What is a salty water song?

Xianshui Song is a folk song popular in Dashatian District near tanzhou town, Zhongshan City. It is a folk song sung by working people in the fields, around the base and under the river bank trees when they entertain themselves and love each other.

Salty water songs, also known as "vernacular fish songs", are mainly popular in the Pearl River Delta region and are a kind of ballad among water residents. Generally speaking, it is a duet between men and women, mostly love songs. Before War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, many salty water songs were held on Baiyun Mountain, which stopped after the war.

Salty water songs generally consist of a single paragraph of two sentences or a complex paragraph of four phrases. There are solo, duet and other forms, the latter is the main one. The duet adopts the form of male and female answering each other, and the music structure of both sides is the same. Men sing the first two sentences and women sing the last two sentences. The ending sentences of men often have the word "hey, sister", and the ending sentences of women often have the word "brother".