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Inheritors of folk music—female guqin players in Yangzhou

Female guqin players are a rare symbol of the Yangzhou culture. As the survey shows, there are now 1,600 female guqin players in the city. The reporter had an exclusive interview with some of them on July 29.

The Guangling Guqin Club inside the Shi Kefa Memorial in Yangzhou receives a fair number of guqin lovers every day.

“In the 1980s, however, there were only less than 200 guqin players in total all round the country. The art of guqin was almost on the verge of extinction. But after guqin was listed as one of the intangible cultural heritages, the public’s interest in the instrument gradually grew stronger and now in the Guangling school of qin alone there are about 2,000 players, in which 80 percent are female. They play the guqin as a way to achieve peace in mind and enhance personal taste,” said Cao Hua, a notable guqin player from Yangzhou and the inheritor of Guangling school of guqin—one of the intangible cultural heritages in Jiangsu province.

Apart from the graceful guqin, pipa and guzheng are also quite popular in Yangzhou. Xu Qian, an entertainer in Heyuan, one of the iconic scenic spots in the city, has been playing pipa for over 20 years since she started to love it when she was 5 years old. “Pipa and guzheng have never lost their elegance and nobility. The culture embodied in them is reserved till today,” said Xu. And she added that she always thought about how to pass on and spread the guqin culture of Yangzhou in a new age.