CHONGMING is trying to preserve the island's intangible folk heritage and pass on the skills of one-man puppetry, clay oven decoration and distinctive pipa melodies. Fei Lai reports.

Chongming Island is famous for unspoiled scenery, wetlands, clean air, bountiful eco-harvests and friendly people. It's a wonderful place for a peaceful getaway from the city.

The island-county also has charming folk arts and traditions, like one-man mobile puppet show, colorful painting of built-in clay stoves and special pipa (four-string lute) folk tunes that originated on the island.

Since transport to and from Shanghai was difficult for years (that's no longer the case now), the island was relatively isolated. Residents also speak a dialect greatly different from that spoken by urban Shanghainese.

Construction of the Yangtze River Tunnel and Bridge project is in full swing, linking island and mainland, facilitating commerce and tourism.

"The intangible cultural heritage of Chongming will receive more exposure to people from all over the country and the world," says Shi Zhongjun, director of the Chongming Culture and Art Creation Center.

"We need to preserve traditional culture, but we also need to inject new ideas and make adaptations to cater to people in modern times," he says.

Here are just three of the many folk traditions of the island.

One-man puppetry

This is a traveling one-man puppet show carried by one man on a shoulder pole, and it's complete with canopied stage, curtain, hand puppets, musical instruments and a chair for the puppeteer.

Chongming shoulder pole play is believed to have been introduced from Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, during the reign of Emperor Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912).

"The puppeteer is both performer and accompanist," says Huang Xiao, vice director of the Chongming County Cultural Center. "The performer manipulates the hand puppets, speaks for the characters, hits a gong with his feet and produces other sound effects, like tussles and fighting."

Itinerant performers shoulder the pole with a stage at one end and his high chair at the other, and walks through villages.

Anyone can stop him and ask for a performance. He finds a flat space, sets up the stage with a curtain and sits behind it, concealed in his chair.

Then he strikes the gong and begins his performance. A crowd often gathers.

This puppetry reached its peak of popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. Whenever people heard the gong, they knew it was time to enjoy a play, often folk tales of heroes, villains and spirits.

Puppeteers in the region also made a living in downtown Shanghai as well as Qidong, Nantong and Haimen in Jiangsu Province.

The art was passed down within a family and now in Chongming it is believed that only six brothers from the Zhu family can perform it.

"It's oral heritage without any written record. Most scripts are based on memory and oral tradition," says Huang from the Chongming Cultural Center. "The way to preserve it now is to cultivating young artists in this field."

The Zhu family is now looking for talented relatives and hoping they will learn and research the puppet plays.

Officials, meanwhile, hope to change the family-members-only rule and select suitable candidates for training.

The Zhu family has been invited to a folk arts exchange event in South Korea in September.

Oven painting

In rural areas, many homes used to have built-in clay ovens and these were often decorated with painted scenes of country life, birds and flowers, couplets and good-luck sayings.

This painting is known as zaohua (oven flowers) and is considered as an intangible cultural heritage of Shanghai. Today, however, most people cook with gas, not wood burned in ovens.

Zaohua originated in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), created by bricklayers and masons who built the ovens as a blessing for the family. They didn't have fixed patterns and didn't draw drafts first.

Though most were illiterate, many were gifted painters with strong affection for village life and nature. Subjects included daily farming scenes, harvest, fishing, the rising sun, celebrations and ceremonies, figures from mythology, gods and heroes.

"The paintings are supposed to ward off evil spirits, bring happiness and welcome peace and abundance," says Huang from the Chongming Cultural Center.

"Subject matter changed over the years and included shipping in local waters, trains and airplanes," he says.

Peasant artists combined rice wine, cooking ash, chalk and natural pigments and used their fingers, brushes and long pieces of iron to reach high on the oven wall.

Chongming has established the city's first zaohua museum in Xianghua Town.

"Many traditional clay ovens are no longer in use as many farmers now use gas to cook and others cover ovens in ceramic tile to make it easier to clean," says Huang.

"It's a rule that old things must die, but we have a responsibility to protect and cherish this art. Thus, we have turned Xinghua Town into a town of zao.

Since 2005, the county holds a zaohua painting contest every year, attracting farmer artists from all over the island.

This year the contest, to be held in September, is also inviting artists from Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.Yingzhou pipa

In ancient times, Chongming was called Yingzhou and musicians developed their own pipa (Chinese lute) melodies in what is called gudiao pipa, or Chongming school of pipa.

Yingzhou gudiao has a history of more than 300 years and is considered one of the four major pipa schools in China.

However, there are only seven or eight performers left in Chongming. Only Zhao Hongxiang can play as many as 33 songs.

The culture center is working with folk performers and professional musicians to list all the scores of Yingzhou gudiao and promote it among young generation, says Huang.

"It is urgent to protect the art form and make sure it is passed down to more talented people," he concludes.