Wu Ballad - Symbols of Jiangsu

Wu ballads, or Jiangnan (A region south of the Yangtze River) folk songs, mainly consist of poems, legends, tales and scenes of daily life derived from farming activities in the four seasons. Through generations of inheritance and accumulation, Wu ballads have developed into diverse artistic forms, such as seven-syllabic quatrains, four-line tunes, songs about the blossoms in twelve months and male and female antiphonal musical dialogues with antiphonal style. Wu Ballads vividly records the life style of southern farmers and the lower classes. It’s not only an oral tradition still alive in the Wu region, but also valuable resource for dialect study. On May 20, 2006, the State Council listed Wu Ballads in the first collection of National Intangible Cultural Heritage.