Going Beyond the Western Pass: Chinese Folk Models of Danger and Abandonment in Songs of Separation

Abstract

From the early Qing dynasty (1644–1911) to the beginning of the People’s Republic, men in northern China from drought-prone regions of northwestern Shanxi province and northeastern Shaanxi province would travel beyond the Great Wall to find work in western Inner Mongolia, in a migration known as “going beyond the Western Pass” 走西口. This article analyzes anthologized song lyrics and ethnographic interviews about this migration to explore how songs of separation performed at temple fairs approached danger and abandonment using traditional metaphors and “folk models” similar to those of parents protecting children from life’s hazards and widows and widowers lamenting the loss of loved ones. I argue that these duets between singers embodying the roles of migrant laborers and the women they left behind provided a public language for audiences to reflect upon and contextualize private emotions in a broader social context, offering rhetorical resolutions to ambivalent anxieties.

Keywords

migration songs folk models danger separation

From the early Qing dynasty (1644–1911) to the beginning of the People’s Republic, men in parts of northern China were forced by poverty and frequent droughts to journey beyond the Great Wall to find work in Inner Mongolia (Yang, 2006: 35–36). Over time, folk songs and operatic performances emerged dealing with the separation of these men from their loved ones as they traveled on this historic migration known as “going beyond the Western Pass” 走西口. The “Western Pass” 西口, referring to the gates in the western sections of the Great Wall, was seen as a boundary between the area south of the wall known as “inside the pass” 口里 and the area to the north known as “outside the pass” 口外, the latter encompassing parts of western Inner Mongolia including Ordos City (then known as Yeke-juu/Ikh Juu League, Yikezhaomeng 伊克昭盟), Jung Gar Banner (Zhunge’erqi 准格尔旗), Baotou, Mount Daqing (Daqingshan 大青山), and Houtao 后套 (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 5). These performed songs of separation, this article suggests, offered singers and audiences rhetorical resolutions to ambivalent anxieties—ways for individuals to collectively conceptualize, process, and ruminate on danger and abandonment.

An examination of collected song lyrics about going beyond the Western Pass reveals metaphors through which danger and abandonment were understood—cultural “ways of understanding and accounting for everyday phenomena and perceptions of reality” that Brian King and others refer to as “folk models” (King, 1989: 5; Holland and Quinn, 1987; Holy and Stuchlik, 1981). Like Alan Dundes’s notion of “folk ideas” (i.e., “traditional notions that a group of people have about the nature of man, of the world, and of man’s life in the world”), folk models point to how the world is “perceived, assigned meanings, explicated and made relevant for people who live in it” (Dundes, 1971: 95; Holy and Stuchlik, 1981: 17). My analysis below of the folk models of danger and emotional attachment reflected in the song lyrics builds on research into how danger is dealt with in different regions of China and elsewhere, as well as the psychology of separation (Baptandier-Berthier, 1994; Bender, 2001; Jones, 2009; Lévi-Strauss, 1996 [1963]; Mullen, 1978; Freud, 1946 [1918]; Stafford, 2000). I argue that danger and abandonment are approached in ways similar to those of parents’ attempts to avoid hazards for their children and widows’ and widowers’ laments for deceased loved ones. More broadly, I suggest that advice lyrics performed by male and female singers in traditional duets at temple fairs addressed ambivalent desires arising from separation and modeled mutual support and a sense of togetherness during couples’ time apart by presenting ways to stay safe at home and away.

From the late Qing to the Republican era (1912–1949), going beyond the Western Pass comprised one of several major migratory trends in China, all leading to songs that artistically expressed the emotions involved in separation (Tian, 2004: 195; Idema, 2015 and forthcoming). Such song traditions became part of the public representations of these migrations, processing the ambivalent feelings caused by separation that Charles Stafford suggests stem from “conflicting needs for autonomy and dependency” (Stafford, 2000: 23). Other major migratory trends with associated oral traditions included going to Northeast China 闯关东, Burma, Taiwan, Southeast Asia 走南洋, and the United States (Gottschang and Lary, 2000; Reardon-Anderson, 2005; Tian, 2004: 195; Idema, forthcoming: 13; Idema, 2015; Hom, 1987). In a book on traditional Hakka songs and ballads, Wilt L. Idema observes some of the ways migratory trends emanating from different parts of China influenced song traditions and popular literature:

Not only Hakkas, but also migrants and emigrants from other parts of China such as southern Fujian, Chaozhou and other parts of Guangdong, met with hardship and pain and, from the 18th century, we can trace the development of a thematic subgenre of popular literature in all of these regions that recounts the sufferings of migrants and urges people to stay where they are. These texts run from long poems that provide an exhaustive catalogue of the hardships of migrants, to longer and shorter songs in which wives urge their husbands to stay at home or long for their speedy return after they have left, always afraid they may never come back (or even marry a local woman abroad!). (Idema, 2015: 296)

The listing of hardships and urging of husbands not to leave and/or to quickly return are common themes in the songs explored below. I argue that performed duets about going beyond the Western Pass provided rhetorical models for resolving the ambivalence of separation, using sung advice to address and accompany the traveler and the person left behind—leaving while not leaving and staying while not staying. At the same time, the performances were also normative, presenting a stylized emotional reaction to separation with which the audience members could compare their own.

As the audiences of temple fair performances in the region included women unsure whether their loved ones were still alive or if they would ever return, one could argue that these songs of separation about going beyond the Western Pass provided public performances of what might otherwise be private emotions. Following David Arkush’s observations regarding village operas in another area of northern China, these public performances of the drama of separation offered audiences the chance “to play, in a safely distanced way, with . . . matters that were upsetting or threatening for the community” (Arkush, 1990: 88–89). In doing so, these performances of traditionally sanctioned oral forms including songs and folk operas “provided a language” for individuals to think through and situate personal experiences in a larger social context (Lévi-Strauss, 1996 [1963]: 374). The idea of providing a common language for migrants and their loved ones was not unique to going beyond the Western Pass. Writing on late imperial and early Republican Hakka and Minnanese songs and ballads about overseas migration 過番歌, Idema states, “If these songs and ballads are not the spontaneous expression by these migrants and emigrants of their emotions, they did provide them with familiar language and imagery to understand their own experiences and to voice them,” adding that the “ballads were still memorized and recited by many migrants and emigrants, and by many of those who stayed behind or returned” (Idema, forthcoming: 18).

By “providing a language” for migrants and those left behind, songs of separation offered a means to connect personal experiences to communal events. As Fei-Wen Liu suggests in a study of bridal laments in rural southern China, “formulaic or ritualized expressions are where ‘individual experience and shared concerns intersect’” (Liu, 2012: 211; Barber, 1997: 357). Thomas A. DuBois notes a similar fusion of personal and social experience in European funeral laments where “by referring to the deceased along these highly stereotyped lines, the personal experience and communication of sorrow is merged with the collective experience of past generations” (DuBois, 2006: 86). By using such lyric forms, people could connect their personal experiences to “a set of experiences that members of the community have passed through for ages” (DuBois, 2006: 88). I suggest that public performances of “traditional” songs about the pains of separation offered individuals a means to socialize and reflect upon personal experiences in broader social and historical contexts (Porter and Gower, 1995: 269).

