Kangding's best-known cultural treasure is the Kangding Love Song. In terms of recognition and popularity within China, it ranks second only to the national anthem. For most Chinese people, it was also their first introduction to Kangding itself. The city naturally capitalizes on this popularity in its self-promotion, tourist publications, advertisements, and as the title of festivals. The photograph above illustrates this perfectly: looking down from the 4,298-metre Zheduo Pass on the National Highway 318 linking Shanghai and Lhasa, the panorama of the Tagong Plateau unfolds before us, while on the mountainside opposite, instead of a political slogan, we see the city's trademark—the title The Kangding Love Song—written in huge white letters in Tibetan, Chinese, and English.
The song has also been appropriated by official state propaganda. One example is the 2010 film bearing its title, which presents the love story of Li Sujie, a young Chinese engineer, and Dawa, a Tibetan servant girl, as a metaphor for the eternal, unbreakable friendship and mutual interdependence of Tibet and China.
Let us begin with the version of the song heard in this film, followed by the original—and now truly archival—1949 recording through which the great soprano Yu Yixuan (1909–2008) first brought it to nationwide fame.
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跑马溜溜的山上， |
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Pǎomǎ liūliūde shānshàng, |
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On Galloping Horse Mountain clouds gather, |
Everywhere, the song is referred to as “a Kangding folk song.” By Béla Bartók's definition of a folk song—“a song that has been sung by many people for a long time”—it most certainly is one, just as Yesterday or The Sounds of Silence, would be. But according to the more widely accepted definition—“a work of folk poetry whose author is unknown and whose text has been shaped and polished through oral tradition”—only the second criterion applies. For the song's author and history of composition are well documented, even if it is far more romantic to claim otherwise.
As the California-based researcher Yi Liu summarises on ChinaBlog, the song was written in the 1930s by Li Yiruo from Sichuan. While studying at the Chengdu Conservatory, he fell in love with a fellow student, Miss Li from Kangding, but their parents opposed the marriage. Li Yiruo even followed his beloved to Kangding, but their relationship eventually came to an end. He, however, remained in Kangding and dedicated this song to the memory of their love. In the original lyrics, the young man also bears the surname Li rather than Zhang.
The composition by the Kangding music teacher soon became locally popular under the title The Song of the Galloping Horse, and many people began singing it. It was from such singers—specifically Kangding soldiers—that Wu Wenji, then a student at the Chongqing Conservatory in the mid-1940s, first heard the song. He showed it to his teacher, Jiang Dingxian, who wrote an orchestral accompaniment for it. Jiang also changed its title to Kangding Love Song and recommended it to the celebrated soprano Yu Yixuan, who had recently returned from the United States. She added it to her regular concert repertoire, and it was through her performances that the song became known throughout China.
It has since become popular around the world and has been performed by many artists. Perhaps the most remarkable of them is Plácido Domingo, who sang it with Song Zuying, accompanied by Lang Lang on the piano, both at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and at the Beijing concert marking the centenary of Yu Yixuan's birth in 2009.
The Polish-Ukrainian ensemble Dagadana gives it a much jazzier interpretation.
And finally, a truly surprising version: the Georgian Geo Folk Choir performs it in four-part harmony against a backdrop of scenes from Georgia. It shows that not only Kangding and China can use the song to promote the image of a city or a country—Georgia, too, can use it to attract the ever-growing number of Chinese tourists.
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