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 in Southeast Asia live. It is a form of folk literature formed by the creation of rhymes and oblique rhythms that are rich in musical beauty, and are constantly modified and supplemented in the process of singing.

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. After the mid-to-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. They took root in these areas, promoted each other with local culture, and created 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 "Wu 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 them, the more influential one is Yuan Rongchang's "A Person" "Fu", "Dog Ant (Ant) Carrying Centipede", Chen Bin's "Red Shrimp, Red Diudiu", "Jumping into the Fire Group", etc.

Artistic Techniques

Minnan nursery rhymes inherit the traditional Chinese Fu Bixing artistic technique, and make use of various rhetorical techniques, using the richness of Minnan dialect pronunciation and the diversity of rhymes. The resulting musical beauty and rhythmic beauty are used to express things, improve the artistic effect of the performance content, and enhance artistic appeal and charm. For example, "The Woodlice Wants to Marry a Man" uses the rhetorical technique of personification, "A Straw of Grass and a Little Dew" uses the rhetorical technique of metonymy, "Three Fights of Fire" uses the rhetorical technique of exaggeration, and "The Song of Shoulan" uses the rhetorical technique of parallelism. Rhetorical techniques, etc.

Due to the impact of modern culture and the loss of dialects, nursery rhymes in southern Fujian are gradually getting away from children. Since 2007, the Xiamen Municipal Education Bureau and other units have jointly organized a cross-strait radio and television competition for reading songs. In June 2009, the Xiamen Xiang'an District Minnan Nursery Rhyme Culture Research Association was established.

Reference for the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia - "Nursery Rhymes (Minnan Nursery Rhymes)"