The connection between migrations and song traditions appears to be borne out in ethnographic interviews conducted with former migrants in the 1950s and 1980s that suggest singing played a powerful role in conceptualizing and expressing emotions related to going beyond the Western Pass (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962; Ma and Zhang, 1990). After two journalists, Ma Xiaolin and Zhang Jingmin (1990), retraced sections of the migratory route in 1985, traveling over 2,000 li on foot from northwestern Shanxi province through northern Shaanxi province to Baotou, Inner Mongolia, and conducting interviews with former migrants along the way, they wrote, “In every village that we walked through in Hequ, as soon as one brought up ‘going beyond the Western Pass,’ the older people would all use ‘mountain songs’ 山曲 to relate their own personal experience of suffering” (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 117). One interviewee suggested that only songs could express such powerful emotions:

In Nanshawa 南沙窊, we asked some of the old people in the village, “Since going beyond the Western Pass was so bitter, why did you still want to sing songs [about it]?” With a faint, meaningful glance, the old people sadly replied, “It was so bitter it makes your heart tremble. With speaking you cannot clearly express how bitter it was. Only in songs 曲曲 can you sing it clearly.” “‘Mountain songs’ 山曲子 relieve sorrows and worries and keep one optimistic 解心宽.” (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 116)¹

The elderly villagers’ responses suggest that song best conveys the complex emotions aroused by separation. Although a discussion of the cathartic function of song is beyond the scope of this article, the local villagers’ comments point to what Arjun Appadurai calls the “linguistic life” of emotions often found in “formulaic modes of expression” such as the song lyrics examined below (Appadurai, 1990: 92).

After a brief introduction of the history and geography of going beyond the Western Pass and its related performance genres, I look at the dilemma in these sung dialogues faced by couples who could neither stay together nor live apart. The ambivalent feelings this paradox caused were expressed in the song lyrics through various rhetorical means. Mutual dependence and separation are symbolized by images of ties that bind and broken strings, while folk models of overcoming danger during the journey parallel traditional approaches to the dangers of childhood and the pain brought on by the death of loved ones. The singers of these songs, by presenting rhetorical solutions to difficult situations through lyrics of caution and advice, attempted to make sense out of the unpredictable and give voice to the complex emotions involved in separation.

History, Genres, and Performance Contexts

The main areas from which migrants left to “go beyond the Western Pass” included Hequ 河曲, Baode 保德, and Pianguan 偏关 in northwestern Shanxi, as well as the area surrounding Fugu 府谷 in northeastern Shaanxi, all of which border on the Yellow River and are prone to frequent droughts (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 145). As Yi Wang (2014: 218) notes, “Overpopulation and environmental degradation combined to push a steady flow of Han migrants from adjacent provinces such as Shanxi and Shaanxi into the grassland.” In addition, many people from other parts of Shanxi as well as Hebei, Henan, and other provinces would pass through Hequ on their way to Inner Mongolia. The different social statuses of individual migrants led to three distinct routes beyond the Western Pass—the songs examined below relate to the poor farmers who would take the overland route and the river route, while wealthier merchants would travel on the eastern route or “trade route” (Yang, 2006: 37–38).

The principal, overland route was the central inspiration for the songs below and was known as “walking through the grasslands” 走草地 and “walking the overland route beyond the Pass” 旱路跑口外. It involved crossing the Yellow River at or near Hequ, passing through the southern tip of Inner Mongolia and Gucheng 古城 in Fugu county, Shaanxi, and then walking through the Ordos Plateau up to Baotou in Inner Mongolia. There, the migrants would rest and regroup before setting out for other sections of western Inner Mongolia. A folk saying suggests that the entire trip would take seven days if one walked quickly and eight days if one walked slowly 紧七慢八 (Yang, 2006: 39).

The “river route” 跑河路, in turn, went along the Yellow River up to Ningxia and down to Hequ (Yang, 2006: 39). The boatmen, called “River route men” 河路汉, who left Hequ would transport oilseeds, pelts, grains, and other goods to Inner Mongolia for local merchants 坐地大商贩 (Yang, 2006: 40). This route was considered an important thoroughfare between the areas inside and outside of the Great Wall, with sailing boats and cargo ships providing transportation year in and year out. The boat passengers of this second route and the foot travelers of the first route would then meet and mingle in Hekou village 河口镇 and Baotou, considered a land and water port and a commercial/transportation center (Cao, 1961: 4).

The third route, “walking the eastern route” 走东路, also known as the “trade route” 商道 or the “camel route” 骆道, involved trade caravans that transported goods and draft animals between Inner Mongolia and Shanxi, bringing daily necessities including rice, noodles, and silk to ethnic Mongols and bringing local products from Inner Mongolia back to the Central Plains (Yang, 2006: 41–42). Several of these traveling merchants became rich. Perhaps the most famous rags-to-riches story is that of Qiao Guifa 乔贵发, whose large estate was featured in Zhang Yimou’s 1991 film Raise the Red Lantern. Originally a poor farmer who went to do business in Baotou, Qiao was unsuccessful at first, but managed to buy large quantities of soybeans and corn in 1755 during a bumper harvest and then sell them during a drought the following year. Qiao’s family later became one of the powerful “Shanxi merchant” 晋商 clans (Huang, 2002: 438–47). Another rags-to-riches story is that of Wang Tongchun 王同春 (1851–1925), the “self-made ‘King of Canals’ in Hetao” (Wang, 2014: 233) who “became one of the most influential land-merchants in the area, due to his expertise in irrigation works” (Taveirne, 2004: 331). Though the song lyrics examined in this article relate to those routes traveled by poor farmers, it is clear that their journeys took place within the context of people from various social classes who traveled to Inner Mongolia. In Hetao, located in the western region of the portion of Inner Mongolia to which migrants would travel, Han settlers, Yi Wang (2014: 238) notes, “were divided into two hierarchical groups according to their social and economic positions: merchants and peasant proprietors vis-à-vis tenants and rural workers, set apart by their landholding capacity and ability to gain access to irrigation.”

