Lonely Troubador of the Grasslands

Buhe Chaolu quietly sits. In his hand is a beautifully wrapped cassette tape which he carefully ponders. It is a tape of a Mongolian singer that is currently getting popular both at home and abroad. Many Mongolians look up to him, and Buhe might envy him as well, though his feelings are rather complex. Buhe's spirit is a little lonely, because he knows that if he had the chance he himself could do even better.

lnside a yurt, Buhe obliviously sings, forgetting for a while all the burdens of life. （photo by Hsu Wei-chin）

The little shepherd boy who loved to sing:

Buhe Chaolu, an ethnic Mongolian, was born in 1955 in Inner Mongolia, in Ulanqab League, Damao Banner. He came from a typical herding family, and if it were not for some special events, he would have started at the age four or five to lead a flock of 300 sheep to tend them in the grasslands, and he probably would still be a shepherd singing to himself.

As chance would have it, Buhe's life as a shepherd boy came to an end in 1964 when he met Dan Da'er, a grade school teacher who had come to the county. "Dan Da'er was a good hearted teacher. He often pedaled his bicycle through the prairie looking for children. When he found one who ought to be going to school, he would go to the child's home and talk the head of the house into sending the child to school to receive an education." That year Buhe was one of the children who was "collected" by Dan Da'er to go to school.

Because he had a chance to study and also because of his own love for music, Buhe finally tested into the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region Institute of Art to study opera. After graduation, he found work at the Inner Mongolia Art Research Institute collecting and researching Mongolian music, in which he became an expert.

Buhe says, "The personality of Mongolians is introverted; only on horseback are we bold." Pictured is Buhe Chaolu in the steppes, assuming a heroic posture on his horse. （photo by Chen Shu-hui）

Singing out the voice of the steppes:

In 1988 Li Wen-chen, associate professor of music at the Peking Chinese Music Institute, went to Mongolia because she was editing the Compendium of Chinese Folk Music and there had a chance to meet Buhe. She holds great respect for his disciplined skills. "One time I invited a music professor who was knowledgeable in both Mandarin and Mongolian to translate a Mongolian song. Five words in Mongolian were translated into more than 20 words of Mandarin. We simply couldn't sing it. After I met Buhe I asked him to translate it, and when he did, it came out no more nor less than five words." Professor Li says that Buhe can take any Mongolian song and spontaneously sing it in Chinese without even thinking. Yet, nothing is lost in texture or meaning.

Nevertheless, what truly moves Li Wen-chen is not Buhe's accomplished abilities alone; his voice is even more touching. "The first time we met, Buhe improvised a rendition of a choral piece called 'Waves.' That beautiful voice of his fixed itself in my memory." Professor Li says that much music of the ethnic minorities is disappearing, because of the nature of the times, and much of what remains has absorbed the influence of other kinds of music. For example, to be popular on the world stage a musician can not avoid incorporating a bit of rock and roll. Listening to Buhe sing, however, one detects no fanciful inflection; one only hears are traditional rustic resonance of the shepherd's voice.

Singing out of loneliness:

The primal source of Buhe's love for music is the Mongolian blood that flows in his veins. "Mongolian people all love to sing, and we can sing well," says Buhe. In the traditional life of the nomad, every day spread in front of one is a view of boundless prairie, with nothing but unspeaking cows or sheep. Life is monotonously lonely. The solitary life fosters an introverted character in the Mongolians, and the only way to give vent to their feelings is by singing. They sing when they are out on the prairies, when they welcome guests, when they have parties; they sing to express emotions both merry and melancholy. None of the lyrics or melodies have a particular standard; the rule is to let loose one's feelings. "So, Mongolians sing for themselves, not for others," says Buhe, who has experienced the life of herding in the grasslands. The songs of the steppes are genuinely lonely: old shepherds chant traditional long songs that have no words, distantly echoing across the grassy plains the single phrase "lonely."

