Hua’er is a genre of Chinese folk songs shared among nine ethnic groups in Gansu and Qinghai provinces of northwest China and throughout north-central China. With a soulful and exquisite melody, a long history and rich content, Hua'er boasts an intense ethnic flavor and the rustic style typical of the plateau. It is also called “the soul of the northwest” and was placed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2009.