Written by: Wang Yike
Posted on: March 13, 2018 | 
| 中文
Yusan Yaya and Esan Yaya's performance
The crowds go quiet when the music begins, and a tan faced 77-year-old singer, Yusan Yaya, raises his head, beats on his hand drum, and starts singing with his eyes closed.
His voice is hoarse but powerful with passion, as he hits the high notes, and when it falls down, the audience feels awakened. The notes and rhythms touch them, and so they stand up, join the melody, humming and dancing spontaneously. No need to understand the lyrics at all, because the music is strong enough to bring them to tears.
Beside Yusan, another player of the band who looks exactly like him, is playing an Ejek (a traditional two-stringed instrument of Uyghur people). This is Esan Yaya, the twin brother of Yusan. The twins are farmers from Yangtak Township, Meget County, Kashi Prefecture of Xinjiang, China.
Esan has a 10-mu (0.67 ha.) fruit yard behind his house. The brothers are not the talkative type, so when they talk about Dolan Muqam with a visitor, they insist on playing it out rather than just talking. Yusan raises his voice freely, as if there is no one watching or listening, and the sound moves through the grape vines and groves, echoing in every corner of the yard. Yusan fetches a small sweet melon, with yellow and green strips on the skin, and tells me that local people called it “Qilgha.” He continues to explain one of the songs he has just sung. “Oh, girl, oh girl, please come over. You smell like the ripe Qilgha, fragrant and attractive. And when the wind blows over, oh girl, oh girl, you are capturing my heart.”
One of the most well-known lines of Dolan Muqam is this one, “Oh, my love, are you coming to comfort me or burn me instead? Are you coming to light up again the fire of my love for you that has faded out in my heart?”
Beautiful words gain intensity, when cried out at the top of the voice - passionate and raucous, expressing anxiety and desperation for nothing but love. This seems to explain why new listeners empathize with the performers, even when they don’t understand the language. Yusan says that most of the traditional Dolan Muqam songs are about love. Besides that, there are some odes to ancient heroic figures or narrations on life philosophy.
Yusan’s hometown, Yangtak Town, is located at the southwest edge of Taklimakan Desert; therefore, one can easily perceive the integration of sands and oasis, and feel the beauty of desolated lands and the unrestrained lives.
The Yaya family welcomed their twin sons in 1940, and named them Esan and Yusan, both meaning rainbow. It was said that men with these names end up being quite good at singing.
The twins were especially spoiled by the family, for among the thirteen brothers and sisters, only they did not need to do house work or labor in fields. At the age of seven, their parents started to teach them singing, and they had begun their learning tour of Dolan Muqam around the county by the age of 12. Before long, Yusan was able to sing the full 9 sets of Muqam. At present, Yusan is the only inheritor in Kashgar who can sing the full sets of Dolan Muqam.
Esan and Yusuan live close by each other. Their kids and grandkids can sing and dance skillfully. Yusan’s youngest son, Baihaijang is quite gifted in music too, and he is expected to be the successor of the twin brothers.
At Yangtak, the twin brothers are indeed celebrities. As early as 1980s, they were being invited to France for performances. “I was really nervous at the beginning, wondering whether the foreigners could understand what I would sing. But when I closed my eyes and started singing, I lost myself in the music. When I finished and opened my eyes again, the audience gave me a standing ovation!” Yusan said, “It turned out that the foreigners love Dolan Muqam just as we do!”
In the past three decades, the twin brothers have travelled to the UK, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Japan and Chinese Taipei. Last April, they went to France for the second time. Yusan is quite proud of these overseas trips and says, “They all welcomed us.” They even had their own crazy fan: a lady who followed their trip and was present at every one of their shows during their stay in Japan.
Their fellow villagers greet them on the roads, every time they come back, and impetuous Yusan tells them all that they have seen and heard about. As long as there is a gathering, they are invited. Since they have become a brand of Meget County, much of their significance may be lost, if they are not present at weddings and celebrations in the townships nearby.
In fact, in 2006, the Dolan Muqam was recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage of China. Yusan has been named the national inheritor of Dolan Muqam, while his brother Esan is the regional inheritor of this traditional musical art of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang.
Translated by Wu Jinying
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