The rise and decline of going beyond the Western Pass were largely connected to changes in official policies. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the area beyond the Pass was not yet part of China’s sphere of influence, though there was quite a bit of migration beyond the Wall, albeit under different circumstances (Fisher, 1988). The Qing initially enforced a strict border policy in the mid-seventeenth century that prohibited the intermingling of Mongols and Han to avoid possible conflicts and to discourage the two groups from teaming up to overthrow their Manchu overlords, with the Manchu emperor outlining a 50 li-wide by 2,000 li-long “no man’s land” known as the “black border land” 黑界地, where Mongol nomads could not move south to pasture and Han farmers could not move north to plant crops (Ma, 2000: 25–26). However, by 1697, the Emperor Kangxi decided to allow Han Chinese to farm Mongolian lands, and later on such migration was even encouraged (Yang, 2006: 35). During the early Republican period, several provinces set up organizations to relocate agricultural workers to the Northwest (including Inner Mongolia) and the national government and various social organizations provided migrants with money to buy land, livestock, seeds, houses, and even grain for consumption (Ma, 2000: 57–58; Tighe, 2005). While going beyond the Western Pass is said to have declined in the early years of the People’s Republic of China (Yang, 2006: 35), the oral histories collected by Ma and Zhang (1990) suggest that it may have continued to a certain degree even after that time. One man whom Ma and Zhang interviewed recounted three trips that he made beyond the Western Pass, the last two during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). In one instance, the man impersonated a Red Guard carrying out a “revolutionary” operation in order to gain permission to leave. Another time, he went to Inner Mongolia to take advantage of its more relaxed policies and subsidized expenses (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 152–53). While it appears that at least some people were still going during this period, the man’s use of tricks to “get away” during the last two trips suggests there were fewer migrants than before.

The journey’s dangers, which are further discussed in the analysis of song lyrics below, are best contextualized by a brief description of the main route. Travelers would walk between 60 and 80 li (around 20–25 miles) a day and sleep out at night. Traveling accessories were extremely simple—often just a shoulder pole to carry food and luggage. The carrying pole had three additional uses: as a weapon to fend off dogs and wolves, as a main beam for straw “tents” for sleeping out at night, and as a horizontal bar placed on the shoulders to avoid falling into holes in the ice when crossing the Yellow River during one’s return in early winter (Yang, 2006: 39). The most dangerous stage of the trip was through the Höbq Desert 库布其沙漠 in the Ordos Plateau, where scattered camel dung provided the only hint of a trail and one had to depend on hunches and experience to press on amidst the sand dunes and desert weeds. Losing one’s way might mean never making it out alive—the Höbq Desert earned its name as the Devil’s Gate Pass 鬼门关 (Yang, 2006: 39). I will return to the idea of “passing through” potential dangers as a folk model for staying safe that we find in songs about traveling beyond the Western Pass as well as childhood protection rituals.

The social phenomenon of “going beyond the Western Pass” led to numerous songs and folk operas that are now recorded in various anthologies. These songs and operas dealt with the pain of separation and the danger of the journey. The sung genres included “mountain songs” (shan’ge 山歌), “little ditties” (xiaodiao 小调), and “two-person operas” (errentai 二人台), local sung folk dramas performed by one male role and one female role (both of which were traditionally performed by men) often staged at temple fairs and other events in the region, frequently accompanied by a bamboo flute, sixian 四弦 (a spike fiddle with four strings), and yangqin 扬琴 (a hammered dulcimer) (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 213; Yulin Prefecture Culture Bureau, 1983: 2). Some errentai are said to be based on folk songs and vice versa. I have found similar lyrics among xiaodiao and errentai versions, suggesting a close relationship between these genres (Lü, 1994: l.191–203; Yulin Prefecture Culture Bureau, 1983: 51–76).

Errentai versions of “Going beyond the Western Pass” offered a relatively complete narrative in which oppressive conditions caused by a severe drought forced the husband Taichun 太春 to leave for the Western Pass shortly after marrying his wife, Yulian 玉莲. One of the contexts for these performances was the annual River Lantern Festival 河灯节 held at the King Yu River God Temple 禹王河神庙 on the banks of the Yellow River in Hequ, across from Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi. Coinciding with the Chinese Ghost Festival, the River Lantern Festival was held to mourn the deaths of people who had perished on journeys beyond the Western Pass and to pray for peaceful, safe passages (Yang, 2006: 41, 200). Operatic performances of “Going beyond the Western Pass” for the entertainment of the gods took place facing the temple’s main hall on a stage on the first floor of the two-story Building for Looking Out on the River 望河楼 (Figure 1), whose upper level provided a place to see off loved ones leaving for the Western Pass (Yang, 2006: 200).² With audiences including people and ghosts affected by this historical migratory phenomenon, the performance of the public, relatable story of Taichun’s tearful departure from Yulian offered audiences an opportunity to observe the ambivalent emotions provoked by separation.

Figure 1.

Stage facing the King Yu River God Temple 禹王河神庙 in Hequ 河曲, Shanxi, next to the Yellow River, 2010 (photo by author).

Ambivalence Surrounding Separation

In the errentai duets about going beyond the Western Pass, the central dilemma is that the man must leave to make a living, but the couple are individually weaker and more at risk once they separate. As the husband decides whether to stay with his wife or to leave her, and the wife considers whether to urge her husband to stay or to let him leave, each option offers potential benefits while also coming with a cost. Though not explicitly expressed in the duets, one might imagine additional layers of ambiguity related to men who longed for adventure and women who pushed their husbands to leave in order to improve their family’s financial situation. Stafford (2000: 23) suggests that separation highlights “conflicting human needs for autonomy and dependency,” leading to feelings of ambivalence: “Humans are dependent—e.g. emotionally or economically—on others. But given our potential ambivalence about such dependency, we may have strongly conflicting desires for autonomy, [in other words] for separation from those on whom we depend (cf. Freud’s ‘conflict of ambivalence’)” (Stafford, 2000: 23). In many of the song lyrics discussed below, emotional and economic dependence on others and strong feelings of ambivalence toward such dependency seem to be common themes.

Words of parting from a loved one must negotiate the contradiction between leaving—superficially a form of rejection—and maintaining a relationship. Even ordinary leave-taking is “managed carefully in order to avoid giving the impression that departure represents a rejection of relations with those who remain behind” (Myers, 1988: 596). Stafford suggests that the Chinese classical poetry genre of “sending off” (song [送]) “to this day provides friends and acquaintances with appropriate ‘words of parting’ (bieci [别词])” (Stafford, 2000: 3–4, characters added). In a similar manner, song lyrics about going beyond the Western Pass provided a traditional repertoire of language to express the complex emotions of parting couples in a way that embodied ambivalent feelings of wanting to stay yet needing to leave. One of Ma and Zhang’s interviewees—folksinger Xin Lisheng 辛礼生 from Hequ—recalled singing the following lyrics when he left his wife to go beyond the Western Pass:

叫一声妹子你不要哭, (I) call to Little Sister, saying don’t you cry,

哭的哥哥心难活. If you cry, Older Brother’s heart will be distressed.

