At the intersection of Ruchuan Village, Qiongshan District, Haikou City, there is a suona production factory. At first glance, it is inconspicuous. It is hidden in various small shops. There are no serious shops, not even a plaque, which is difficult for passers-by to notice. However, walking into the factory is a different world.

Cong Wenxin is making suona

In the space of nearly 30 square meters, there are long logs and 3 CNC machine tools, and the high-speed motor makes a roar. Cong Yang and his father Cong Wenxin are the "shopkeepers" here. They are busy polishing the inner chamber or tuning the new suona.

Yellowed knitted gloves, plain clothes, worn glasses... This father and son look no different from ordinary workers. After chatting carefully, they found that what settled in their past life was a suona legend that spanned three centuries and passed down six generations.

A suona ties the young man's heart

Speaking with a pure northeastern accent, it is clear that the Cong family and their son are not natives of Hainan. In April 2021, Cong Yang joined Hainan University through talent introduction from the Heilongjiang Song and Dance Theatre National Orchestra to engage in suona teaching and research. This trip was for Suona, but what he brought from his hometown in Northeast China was not only Suona, but also the indissoluble bond between the entire Cong family and Suona.

If you have to go back in time, the story of the Cong family and Suona can be told from the end of the Qing Dynasty. "My great-grandfather was an apprentice in a drum music class and learned to play and make suona. Now, my family has been playing and making suona since the end of the Qing Dynasty." Cong Wenxin, 72, talks about suona with pride.

As the fourth-generation inheritor of Cong's suona, Cong Wenxin has been listening to his grandfather and father playing suona since he can remember. To this day, the suonas handed down by the Cong family have a history of more than a hundred years, and most of them have cracked and broken, but they are still carefully treasured by Cong Wenxin. This suona is the epitome of the life of the Cong family from generation to generation.

"In those days, playing suona was not something to be proud of, and it would even be looked down upon by others." Cong Wenxin recalled that his father and grandfather had to make ends meet, and they would play a section of the family when there was a wedding or funeral in the village. "When you're lucky, you get a few bucks when you meet someone. Most of the time, you eat the cold rice left over from other people's banquets, and you have a hard life."

Born in a suona family, Cong Wenxin has shown a great talent for suona since childhood. "When I was a child, my father played the suona, and I listened to it. I was able to hum the tune." Cong Wenxin said, however, his father, who was poor all his life, did not want him to continue this path anyway.

"He always wanted me to be a literate person, not to endure hardships like them, and not to be seen by others." No one taught him, so Cong Wenxin secretly practiced while his father was working in the field. I can't remember how many times I was beaten, but Cong Wenxin, who was extremely talented and hardworking, finally moved his father. At the age of 11, he began to learn suona and officially became the fourth generation inheritor of Cong's suona.

Cong Wenxin in his youth showed his sharp edge and even showed his face in a concert of 10,000 people. "When I was 16 years old, I was able to play many pieces of music, and my favorite pieces included "A Hundred Birds Facing the Phoenix" and "One Flower"." Cong Wenxin still remembers that once he participated in a cultural performance organized by the school and played the suona song "Suona" in the Ten Thousand People's Square. Heaven and Earth are Big", the audience burst into thunderous applause, which brought tears to his eyes.

Suona is the sign of father and son

The older generation plays suona and travels around to make a living. When he arrived at Cong Wenxin, he gradually became famous, and he began to think that blowing suona, a skill passed down by generations of the Cong family, is the root of the family and cannot be lost.

Cong Yang is playing suona

"Since I was six or seven years old, I began to learn suona performance and production with my father." Cong Yang said, but compared to his father's madness, he didn't show much love for suona at first.

Learning a musical instrument requires not only being able to sit still, but also being able to endure loneliness, as well as being highly focused. When he was young, Cong Yang was fond of playing, and when a friend in the yard greeted him, he jumped downstairs to catch grasshoppers and grasshoppers with his playmates in the grass. This time, Cong Wenxin had a headache: What should the child do if he doesn't want to learn?

