On June 7, 2008, Southern Fujian nursery rhymes were approved by the State Council to be included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists.

Minnan nursery rhymes are children's songs composed and sung in the southern Fujian dialect. They are popular in southern Fujian, Taiwan and the areas where overseas Chinese live in Southeast Asia. It is a form of folk literature formed by the people of southern Fujian in the past dynasties, based on children's understanding ability and psychological characteristics, using complex and musical rhymes and oblique rhythms of southern Fujian dialect, and constantly modified and supplemented during the process of singing.

On June 7, 2008, nursery rhymes (Minnan nursery rhymes) were approved by the State Council of the People's Republic of China and included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list, heritage number: Ⅰ-78. Although there are differences in text between the folk nursery rhyme "Moonlight Light" in Fujian in the Tang Dynasty and the nursery rhyme of the same name circulating in southern Fujian today, the theme and structure are very similar. It can be seen that nursery rhymes in southern Fujian had already appeared in the Tang Dynasty.

Historical origins

After the middle and late Ming Dynasty, as the Hokkien people passed through Taiwan and went to Southeast Asia, the spread area expanded to Taiwan, China and Southeast Asian countries, and took root in these areas. Buds and local culture promote each other and create many new nursery rhymes. In the 1920s, Zhou Shu'an, China's first generation of modern musician, composed the "Sleep Song" for the southern Fujian nursery rhyme "Mu Wu Yao", setting a precedent for musicians to compose southern Fujian nursery rhymes.

After the 1950s, a new generation of music workers in mainland China such as Yang Yang, Yuan Rongchang, Wu Huorong, Yang Shuangzhi, and Chen Bin have composed and created many Minnan children's songs, among which the most influential ones are There are Yuan Rongchang's "A Man Surnamed Fu", "Dog Ant (Ant) Carrying Centipede", Chen Bin's "Red Shrimp, Red Diudiu", "Jumping into the Fire Group", etc.