mountain".
Whether watching this documentary or communicating with Alatan Qige's mother and daughter in reality, Yang Yucheng has a wonderful feeling, although the mother and daughter are tall and short, fat and thin, the two women seem to cross time and space, condensed into one. Like a man and a horse on the steppe, the friendship between Alatan Qige and his mother transcends family affection and is incomprehensible to modern people, "they are not only connected by blood, but also have the same beliefs and common values".
Yang Yucheng saw in the two Mongolian women that they were tenacious beyond the ordinary. My mother lost her mother's love when she was a child, and at the age of 11, she herded herds to support her family. Alatan Qige began singing from the grassland, and has been singing on the international stage, winning awards. In the years after her husband's death, Alatan Qige was depressed for a while, but she quickly cheered up and worked with her mother to build a public welfare training base, dedicating the energy she had accumulated for many years to the children of ordinary herdsmen.
Alatan Qiqige said that Mongolian long-tune folk songs have gone through thousands of years, and they have only been passed down through word of mouth. In generations of Mongolian families, long tunes appear around campfires at night, on horseback, in the winds of the vast grasslands, and by the beds where babies sleep, and the so-called inheritance is a natural consequence.
Yang Yucheng believes that Alatan Qige is the culmination of Mongolian long tunes, and she blends traditional singing methods with modern singing techniques, and she blends long tune styles from different regions. In her early years, there were long-key singers who tried to do this, but she found her own way of singing, and evolved into a mature long-key teaching system.
More than 10 years ago, Alatan Qiqige found that the long tune was facing a fault crisis. The older generation of long-tune artists died one after another, the process of urbanization became faster and faster, and young people left the grassland and their hometowns, and the long-tune inevitably went into decline. She and her mother went to the Mongolian Long Tune Inheritance Training Center, all out of love for Mongolian long tunes and a growing sense of urgency.
The long tune is the soul of the Mongolian people, flowing in the blood of the Mongolian people, engraved on the bones of the Mongolian people, and it is a singing method that belongs to this nation, and what is sung is the natural environment and lifestyle of our Mongolian people. She often said that she was a child of the steppe, and if she did something for the Mongolian long tune, she would gain more happiness and contentment.
She has always been rooted in the Gobi Desert, from a grassroots to a top singer, among Mongolian long-tune singers, unprecedented. Speaking of this year-old friend with an age difference of 20 years, Yang Yucheng said that in Alatan Qiqige, he saw the most tenacious temperament of women, "She is nearly 70 years old in life, and she has lived three lives of ordinary people."
A few years ago, his mother died, which was a great blow to Alatanqiqige. When she passed on the long tune, it was as if she was fulfilling her family's dream that had lasted for three generations, but with her mother gone, she lost her right hand and no support.
When she talks about her mother's death, her eyes suddenly darken. As we get older, it is also questionable who will take over the base.
But every time she goes to the base, lives with the children, devotes time to teaching, and sees children from the United States also appear in the classroom, doing things in a down-to-earth way has become the happiest thing for her at the moment, "As long as the Mongolian people exist, the Mongolian culture exists, the long tune will not be lost, this is the task of our generations of Mongolians."