Because Buhe has the life experience that most professional Mongolian singers lack, he can more capably sing out the voice of the steppes. Perhaps he concentrated too intently on the glottal, natural style of traditional singing. When receiving Western style vocal training at the Institute of Art, for a while Buhe could not sing at all. The contradictions made him ponder whether it was not impossible to express traditional songs using the abdominal singing techniques of the West. He feels that when he used operatic methods to sing Mongolian songs he was well received; but were they still genuinely Mongolian songs? There is another side of the coin: when he received the knowledge of Western musical technique, he then felt confident that he could interpret the songs very well. Buhe struggled bitterly, suspended between tradition and science.

The contradiction in his voice:

With the encouragement of professor Li Wen-chen, Buhe started to sing again, yet sometimes his eyebrows could be seen deeply furrowed. Evidently the trouble in his heart was still there. According to Lin Ku-fang, a scholar of minority music and good friend of Buhe's, Buhe stands as an exception among mainland China's artists, concerning himself with tradition in the face of the rising tide of technology. However, all his worrying has hindered his own development.

Besides pondering the problems of tradition, the greatest challenge to Buhe's art comes from the matter of livelihood.

Buhe is already married. His wife is a Muslim dancer, and the two of them have a child of seven called "Doe Doe." Although Buhe harbors a hot love for art, his monthly wage amounts to only 270 renminbi. Even to buy Doe Doe a cartoon character toy costs 30 renminbi. Indeed, when one is so impoverished, art must be put aside for awhile.

In order to gain a more prosperous future, Buhe applied at his research institute last September for a sabbatical leave of one year. He is looking into starting a partnership with his friend exporting steel, hoping to make a little extra money to secure his future life. Naturally, because of the toils of hard work, he has not had time to practice his music. Li Wen-chen is concerned. "If Buhe wants to follow the path of art, he can't slide down like this," she says. In fact, if he is to actually mount the stage, Buhe must practice even more. Doing business, though, demands that he constantly mix socially, and his life is all topsy-turvy. This is not a good turn of events for him.

"Watching the dollar signs":

Buhe is himself aware that his artistic vitality is being worn down, but such is the effect of the larger environment. How can he not watch the dollar signs? Buhe's predicament shows forth in a whole host of matters, and that predicament serves to increase his melancholy.

Buhe's father died young, and all five children in the family depended on his mother to bring them up. Being the eldest son, he naturally empathizes with the bitter labor of his mom; because of this he is very filial. He listens to his mother's opinions and does not dare to go against them. "I had the chance a few years ago to go raise sheep in America. I could earn US$800 a month. But my mother didn't want me to leave home and go abroad, so I cancelled my plans." Eight hundred US dollars is equal Buhe's yearly income! His mother reckons, though, that moving from the grasslands to the city is already an enormous change. He has no reason to leave his home.

He can not abandon his home, yet he must take care of his livelihood. Buhe bites the bullet, temporarily laying aside his interests, gambling in the mainland for a better tomorrow. His eyes witness other Mongolian singers rise to popularity, although he has confidence that he can sing better, that he can sing forth the authentic feeling of the steppes. But when will he have his chance? What about his livelihood? A string of question marks guides him uneasily into the future.

Singing for himself to hear:

Buhe is quite emotional. Because of this, the songs he loves to sing are gentle and lyrical, quite the opposite of the stereotype outsiders perceive of the daring, audacious Mongolian ballad. A good example is the song "Mongol Steed that I Miss," which he composed himself. In it he describes the Mongolian horse, gradually fading away with the times; but the Mongolian horse will forever be the greatest friend of Mongolian people.

Sad and unavoidably sentimental, Buhe Chaolu has a name that means "Sturdy Stone." Obviously, in some places the man does not match the name. Facing the human world that is so difficult to grasp, what can one small person do? As he said himself: "Mongolians sing for themselves to hear." When you feel helpless, then, sing a song for yourself!

[Picture Caption]

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Inside a yurt, Buhe obliviously sings, forgetting for a while all the burdens of life. (photo by Hsu Wei-chin)

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Buhe says, "The personality of Mongolians is introverted; only on horseback are we bold." Pictured is Buhe Chaolu in the steppes, assuming a heroic posture on his horse. (photo by Chen Shu-hui)