Fusion of Tradition and Modernity: The Literary Adaptation of Northeast China's "Chuma Xian" Ballads

Abstract

This study centers on the portrayal of the Northeast Chinese "Chuma Xian" belief in Ban Yu’s Winter Swimming and Zheng Zhi’s Xian Zheng (translated as Celestial Affliction), focusing on Ban Yu’s creative adaptation of the oral tradition of "Chuma Xian" and the two authors’ differentiated employment of folk beliefs. It explores the paths and values of contemporary literature’s borrowing and transformation of folk traditions. The research finds that as a product of the integration of Shamanistic roots, the "Chuangguan Dong" (Crossing the Pass to the Northeast) immigrant culture, and the geographical environment of Northeast China, the ballads of "Chuma Xian" carry regional collective memories such as ethnic integration and immigration history. By preserving the formulaic structure of the oral tradition, anchoring the core symbols of "Hu, Huang, Chang, Mang, Qingfeng" (the five main spirit lineages in "Chuma Xian" belief), and simplifying ritual procedures, Ban Yu and Zheng Zhi have achieved the literary preservation of regional cultural memory. Meanwhile, the two authors have stripped the original practical functions of "Chuma Xian" (such as curing diseases and dispelling disasters) and transformed it into a literary carrier for spiritual narratives and cultural reflections. Furthermore, combined with the background of the Northeast China’s laid-off wave in the 1990s, the adapted ballads not only reveal the rupture between tradition and modernity, the discontinuity of regional cultural memory, and the spiritual predicament of the people but also reflect Ban Yu’s exploration of a path to reconcile tradition and modernity. This proves that traditional folk culture, through literary adaptation, can become a spiritual resource to alleviate the alienation of modernity.