Singer Yunggie Ma offers hymns of nature

Shanghai-based Yunggie often visits her hometown in the Tibet autonomous region to enjoy the local cuisine and nature.

The singer recorded her grandmother's songs. The Monba people pass on their heritage orally.

For her upcoming tour, the singer has chosen small live-music venues rather than theaters or big public spaces because she wants to stay close to her audiences while performing the ancient tunes, she says.

It has always been her dream to tell the Monba people's stories by singing, and she has followed in the footsteps of Yaxia, who lives near her house in Tibet.

The elderly woman is from the Lhoba community, another ethnic group of the region.

As a child, Yunggie was enthralled by Yaxia's singing of folk tales about the mountains, rivers, skies and animals of their land.

"Those songs were full of imagination. It seemed like she could sing endlessly," Yunggie recalls.

"She was my idol, and I wanted to be like her, connecting the Monba people with modern times."

A gifted singer and dancer since childhood, Yunggie was raised by her grandparents, who taught her the Monba language and many folk songs. Her grandmother, Bait Lazhen, is the bravest woman Yunggie has seen, she says, but sobs while singing an old song about her late parents.

"My hometown and the stories about my people give me courage, and I find them in my blood," she says.

Yunggie left her hometown in 2005 to study film and theater at Beijing's Communication University of China.