守住妹子倒也好, Holding on to Little Sister isn’t a bad idea at all,

挣不下银钱过不了. But without earning money, we won’t be able to survive. (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 119)³

The third and fourth lines express an ambivalent inner dialogue—men like Xin did not want to leave their loved ones but staying at home would mean that they did not have enough money to support the family. Knowing the tendency to see leaving as a form of rejection, the male voices in these songs felt compelled to justify their decision to leave (for example, complaining of terrible droughts and the need for money and food) in order to “convince” their loved ones of both the urgency of their departure and their maintained commitment to the couple’s emotional bond (Idema, forthcoming: 3). Although the women left behind may have understood the need for the men to leave, they would feel abandoned all the same, left alone with meager food and labor resources (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 119). Furthermore, the men might die and never return.

Underlying the emotional intensity of these songs of separation is the idea that men and women cannot and should not live apart. Xin Liu describes how residents of a small rural town in northern Shaanxi perceived this mutual dependence between the sexes:

Men were believed to be incapable of managing a house on their own, as Wanyou explained: “A man simply cannot live by himself. How can he do those little jobs? I’m an exception because I know how to cook. Household chores have to be done by women. Women can live by themselves. They know how to do everything.” The women differed, for they believed that a woman could not survive without a man: even carrying water home from a well needed men’s physical strength. The two views coincided in their agreement that men and women must live together in order to deal with the tasks of everyday life. (Liu, 2000: 77–78)

These views of the interdependence of men and women coincide with Sulamith Potter’s assertion that “work as a symbol of relationship” in rural Chinese marriages “is the most significant element in the villagers’ evaluation of the quality of the union. . . . The underlying assumption is that work shared means a close relationship” (Potter, 1988: 202–5).

The idea of struggling to live on one’s own is prominently displayed in songs detailing the difficulties of life as a bachelor (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 48–52). The lyrics of these songs discuss the man’s loneliness, his battles with insomnia, and his difficulty in “making a home” 安身 without a wife (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 49–51). One song describes a bachelor laboring all day in the fields only to come home to cook dinner in dirty pots. Another complains that the clothes a man paid to have sewn for him were either too long or too short (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 48). A footnote adds that single peasants found it extremely difficult to deal with a combination of heavy labor and household chores (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 49).

At the same time, women in ethnographic accounts are portrayed as depending on the physical labor of men. Xin Lisheng, the folksinger from Hequ mentioned earlier, noted that men comprised the main labor force and helped to keep things running smoothly:

When I left home to go “beyond the Pass,” those at home kept crying and crying. Just like the song says, “dragging and pulling—in great distress” 一拉一扯好难活. In Hequ, with this type of terrain, men are the main laborers, just like the main support pillars in a house. Once they are gone, the house falls apart. Therefore, women sincerely do not want to let the men leave. In fact, the men also do not want to leave, but they have no choice. Without money or rice, one cannot get by. If they do not leave, how can they survive! (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 119)

Many of the songs about going beyond the Western Pass revolve around themes of loneliness and helplessness. In these sung, dramatic representations, each gender is portrayed as “helpless” in carrying out certain activities without the other. Men are shown as longing for home, companionship, and someone to care for them:

乃马代德红柳老彦格巴的沙, Naimadaide’s red willows, Laoyan’geba’s sand,

给了蒙古受苦怎不想家. After suffering for the Mongols, how could one not miss home?

吃了一碗饺子没喝一碗汤, Ate a bowl of jiaozi, didn’t drink a bowl of soup,

这地方不如我们南沙梁. This place is not as good as our Nanshaliang.⁴

前山的个后山拉短哟的工, This mountain and that mountain recruit short-term labor,

出门的那人儿哟谁照应. For those men who have left home, who will care for them? (Lü, 1994: 1.144)

The lyrics of another song read, “For men who have left home, who is there to feel sorry for them?” 出门人儿谁心疼 (Lü, 1994: 1.122). Often, thoughts of home and loved ones merge together: “I miss that place, ai yo na ai yo, and I also miss that girl with the long eyelashes” (1.157). Other lyrics describe a woman’s loneliness, comparing her to “a solitary wild goose alighting on a sandy beach” (1.146). Both men and women become uprooted by separation.

One of the women Ma and Zhang interviewed, Di Lan 迪兰 from Nanshawa village 南沙窊村, described the precarious position of women left in the absence of male labor:

When men are sent off, the women are the ones who suffer the most. Once the men leave, they are gone for a year. Whether they are alive or dead—we don’t even get a letter. When a woman sees off her man, she always wants to look at him just a while longer. Who knows if she will see him alive again after he leaves today? Every woman wants to accompany her man a few steps further, but they are afraid that others will make fun of them, and they are so ashamed that they are unable to. Therefore, once they have seen the man past the cave dwelling’s door, the women hurriedly scurry up to the top of the cave dwelling to watch the man leave. They keep watching until he is gone, and then some more. (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 119)

Di Lan’s observation that “the women are the ones who suffer the most” suggests feelings of abandonment and ambivalent hostility directed at the men who leave their loved ones. Her comment about women not knowing whether their husbands were dead or alive resonates with similar questions raised in song lyrics. This similarity suggests that feelings of abandonment due to separation and death are often experienced in analogous ways (Stafford, 2000). The resemblance between experiences of abandonment due to infidelity and death is highlighted in the song “Engaged at Thirteen, Married at Fourteen” (also known as “Father-in-Law Sells His Daughter-in-Law”), which tells the story of a woman forced to remarry after it becomes unclear whether her husband will ever return from beyond the Western Pass:

十三岁上定亲十四岁上引, Engaged at thirteen, married at fourteen,

十五岁守寡到了如今. “Widowed” at fifteen, and ever since.

奴家的男人一十六, My man was sixteen,

一十七岁偷走西口. At seventeen, he ran off to the Western Pass.

上了你的个西口交了朋友, Went to the Western Pass and made new friends,

卖了你的良心不往回走. Sold your conscience and didn’t come back.

公公安上卖儿媳妇心, Father-in-law has it in his mind to sell his daughter-in-law.

还说是儿媳不孝顺. Even said his daughter-in-law didn’t show filial obedience. (Lü, 1994: 1.86–87)

Though using the terminology of widowhood (shougua 守寡), the song’s lyrics suggest that the woman’s husband abandoned her. In many cases, the husband’s fate was unknown—he had simply “left for the Western Pass” and was now gone.

