Nganyi sings King Gesar in his study every day. (Xinhua photo/Wang Di)
CHENGDU, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Nganyi is still in search of his successor, one to whom he can pass the baton of his life-long sacred career: telling the stories of legendary Tibetan King Gesar.
The 74-year-old man had several candidates for consideration over the past decades but he was too captious.
His first choice was his son, who, according to Nganyi, excelled in the Tibetan language and mastered various tunes, but his voice was not so good. His son finally chose to study traditional Tibetan medicine, becoming the first practitioner of this ancient trade in his village in Dege county in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Then Nganyi pinned his hope on his granddaughter. She is a good singer and dancer, often playing Qogmo, wife of King Gesar, in performances when she was in elementary school. "But so regretfully, she is not so good at the Tibetan language," Nganyi said.
His granddaughter has graduated from a junior college and now works in a township government.
Notes taken by Nganyi's wife. (Xinhua photo/Wang Di)
The Epic of King Gesar, a world intangible cultural heritage inscribed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, relates the heroic deeds of King Gesar, who vanquished monsters and unified Tibetan tribes. For centuries, the epic has been told orally and is popular among Tibetans and other ethnic minorities in China.
Storytellers of the legend of King Gesar usually claim they got the power of telling the world's most lengthy epic from god, or in another word, from the legendary king himself.
Nganyi shows his costume, including a hat and a whip. (Xinhua photo/Wang Di)
Nganyi began to tell the story when he was 16. The boy had a dream one day when he was pasturing cattle. In the dream young Nganyi saw seven white warriors on white horses. One warrior told Nganyi to "take care of your voice and pass on my stories."
Nganyi said this white warrior appeared in his dreams repeatedly, and then he suddenly realized that man is King Gesar.
In his hometown, no one has ever questioned Nganyi's god-given gift. "When I was young, I could learn six stories by heart in a single day. That was a piece of cake for me," Nganyi said. "I could also chant for several days without a break."
In order to preserve the episodes he has sung, Nganyi spent eight years learning woodblock printing skills, including carving the blocks, at the Dege Sutra-Printing House. He has engraved King Gesar's stories on 336 woodblocks.
Nganyi has engraved King Gesar's stories on woodblocks. (Xinhua photo/Wang Di)
In 2007, Nganyi was named a national-level representative inheritor of the Epic of King Gesar, getting an annual subsidy of 10,000 yuan (about 1,500 U.S. dollars).
Now, Nganyi also teaches primary and middle school students to tell the story of King Gesar. It is a program initiated by the county government of Dege in 2013.
So far, Nganyi have trained more than 500 students. "The most important quality a singer of the epic should have is a good voice. He should have a wide vocal range," he said. "It would be a plus if he has received some education, and a good command of Tibetan is a must."
"In addition, the singer must believe in King Gesar and preferably has met him in dreams," he stressed.
Mask and statues of King Gesar are everywhere in Nganyi's study. (Xinhua photo/Wang Di)
But he later added, "as long as you learn the singing by heart and stick to it, King Gesar will enter your dream."
However, he is not sure if anyone of his 500 students will become a storyteller like him.
"They know a lot of things about King Gesar, such as his contributions and how long he lived, and they have mastered some tunes. But they spend too much time playing cellphones and watching TV every day. Besides, they have to take care of their own study from elementary school to college. How can they spare time to sing King Gesar?" he asked.
