【MV】刀郎Dao Lang 《瓜洲渡 Guazhou Ferry Dock》

On 3rd October 2023, Dao Lang released the MV studio version of the song 《瓜州渡 Guazhou Ferry Dock》. This song is the first song in the album 《弹词话本》released in October 2020 and one of most popular song in this album. Today we would like to share with you the explanation of this song meaning. Please note that this is fan-made explanation coming from our collective information from different online sources.
There are two ways of understanding 《瓜州渡 Guazhou Ferry Dock》.
[1] The first explanation believes that this song linked to the stories of 《杜十娘 Du Shiniang》
people.wku.edu...
The story was about the love between Du Shiniang and Li Jia. Du Shiniang was a courtesan while Li Jia was a young scholar. When these two just met each other, they quickly fell in love and would like to form a family together. However, as Li Jia's father was a high-ranked official, he opposed this marriage so strongly that he would disowned Li Jia. In order to free Shiniang from being a courtesan, Li Jian went through great difficulties to borrow large sum of money from friends. But at the end he managed to purchased off Shiniang from her Madam.
The two happily leave the place and stayed on a board, preparing for their departure to happiness the next morning. However, tragedy came again when Li Jia listened to the words of Sun Fu who also has an eye on Shiniang's beauty, and sold Shiniang to Sun Fu over Li Jia's worries about his father's opposition, for an amount of 1000 tael of silver. Li Jia did not know that Shiniang for all these years had been accumulated a huge sum of money that worth over ten thousand tael of gold! She hid that in a treasure chest and had not told Li Jia to test on his sincerity.
At the end, Shiniang threw her treasure chest to the river, and then jumped down. Li Jia forever regretted his decision.
We can relate the song to this story, when the lyric start from an image of a small boat:
我在这个深秋的夜晚宿在他舟 他舟夜泊的小船
In this autumn night I stayed on a boat, a small boat that moored at night .
However, later on the Lyric mentioned Jinshan temple and Naihe bridge, which could bring us to the second understanding of this story.
[2] The legend of the White Snake
www.chinadaily...
Legend of the White Snake is a popular story about the heart broken love between Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian.
Bai Suzhen was a white snake spirit that took on a form of a charming lady after thousand years of cultivation while Xu Xian is a human doctor. Xu Xian in his past life, saved Bai Suzhen when she was in her snake form, and so she became his wife in this life to repay the favor. The pair live happily together for a short time before Fa Hai, a monk from Jinshan temple came and found out Bai Suzhen real identity. Xu Xian followed Fa Hai's advice and made Bai Suzhen drank a glass of special wine. The wine made Suzhen revealed her true form of a white snake, and Xu Xian broke down and died.
Bai Suzhen broke a forbidden rule and stole a magical herb in the immortal real to bring Xu Xian back to life. But Xu Xian was taken to Jinshan temple, and Suzhen flooded the Jinshan temple to claim back her husband. At the end she was imprisoned in Hangzhou’s Leifeng Pagoda.
The second explanation of the song developed based on the mention of Jinshan temple. It was believe that the song was about the part when Bai Suzhen tried to flood the temple to take her husband back, and relate to the last sentence, that was Xu Xian's line when he say:
请不要说我是你的爱人 我只是流落 流落在南方奈何桥上等待的羇魂
Please do not say I am your beloved, I was wandering in the South, just a soul waiting on Naihe Bridge
We think that either way of understanding is fine and fit with the song emotion. You can choose which explanation that you like to believe in, and the most important point is, to enjoy the song.
Below are the links to the Fan-made video that use the two stories above to develop into a short movie clip, we hope you will enjoy listening and watching them:
《瓜州渡 Guazhou Ferry Dock》- 《杜十娘 Du Shiniang》: • 刀郎新歌《瓜洲渡》再登巅峰，满满的江南风，沧...
《瓜州渡 Guazhou Ferry Dock》- 《天乩之白蛇传说 Legend of the White Snake》: • 【FMV】刀郎Dao Lang【瓜洲渡 Gu...