In his discussion of separation and reunion in China, Stafford refers to psychological evidence which suggests that, for most children and many young adults, “death remains a relatively unfamiliar and incomprehensible matter, and one which is routinely conflated by them with separation” (Stafford, 2000: 6). Both death and separation involve “not seeing” someone, and in certain cases it is unclear whether the person is still alive. A similar conflation of death and separation can be seen in lyrics about a widow singing to her deceased husband as well as lyrics about a woman singing to her loved one who has walked beyond the Western Pass. In both cases, the female voice blames the man’s selfishness for leaving and his failure to take care of her properly. First, the widow’s song:

你走阴曹你管你, When you go to hell, you’re just taking care of yourself,

扔下我在世上活受罪呀亲亲. You abandon me in this world to live a hellish life, ya qinqin. (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 53)

Next, the abandoned woman’s song:

你走在口外只管了你, When you go beyond the Pass, you only look out for yourself,

扔下了妹妹无人理. You’ve abandoned Little Sister without anyone to take care of her. (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 17)

In each case, the woman expresses open hostility at the man for abandoning her. Elizabeth Lominska Johnson notes a similar parallel between Hakka songs of “brides . . . leaving their natal homes and . . . women mourning deceased family members” (Johnson, 2003: 28; cf. McLaren and Chen, 2000; McLaren, 2008). The anger expressed by the female voices is akin to the ambivalent emotions Sigmund Freud says the living feel toward the recently deceased: “A dead person is defenceless, which must act as an incitement to satisfy hostile desires entertained against him” (Freud, 1946 [1918]: 82). Like the absent family members in songs of mourning and the soon-to-be absent natal families in Hakka bridal laments, the absent husband in songs of separation is also defenseless, and the ambivalence between the wife’s anger at the husband and her love and concern for him may have also led her to envision numerous disasters narrowly befalling him during his journey (see the advice lyrics for avoiding danger below).

In addition to the similarity between the two songs above, songs explicitly comparing the experience of widows to the separation caused by the going beyond the Western Pass migratory phenomenon go so far as to suggest that the women left behind are “widowed while [their man is] still alive” 活守寡 (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 34).

你走口外我在家, You are walking beyond the Western Pass and I’m at home,

你打那光棍我守寡. You are a bachelor and I am a widow. (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 13)

The rest of the song describes how the man abandoned her, listing the burdens she encounters in her difficult life alone. The comparison of separation due to absence and separation due to death is also found in classical Chinese poetry. Du Fu’s 杜甫 (712–770) poem “Dreaming of Li Bai” 梦李白 suggests that while death is something that can be dealt with emotionally, separation leaves one in an eternal limbo:

死别已吞声, After the separation of death, one can eventually swallow back one’s grief,

生别常恻恻. but the separation of the living is an endless, unappeasable anxiety. (Hawkes, 2016: 94, 99)

We find similar sentiments in the following folk song verses from northern Shaanxi:

哥哥走呀妹子拉, Older Brother is leaving, ya, Little Sister holds onto him,

死好分离活难离. At death, it is easy to part, but while still living it is difficult. (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 116)

我在东来你在西, I’m in the East and you’re in the West,

什么人留下个活分离. Who else experiences this “separation while still alive”? (Lü, 1994: 1.145)

“Separation while still alive” 活分离 implies that separation should only occur at death—to have it happen while still living is something no human should have to go through. The mapping of experiences of death onto those of separation in these lyrics supports Stafford’s notion that our experiences and understandings of separation may be drawn upon when we have to confront “the problems of death” (Stafford, 2000: 7). In addition, we find a similar extension of conceptual metaphors whereby the relationship “tying” two people together is frequently compared to a string.

Ties That Bind

In several regions in China, we find symbolic uses of string connected to social events ranging from birth and childhood to marriage and separation. Relationships are often envisioned as ties that bind. Catherine Bell describes a “baby tying ceremony” in Beijing at the turn of the twentieth century where red thread tied around a paper image of a baby boy was seen to “tie” the spirit of the unborn child to a prospective mother:

In hopes of becoming pregnant, the young wife is told to undertake a pilgrimage to a temple renowned for its connections to childbearing. . . . On entering the Hall of the Goddess of Sons and Grandsons, she should select a paper image of an attractive baby boy from among an array of such figures, tie a red thread around its neck and pray that the “child” will come home with her to be born as her son. If she subsequently gives birth to a son, the new mother should return with offerings to thank the goddess. (Bell, 1997: 96)

String imagery also appears in various “passing the barrier” rites for children in northern Shaanxi and elsewhere—rituals which attempt to allay fears that a child’s spirit would unexpectedly leave its body and the child would die. According to Stephen Jones (2009: 36), in northern Shaanxi such rituals use a red thread 红丝线 stringing together a couple coins—together known as a “locket” 锁—which is hung around a child’s neck 包(带,挂)锁 to protect the child and prevent illnesses and misfortune. Until the locket is removed 开锁 when the child turns twelve and is deemed to be free from danger, children may be brought to “Crossing the Pass” (过关 or 开关) rituals at regional temple fairs where a “pass” consisting of a red paper hoop, a decorated table, and a grain cutter is set up and the children are made to walk through it with ropes tied around their waists. The ropes are then cut to symbolically free the children from potential noxious influences and to “indicat[e] the elimination of calamity” (Jones, 2009: 37). Whereas relationships are metaphorically tied together by string, here, the broken string (i.e., the cut rope) symbolizes the separation of two entities, a theme we see repeated in the songs of separation discussed below.

Images of strings that tie the spirits of unborn children to their mothers and fix children’s spirits to their bodies before the age of twelve are similar to images of strings that tie together couples in weddings and bring together couples in matchmaking (one is reminded of the English phrase “tying the knot”). Matchmaking is symbolized by the colloquial expression “leading [someone] by a red string” 牵红线, as well as the popular legend of the Cupid-like “old man beneath the moon” 月下老人 who ties couples together with red string. Similar metaphors of string-tying are found in folk song lyrics, where the two people in a relationship are connected via a “soul-bonding string” 牵魂线, which attempts to keep the man from leaving and pulls him back when he has gone too far, but which can also break when one member of the couple abandons the other. Emphasizing the durability of relationships, the image of the soul-bonding string is alternatively described as stronger than hemp cord, sewing needles, “an iron lock, iron cord, [and] even iron fetters” (Ma, 2004: 204). Other lyrics suggest that even “sharp knives” cannot sever the soul-bonding string—these are relationships that cannot be broken. As a conceptual metaphor, the soul-bonding string is reminiscent of both “love is a physical force” and “relationships are bonds” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 49; Kövecses, 2008: 387). By using string—a tangible image—to symbolize an intangible relationship, the soul-bonding string maps a tactile, “lower-level” sensation onto an abstract, “higher-level” concept, reflecting the “cognitive preference for mapping the lower onto the higher domain” (Shen, 2008: 303). The following verse graphically portrays the physical force of the soul-bonding string:

走三步, 退两步, Advance three steps, then back two steps,

牵魂线把我心绞住. The soul-bonding string has entwined my heart.

走三步, 退两步, Advance three steps, then back two steps,

扔不下小妹子再站住. Can’t let go of dear Little Sister, I am stopped in my tracks. (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 5)

The soul-bonding string holds the man back and pulls along the woman as he leaves. Other lines include “With the soul-bonding string hanging on me, how can I leave?”; “The water of the Yellow River is deep and the road is long, With the soul-bonding string hanging onto you, how can you go far?”; “When one is tied to you, it’s hard to go far”; and “That year, I went to Shigetai 石圪台, Before half a year had passed, the soul-bonding string pulled me back” (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 5, 70; Ma, 2004: 204. In other verses, the female voice says, “With my true spirit I follow along behind” and “With my true spirit I hover near your body” (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 5). Being pulled back and pulled along both suggest an intense desire to stay together during separation.