To this end, the father and son agreed on a secret code. "Play, you can, but as soon as you hear the 'code', you have to go home." Cong Yang laughed, the code was the sound of a suona. Every time my father blew the suona upstairs, it sounded like a horn calling him home to practice the exercises.

"Sometimes it's a few single notes, sometimes it's a short piece of music, and the most common one is "Return from Targeting." Cong Yang was still impressed. At that time, he didn't feel bored, but was full of freshness about this practice method.

The family style is silent and imperceptible. Cong Yang was deeply moved by his father's obsession and hard work with suona. "When I was a child, my father started to play suona, and I helped him press the recorder. After my father finished playing, he would listen to it over and over again." Under the influence of the sound of suona, Cong Yang gradually fell in love with this kind of desolate and desolate, Sometimes cheerful and high-pitched tunes.

Cong Wenxin and Cong Yang have had too many such practice stories over the years. "It wasn't until I was 10 years old, when I won a sweater for performing suona in a cultural performance organized by my school, that I really realized that suona could bring me honor and recognition." Cong Yang said.

In 1992, Cong Yang was admitted to the Heilongjiang Vocational College of Arts, majoring in suona. During his studies at the school, during the winter and summer vacations, he went to Beijing, Shanghai and other well-known colleges and universities for many times to study art. At the age of 21, Cong Yang was successfully admitted to the Heilongjiang Provincial Song and Dance Theater and became the chief performer of the Suona Department of the Song and Dance Theater. He is also the first "trained student" in the Cong family's hundred years.

"For me, suona art is not only an image, but also a carrier." Cong Yang said that suona is a memory that he and his father tucked in their hearts. He feels that it is his responsibility to promote Suona, let more people know Suona, and inherit Suona. Now, Cong Ziyue, Cong Yang's 10-year-old son, has been able to independently complete the suona assembly work.

The production process has won a number of patents

Cong Wenxin likes to be called a "music craftsman" by others, and he is confident in this - not only does he play the suona well, but in 2014, he also won the title of "2014 Top Ten Producers of Chinese National Musical Instruments".

"The first suona of the old Cong family was made by my great-grandfather using the weighing rod that he received at that time. It took three or four months to make it. The air plate was also made into a circle with a gourd scoop for scooping water." Cong Wenxin Introduction, my grandfather and father will make suona. "However, at that time, there was no good wood, and it was not bad to find a weighing pole. My father used a rolling pin and chair legs to make suona."

From a piece of square wood to a delicate suona, it has to go through more than 20 processes such as car shape, bore expansion, drilling, grinding, and tuning. The production process requires not only superb woodworking skills, but also knowledge of music theory, and more importantly, the ability to endure loneliness and calm down. When he was a teenager, Cong Wenxin began to learn this craft from his father.

Anything you do for a long time may become an expert at it. After long-term experiments and explorations, Cong's suona production technology has become increasingly perfect, and it is favored by many well-known music school teachers, performers and suona lovers.

"Before, I made suonas for students to use, and my relatives and friends would give them away if they liked them. After I retired, I had time to study the mass production of suonas." Cong Wenxin said that in the Northeast, he made suonas every year. The number is around 1500 to 2000, and many of them are willing to spend a lot of money to collect the suonas he made. Now, they have moved their factory in Heilongjiang to Hainan.

In Cong Yang's view, the development process of Cong's suona is a process of continuous innovation and transcendence. "Over the years, my father and I have transformed the ancient hand-made into semi-manual and semi-mechanical production by developing new knives and using advanced mechanical equipment such as CNC machine tools." He introduced that the finished products that could be completed in the past three or four months are not now It can be completed in an hour, which greatly shortens the production time.

In order to better meet the performance needs of suona lovers, Cong Wenxin and his son also thought about adding key suona. "Traditional suonas only have two kinds of high-pitched suonas and low-pitched suonas. This keyed suona combines two pitches on one suona. The musical instrument reform and production award, and also won five national patents for the production of suona musical instruments.