Many hua'er songs begin with metaphoric and symbolic depictions of scenery, before developing into the real theme, which may be young love, the hard work and weariness of the farming life, and the foibles of men and women.
Su learned The Night Journey from Wang Dexian, a 73-year-old farmer who lives in Helan county near Yinchuan.
"Hua'er is very contagious, and contains folklore and the emotions of Northwestern Chinese people," Wang says. "It is like a treasure house."
Wang began to sing hua'er in childhood, when he tended the sheep grazing in the mountains. He learned it from elder shepherds who often sang hua'er to whip away loneliness or flirt with girls.
Hua'er is also called yequ or "wild tune", since it is often sung in the wild. It is actually forbidden to sing hua'er within the family or in the village in most areas, because of its erotic content.
For outsiders, hua'er is hard to understand because of the high-pitched singing, local accent and the use of many empty words.
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