When relationships fall apart and one partner is abandoned, we also see images of strings breaking. An excerpt from a northern Shaanxi folk song about a woman being forsaken by her beloved says,

井子里打水麻绳断, When getting water from the well, the hemp cord broke,

你丢下妹妹谁照管. You dropped Little Sister, leaving her behind, who will take care of her now? (Lü, 1994: 1.145)

The hemp cord breaking can be seen as metaphorically representing the difficulty of fixing things around the house alone while also setting up a parallel between the dropped bucket and the husband’s “dropping” of the woman. In traditional Chinese poetry, we also find images of “broken string” (presumably that of a musical instrument) used as a symbol for abandonment. An early anonymous ci 词 poem about an “abandoned wife or lover of a young soldier” reads, in part, “He’s abandoned me like a broken string” 抛人如断弦 (Zhang and Huang, 1986: 846, translated in Samei, 2004: 77). The image of the broken cord in both classical poetry and popular folk song can symbolize a broken lifeline—the woman’s ability to survive on her own has been cut short.

To preserve the couple’s relationship, they must protect each other at a distance and ensure that they remain faithful to one another. One of the most common pieces of advice sung by the female voice to her man is the following:

哥哥你走西口, Older Brother, when you go beyond the Western Pass,

万不要交朋友, Don’t ever make friends,

交下了的那个好朋友, If you make good friends,

恐怕你忘记了奴. I’m afraid you’ll forget me. (Lü, 1994: 1.195)

In local dialect, “making friends” 交朋友 usually refers to making friends with the opposite sex and often implies taking a lover outside of marriage (Lü, 1994: 1.195; Gibbs, 2018: 219–20). The rags-to-riches stories mentioned earlier suggest the possibility that the man might remarry or take new concubines after making money beyond the Western Pass. In reaction to the woman’s fears of being abandoned, the female voice argues elsewhere that the man might be abandoned by his new “friends” after he runs out of money, while she, the man’s wife, is the only one who will stick with him through thick and thin (Yulin Prefecture Culture Bureau, 1983: 64; Lü, 1994: 1.197).

The male voice also worries about the woman remaining faithful during his absence:

再不要想哥大门上站, Don’t stand at the front gate when you think of me,

灰小子过来把你看. Those young ruffians will come to look at you. (Lü, 1994: 1.145)

While ostensibly attempting to protect the woman from these “young ruffians,” this ambiguous advice also suggests concerns regarding her fidelity. Some scholars have suggested that the economic factors giving rise to the phenomenon of “going beyond the Western Pass” in an area of northwestern Shanxi Province also led to an increased number of extramarital affairs among the women left behind (Chinese Music Research Institute, 1962: 169). In addition, a woman could be forced to remarry in her husband’s absence, as we saw earlier (Lü, 1994: 1.86–87). Since the wife was seen to be the property of her husband’s family, her in-laws could benefit economically by selling their daughter-in-law into a new marriage. The trope of a wife remarrying or being courted by others during her husband’s absence is common in world literature, as seen in the Odyssey’s Penelope (Heitman, 2005), stories of returned soldiers encountering their wives’ fidelity challenged or compromised, and Chinese poems and songs about military conscripts and their abandoned wives in anthologies such as the Book of Songs 诗经 and the “Nineteen Old Poems” 古诗十九首 of the Han. Discussing poetic voices in Tang dynasty China, Maija Bell Samei observes that “the large number of soldiers required for Tang military control of its borders . . . gave rise to a good number of popular songs in female voice complaining about long-absent husbands and lovers” (Samei, 2004: 75).

Facing the ordeal of having her beloved go beyond the Western Pass, the abandoned woman offers her man numerous stanzas of advice on how he ought to avoid dangers during the long journey. Rather than merely transmitting knowledge about how to stay safe, the female and male voices’ advice shows mutual care and, I suggest, an attempt to accompany one another through song during the time of travel and separation. By listing justifications for leaving and exchanging advice to keep each other safe, both parties can express ambivalent desires—wanting to stay together and needing to part—through song, reaffirming their connection as they prepare for their time apart.

Sung Advice for Avoiding Danger

The duets’ male and female voices use traditional concepts of danger avoidance as they offer each other advice on how to stay safe. The female voice lists potential dangers the traveling man might encounter and how he should avoid them, reflecting her desire to accompany and protect him so that the couple can stay together and benefit from the ordeal. Although she does not physically travel with him, her advice relates to places that he will encounter during his journey. The mutual advice-giving in these sung dialogues, then, represents a shared affective effort to deal with an unknown situation.

The song lyrics highlight numerous dangers involved in going beyond the Western Pass. Each stanza of the female voice’s advice begins with a dual-part command in the form of “do this, don’t do that,” followed by an explanation. For example:

走路走大路, When walking, take the big roads,

莫要走小路, Don’t take the little roads.

大路上人儿多, On the big roads, there are many people,

小路上有贼寇, On the little roads, there are bandits.

大路上人儿多, On the big roads, there are many people,

小路上有贼寇. On the little roads, there are bandits. (Yulin Prefecture Culture Bureau, 1983: 73)

The woman states what the man should do (e.g., take big roads, eat hot food, and the like) and then condemns the opposite action (e.g., take small roads, eat cold food, and the like). The last section of the verse provides the rationale: If the man walks on the big road, there will be many other fellow travelers, and he will be safe. If, on the other hand, he chooses to walk on a little road, he exposes himself to the danger of theft and murder at the hands of bandits who roam the countryside.

The format of this advice bears interesting parallels with ritual chants for the protection of children in Shaanxi. As in certain other parts of China, a child’s life until the age of twelve was traditionally considered to be particularly prone to disasters. We find childhood protection rites known as “Crossing the Barriers” or “Crossing the Passes” 过关 for the protection and health of at-risk children performed annually at temple fairs (Tian, 2005: 123–24; Jones, 2009: 35–38; Kouwenhoven and Schimmelpenninck, 2009).⁵ The similarities between how these childhood protection rites conceptualize and avoid danger and how the songs about going beyond the Western Pass describe and prescribe against potential dangers suggest that both genres draw upon similar folk models for dealing with perilous uncertainties. Stafford has noted that “when adults eventually grapple with key emotional dilemmas, including both the problems of love (i.e. the emotions of romantic attachment) and the problems of death (i.e. the emotions of grief and mourning), they arguably do so via their previous, i.e. infantile, grasp of separation” (Stafford, 2000: 7). In a similar vein, the ways childhood protection rites deal with danger seem to extend to the advice lyrics of how to stay safe on journeys beyond the Western Pass.

