Promoting the Art

Qifulin has performed commercially since 2004, once as music consultant for a Beijing restaurant. Yet he often felt that a rural tableau was the best setting for Manhan folksongs. So he returned to his hometown, where the art was born and where it belongs.

In 1996, Zhunger Banner was nominated by the Ministry of Culture as home of Manhan folksongs. In 2008 Manhan folksongs were added to the List of China's Intangible Cultural Heritages. One year earlier, Qifulin was distinguished as an outstanding inheritor of folk culture by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association, and the Chinese Dancers Association. Qifulin feels that the award obligates him to disseminate this ethnic folksong genre among the public. To this end, he has lectured at the Central Conservatory of Music and taken students from around the nation.

Qifulin is sanguine about the future of Manhan folksongs. "The course the Zhunger Manhan Folksong Research Institute organized has just concluded. Its participants' ages ranged from eight to 80." This circumstance infuses ever more confidence into the veteran singer. "I have scant education and cannot read musical scores, so I am not qualified to be a teacher, but I will keep singing, so that more people will listen to and like it." This is the dream Qifulin has always lived by.