of the village (Dean,1993, 17). David Johnson has studied the close relationship between village temple opera and territorial units known as shȇ (Johnson 2009). He claims that village-level communal rituals were “the highest expression of the values and beliefs of ordinary people” (Johnson 2009, 10). In the contemporary era (post 1978), village administrators, including communist party officials, can be very involved in the running of village temple activities (Tsai 2007, 140). However, other aspects of village culture, such as the performances of itinerant folk musicians, are subject to minimal regulation by the state (Jones 2009, xxi). Folk musicians carry out ritual roles as well as provide entertainment. Jones distinguishes between the “institutional” role of temple Buddhist and Daoist monks and the more “diffused” activities of lay Buddhist and Daoist ritual practitioners, many of whom are “ordinary peasants performing for life-cycle and calendrical ceremonies” (Jones, 2009, xxi). Very talented rural singers may be able to adapt their repertoire to attract both elite and popular audiences (Gibbs 2018). In border areas, informal and often hidden song traditions help bolster ethnic identities. For a study of the revival of the song and storytelling traditions of the Tai Lüe people of Sipsongpanna, Yunnan, see Davis (2005). Village ritual, expressive culture, and festival activities reflect the villagers’ struggle with their local environment. In southern rice-growing regions, which require intensive irrigation, both drought and floods can be a problem. The famous Chinese anthropologist, Fei Xiaotong, investigated village life in the Lower Yangzi Delta region in the 1920s. He observed that the villagers enacted religious ceremonies and rituals at times of drought, floods, and locusts (Fei, 2010, 134). For a comprehensive study of the ritual and expressive culture associated with rice growing in the Lower Yangzi Delta region see Jiang Bin (1996). Rice cultivators along the shores of Lake Tai in Jiangsu province believed that “the rice-seedling transformed from a young girl, to a pregnant wife, and finally to a Rice Mother bearing child-grains,” (McLaren, 2022, xviii). Lake Tai songs and stories include tales of a local hero who brought back the art of rice growing from a paradisial land to his home village (McLaren, 2022, 77-110). The songs of the Kam people of Guizhou reflect local “environmental management and agricultural practices” in this rice-cultivation zone (Ingram 2011, 445). Ingram observes that these instructional songs “complement and assist in retaining longstanding farming techniques” (Ingram 2011, 446). Drought