Wu songs are folk songs popular in the Wu language region. They are the oral literary pieces created by the labor people and are inseparable to rice planting culture and boating culture in Suzhou the city south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Wu songs are orally circulated and passed down from generation to generation. The lyrics took on a strong dialect color and possess the softness of the language spoken in the Shanghai-Suzhou area. Feng Menglong, a writer of folk literature in the Ming Dynasty, once said, “albeit there is false literary works, there is no false folk songs”. Appreciation of Wu songs is like reading history, as the songs touched upon every aspect of the society, quite similar to an encyclopedia of the world. Due to differences in natural environment and cultural conditions, Wu songs in different places of Suzhou shared something in common but held their own unique characteristics. The most representative Wu songs are Bai Mao folk songs, Lu Xu folk songs, He Yang folk songs, Shuang Feng folk songs and Sheng Pu folk songs. In recent years, Wu songs have become the ties of Sino-foreign cultural exchanges and a classic example of the Wu Culture worldwide.
Inheritors of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Wu Songs: Lu Ruiying, Yang Wenying.
