The origin of the name Xiaorehun

"Xiaorehun" is a Han street rap art rooted in the folk and sung in Wu dialect. It began in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China and was introduced to Pinghu in the 1920s. "Rehun" is a common word in Wu dialect. According to "Chinese Opera, Folk Art, Songs and Music", the original meaning of "Rehun" is a derogatory term, but sometimes nonsense jokes and bizarre jokes are also called "Rehun" , not in a derogatory sense. Since most of the singing contents of "Little Rehun" are based on social news, and they understand the sufferings of the working people best, the artists have to speak for the people, reveal the pain in their hearts, and expose the dark side of the social situation in a satirical way, so they are deeply loved by the public. However, in order to avoid being persecuted by the reactionary authorities at that time, the content and form of this rap was transformed into "Jia Yucun Yan". The art of rap "full of ridiculous words" was called "Xiaorehun", which means that a person fainted due to high fever. Tilting his head and talking nonsense.

It is said that the first performer of "Little Rehun" was Xu Zhuodai, a civilized opera actor from Suzhou. He once acted as a clown. When he was middle-aged, he named himself "Rehun" and later became a pear paste seller in Hangzhou. Tang's street artist Du Baolin took his stage name "Xiao Rehun" after the Chinese character "小".