The concept of danger in childhood protection rites envisions different types of perils as distinct entities that loom about, waiting for the weak to fall into their clutches. These hazards, referred to as “barriers” 关, vary in number in each locality. Each hazard has a “demon of the barrier” 关煞 that Brigitte Baptandier-Berthier suggests is “one of the modes of personalization of the pass itself . . . an impulse . . . which can be dangerous, if not lethal, when gone against” (Baptandier-Berthier, 1994: 539). However, once a “barrier” has been passed, it ceases to be a threat. In the “crossing the barriers” rituals, the barriers are named and then ritually crossed over, thus ensuring the continued safety of the child. The chants that accompany the rite say, in effect, “under the protection of the spirits, the child has already crossed every kind of barrier, and the evil barrier demons and calamities can no longer befall him/her. He/she will have a peaceful, safe life, full of good luck and prosperity” (Gao, 2005: 8).

Each barrier, in essence, is a reminder both of the dangers and how to avoid them. The “barrier of the burning soups,” for example, warns one to be careful of burns. The “barrier of the water holes,” in turn, warns one to be careful around old wells. The “barrier of the copper snake” warns of the danger of measles. Although many of these dangers involve common sense, several of them also deal with the supernatural. The “barrier of the night cries,” for example, advises one not to make a fire at night, as doing so may upset the demons and the dead. In a similar vein, the “barrier of the flying rooster” can be avoided by making sure not to look at the killing of living beings. For the “barrier of 1000 days,” a child should not see the maternal grandmother during the first thousand days after birth—rather unfortunate for the maternal grandmother. The “barrier of the five demons” reminds one to avoid graves and coffins (Baptandier-Berthier, 1994: 542–43). The list goes on and on, but these examples provide a general idea of the conceptualization and avoidance of danger. As we will see, the concept of “crossing barriers” is similar to the way dangers along the journey beyond the Western Pass were rhetorically avoided in song.

The rhetorical structure of naming potential calamities and then suggesting how to avoid them is found in sung advice about going beyond the Western Pass and in a “crossing the barriers” ritual from Shaanxi discussed below. This danger-avoidance format is similar to that of a vaccination; the danger is confronted under buffered circumstances in a ritual environment where the danger is not immediately present, and then danger-avoiding alternatives are put into place. Consider the following excerpt of a ritual chant from Chunhua 淳化 county, Shaanxi, sung by Liu Youcai 刘有财 and Liu Xiaoyi 刘晓义, entitled “Ballad for Crossing the Barrier” 过关谣:

蛋蛋娃, 过关来, Little child, come across the barrier,

过来了, 过来了, He’s passed it, he’s passed it,

汪汪汪, 仓仓仓, Wang, cang,

哈巴狗娃咬和尚, The Pekinese dog bites the Buddhist monk,

汪汪汪, 仓仓仓, Wang, cang,

咬的饥了吃麻糖, If it bites when it’s hungry, it can eat some sesame candy,

咬的渴了喝凉凉. If it bites when it’s thirsty, it can drink something cool. (Shaanxi Province Local Gazetteers Editing Committee, 2000: 450)

The potential calamity, in the fourth line, is the dog biting the monk. One should note that Pekinese dogs and Buddhist monks figure frequently in Chinese children’s rhymes. After the listener is confronted with this potential danger, the chant offers two alternative solutions for avoiding that disaster—giving the dog candy if it is hungry and something cool to drink if it is thirsty. By identifying the danger and offering positive solutions to avoid that danger, the child is said to have “passed the barrier.”

The formulaic structure of this danger-avoidance ritual bears a strong resemblance to that of the advice lyrics regarding how to stay safe during the journey beyond the Western Pass. In the advice lyrics, the potential dangers the men might encounter, such as eating cold food and becoming sick, drowning while crossing rivers, and being robbed by bandits who lie in wait along small roads and in little inns, are coupled with prescriptions for how to avoid those disasters, which include eating hot food, waiting for others to cross rivers first, taking big roads, and staying in big inns. These verses of sung advice give us a clearer understanding of the perceived dangers of going beyond the Western Pass, which in addition to concerns about infidelity included the threat of bandits, illnesses, and accidents.

As touched upon earlier, a major concern when traveling by foot to and from Inner Mongolia was the threat of bandits lying in wait for travelers (Wang and Zhao, 2008). A veteran migrant named Liu Zhao 刘招 whom Ma and Zhang interviewed said that bandits used to hang around the border of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, preying on men who returned with money from beyond the Western Pass (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 94). The migrants would often travel in large groups to protect themselves. Such banding together is mentioned in the errentai drama “Going beyond the Western Pass,” where the male protagonist Taichun is pressed to leave because a group of fellow villagers are about to depart (Yulin Prefecture Culture Bureau, 1983: 446). At the same time, such bandits did not exclusively target poor migrants; Christopher Atwood points out that Mongols in Inner Mongolia often viewed bandits as in cahoots with Han settlers (2002: 208–11, 557–59, 627–28).

In a verse quoted earlier, bandits are seen as infesting smaller roads, while bigger roads are more crowded and therefore safer. In addition to the verse about taking big roads, another verse relates the threat of bandits to one’s choice of sleeping accommodations. The female voice warns:

歇店歇大店, When you stay at an inn, stay in a big inn,

再不要歇小店, Don’t stay in small inns,

大店里人马多, In big inns, there are many people and horses,

不怕那贼娃子. You don’t have to worry about thieves. (Lü, 1994: 1.191–92)

However, even picking the right inn was sometimes not enough to keep the ever-present thieves at bay:

睡觉你睡当中, Sleep in the middle of the bed,

万莫要睡两边, Not on the edges,

操心那挖墙贼, Be careful, lest a wall-digging thief,

挖到你跟前. Dig his way to you. (Lü, 1994: 1.199)

According to Arthur H. Smith (1899: 28), the padlocks on houses in Chinese villages in the late nineteenth century were of poor quality and could “be picked with a wire, a chop-stick, or even with a dry weed, and afford no real protection.” Smith also noted, “Nothing is easier than to dig through adobe walls. In some of the rich villages of Shan-hsi [Shanxi] house-walls are built quite six feet thick to discourage such penetration” (Smith, 1899: 28)—clearly an attempt to defend against “wall-digging thieves.”

In addition to bandits, another major concern during the journey beyond the Western Pass was illness. Falling ill on the road was particularly threatening without any loved one to nurse the traveler back to health. The female voice in the following stanzas expresses concern that her man might fall sick and die while away, reinforcing the underlying theme, discussed earlier, of men’s inability to take care of themselves without the help of women:

吃饭要吃滚饭, When you eat, eat hot food,

万不要吃冷饭, Never eat cold food,

吃了冷饭得了病, Eating cold food will make you sick,

谁是你的疼心人. And who will be there to care for you?

