Be the Best of Yourself！

The cover photo was taken in Zaidang Village, a remote village in Guizhou Province, where ethnic Dong people live. I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the village singing performance at the community center led by Ms Yang Xiuzhu (杨秀珠), daughter of Ms Hu Guanmei (胡官美), one of the best known Grand Dong Singers who made this singing tradition a World Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009 recognized by the UNESCO World Heritage Commission. While we were having lunch in her family house, I was initially drawn to the traditional hand-made clothes on the wall but my attention quickly turned to the words on this yellow T-shirt: Be the best of yourself!

The Dong people's Grand Song is much more than just a performance of folk songs. The captivating thing about their use of song is that it was traditionally used to converse in daily life such as when working in the fields, offering wine, dating, and discussing individual and social events. They are part of the culture and a way to remember and appreciate their origins, partly due to the fact that they did not have a written language until 1958. Throughout generations, the song was the sole method of transmitting their culture down the ages, from creation stories to stories of kindness, sincerity, friendship, love, social harmony, respect for nature, respect for one's ancestors. All of the stories deemed worthy of being remembered are preserved in the songs.

As might be expected, elderly Dong singers are revered in much the same way that prize-winning writers and historians are revered in Western culture, for they are truly the guardians of Dong culture and tradition.

It was a Guizhou Dong Singing group performance at the annual Paris Autumn Festival in 1986 with overwhelming success that catapulted this singing tradition into what is known today as the internationally acclaimed Grand Dong Song.

Today, Ms Yang is not only a singer with national acclaim, but also a teacher with many young Dong girls and boys to keep the tradition well and alive.

Be the best of yourself!

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