You Weitai (R) sings a Yong'ansha folk song with another singer. [Photo provided to en.nantong.gov.cn]

Yong'ansha folk song, or more appropriately, Yong'ansha folk tune, is a folk art popular in Rugao, a county-level city in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, and in 2014, it was listed as Nantong intangible cultural heritage.

Yong'ansha folk song is part of the daily life of people living beside the Yangtze River in Rugao. Without lyrics and any musical instrument for accompaniment, it just features the singer's voice and can be sung on any occasion and at any place.

When enjoying the cool night at summer, locals would gather together to sing Yong'ansha songs, whose sound can travel for miles, attracting surrounding singers to chime in. They usually sang till midnight and sometimes even until the sun rose.

More generally, the songs were usually sung during work such as threshing wheat, weeding, and carrying loads.

You Weitai is the only inheritor of Yong'ansha folk song. You had the idea of learning Yong'ansha folk song when he was a child. "Yong'ansha folk songs have no lyrics and only tunes and the singers' voice is resonant and powerful," said the singer.

He said that after he became a laborer, he got a new understanding of Yong'ansha folk songs and that these songs can help unify pace and take away tiredness when working with a group of people.

You has recorded dozens of Yong'ansha folk songs on his notebook and he wants more people to feel the hardship, pleasure, and value of labor that they reflect.