睡觉要睡滚炕, When you sleep, sleep on a hot kang,⁶

万不要睡冷炕, Never sleep on a cold kang,

睡了冷抗得下病, Sleeping on a cold kang will make you sick,

谁是你递汤端水的人. And who will be there to bring you soup and hot water? (Lü, 1994: 1.197)

In addition to illnesses, accidents were another common cause of death, no doubt due to the region’s rough terrain, which included rocky precipices and swift rivers. One of the more unusual types of disasters was being buried alive while attempting to dig out large licorice roots 甘草 in the barren sands of Inner Mongolia, which were sold for use in traditional Chinese medicine (Yan, 1979; Wang, 2014: 242). Digging up the roots was dangerous, as the hole would be deeper than the height of a house and the sandpit would often collapse, burying the digger inside. Hence the saying: “Going beyond the Great Wall to dig up roots—digging your own grave” 走口外掏根子, 自打墓坑 (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 144). River travel and crossing also brought the danger of drowning. As mentioned earlier, one of the routes of “going beyond the Western Pass” included taking boats to Ningxia. In addition, men walking from Shanxi had to cross the Yellow River in order to reach Inner Mongolia via Shaanxi. Verses of advice about taking boats and fording rivers encourage the men to cross rivers in groups or wait until others have crossed first:

随人过江河, Cross rivers with others,

万莫要独自过, Never ever cross alone,

江河里水长流, Rivers flow along great distances,

操心水推脱. Careful lest they carry you away. (Lü, 1994: 1.199)

过河你这有渡口, Crossing a river, there are places to pass,

水深深那个水浅浅呀, No matter if the water is deep or shallow,

总叫人家头边走. Ask others to go first. (Lü, 1994: 1.196–97)

If one had to take a boat, the same rule of letting others “test the waters” first also applied:

坐船坐二船, When taking a boat, take the second one,

再不要坐头船, Not the first,

头船上的水花大, The water in front of the first is choppy,

小心翻里去. Be careful lest the boat capsize. (Lü, 1994: 1.191–92)

坐船你要坐船后, Sit at the back of the boat,

万莫要坐船头, Not at the front,

船头上风浪大, There are big waves at the front,

操心掉到水里头. Careful, lest you fall in. (Lü, 1994: 1.199)

In addition to drowning, another “accident waiting to happen” was falling off a cliff:

歇脚你歇小崖, When resting your feet, choose a small cliff,

万莫要歇大崖, Don’t rest on a big cliff,

操心那千年石, Be careful of the thousand-year-old rocks,

单等仇人来. They are just waiting for enemies to come. (Lü, 1994: 1.199)

The reference to “thousand-year-old rocks . . . waiting for enemies to come” calls to mind the “demons” 煞 of the “passes” that must be crossed in childhood protection rituals, again aligning with the folk model of danger discussed earlier. It hardly seems a coincidence that the dangerous sections of the journey beyond the Western Pass, such as the Höbq Desert, were referred to as “Devil’s Gate Pass” 鬼门关, a term applied to any dangerous situation including the “passes” of childhood protection rituals (Yang, 2006: 39). The conceptualization of treacherous sections of journeys as dangerous “passes” or “gates” is also seen in migrant songs elsewhere in China. Idema mentions similar terminology in a sorrowful song about migrating to Taiwan where Taiwan is referred to as “a Gate of Ghosts where people go to die” (Idema, forthcoming: 10). Whether traveling to Inner Mongolia or Taiwan, the conception of dangers encountered during the journey to a new land seems to have been informed by the dangers encountered during a child’s journey to adulthood.

Conclusion

As we have seen, the many dangers that confronted the men who walked beyond the Western Pass included death by starvation, getting lost in the desert, falling victim to robbers and illness, freezing to death, drowning in rivers, falling off cliffs, and being buried alive while attempting to dig out licorice roots. In the sung dialogues examined, the female voices’ advice on how to avoid these dangers, rather than merely offering practical instructions on how to stay safe, “provided a language” through which singers and listeners could address anxieties related to separation (Lévi-Strauss, 1996 [1963]). While these advice lyrics suggest that one could control one’s fate through the use of folk knowledge, the songs also offered “a body of social texts that all participants may ponder and interact with” as well as “a way of exploring collectively troubling moral questions” (Liu, 2012: 205; Arkush, 1990: 89). In doing so, the songs drew on attitudes and ideas about death, danger, and emotional attachment.

Di Lan’s comments about not knowing whether her husband was dead or alive (Ma and Zhang, 1990: 119) led us to consider how using song to name potential dangers and explain how to avoid those dangers might have helped abandoned women to address their concerns. The advice in the song lyrics offered idealized pathways to safety through which those left behind could “accompany” their loved ones during the journey. Like the lower Yangtze delta child protection rites that envisioned “safe path[s]” for children described by Mark Bender (2001: 117), the female voices’ advice in these songs about going beyond the Western Pass also envisioned “safe paths” for men during their travels. In both child protection rites and songs about going beyond the Western Pass, perilous journeys were safely conducted by “passing through” potential obstacles.

As Patrick B. Mullen and other scholars have shown, following traditional taboos can help to reduce anxiety (Mullen, 1978; Homans, 1990). In Mullen’s discussion of taboos among Gulf Coast fishermen, he writes, “Knowing that he has not violated any of these taboos, the fisherman loses some of his anxieties. If one of the multitude of taboos is broken, he then has a ready explanation for what does befall him, and in explaining and making concrete the mysterious and unknowable, taboos again relieve some anxiety” (Mullen, 1978: 7; Homans, 1990). The sung taboos concerning the journey beyond the Western Pass would have allowed audiences to observe shared anxieties “in a safely distanced way” (Arkush, 1990: 88). In addition, in the region of northern China discussed in this article, although the hazardous period of childhood was understood to end at the age of twelve, the trauma of leaving one’s loved ones to travel beyond the Western Pass appears to have extended similar feelings of unpredictability and danger into adulthood. As such, the conceptual means for confronting obstacles along the way appears to have been pragmatically adapted from the child’s journey to adulthood to the adult’s journey to the distant regions beyond the Western Pass.

The songs about this historical migration have memorable lyrics and melodies that could have served as portable means for couples to maintain a sense of togetherness during times of separation. The female voice’s advice, on the one hand, shows love and concern as it seeks to ensure the man’s safety and quick return, while at the same time attempting to allay the woman’s fears about his well-being. Men recalling these songs while away in Inner Mongolia, on the other hand, may have found solace amidst loneliness and worries by conjuring up images of a wife’s loving care as they hummed the advice lyrics to themselves. Caught between the need to leave and the desire to stay, the “conflicting human needs for autonomy and dependency” (Stafford, 2000: 23) of these men and women were in some sense best engaged in song.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Christopher Atwood and Charles Stafford for their valuable critical insights and suggestions for improvement. I also would like to thank Mark Bender, Wilt L. Idema, and Anne E. McLaren for reading and commenting on earlier drafts.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Levi S. Gibbs is an assistant professor of Chinese literature and culture at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Song King: Connecting People, Places, and Past in Contemporary China (2018) and articles on the social roles of Chinese folksingers and songs in China Quarterly, Asian Ethnology, and Journal of Folklore Research.

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