In addition to lunch, the Changyucheng villagers treated us to a performance of their own particular kind of opera. This event took place in the village's combined Buddhist and Daoist Temple—one of the earlier Changyucheng posts (March 11th) has photos and a bit of text about this place. The temple has a small outdoor stage, so it also serves as a theater and concert space.The musicians (业余乐师) in the second photo at the top of the post were mainly playing traditional Chinese musical instruments. These included a stringed instrument that is a kind of miniature cello and sits on a musician's lap (二胡). Another one was the Chinese-style bamboo flute (笛子). And one person was knocking pieces of wood together as of way of keeping rhythm. Since this action is akin to clapping, the English term for instrument is “clapper;” according to a Chinese friend, the Mandarin term is “快板”.
This miniature orchestra also had a pair of small drums (鼓). However, one instrument typically heard in Beijing Opera (京剧) performances isn't in the photo. I'm talking about the loud and clanging cymbals (钹; 铙). At least I don't remember hearing them being played during the village opera performance.
The other photo above is a shot of one of the singers. According to my Chinese friend, Lu Hong Yan (路红艳), the Chinese just call the singers and musicians “performers”, or “表演” (this is also the verb “to perform”). These people can also be seen as performing a kind of folk art, which Mandarin speakers call “民间艺术”. The first two characters literally mean “between the people”, so this suffix is used in other “folk” type vocabulary, such as “folk music” (民间音乐), “folk stories” (民间故事), and “folk literature” (民间文学). The characters 艺术 form the word for “art.”
We spent about an hour or so watching the villagers perform. Our guide, Hong Gao, informed us that this village developed its own distinctive style of opera, due to its location on the old Silk Road trading route (see my March 1st post about Changyucheng). Since none of us, even the people who spoke pretty good Chinese, could really follow what the singers were saying, Gao provided capsule summaries of the lyrics. These stories naturally all took place in old China and were about Emperors (皇帝) and Emperesses (皇后), along with their concubines (妾), eunuchs (太监), and ministers.
For me at least, the real highlight of this part of our Changyucheng tour came after all the performances were finished. We got to go inside the small room backstage where the singers put on and took off their makeup. As one can tell from the photo at the top of this blog, every singer's face is elaborately painted. After the other members of our group left the room, I got this photo of an older male performer taking off his makeup (卸妆). I think he had played the emperor in one of the operas.
The age of this man, as well as the musicians, underscores a sad fact about Chinese opera, including Beijing Opera: it really is struggling to survive as an art form. Nearly all of my younger Chinese friends and acquaintances tell me that they never watch Beijing Opera. They all say that they find the lyrics, which are sung in a very high-pitched voice, extremely hard to understand. And they also believe that the stories are very dull and slow moving.Indeed, after living here for four years, I am struck by the fact that when it comes to popular entertainment, the Middle Kingdom's youth, well at least its urban youth, mainly prefer foreign imports over traditional Chinese popular culture, including Beijing Opera.
This is especially true for TV shows, and like Americans, Chinese people watch lots of television. Chinese Central TV (CCTV) broadcasts quite a few historical drama type shows depicting pre-revolutionary China, particularly the struggle against the Japanese and Guomingdang (国民党) during the 1930s and 1940s. None of my friends has ever mentioned this programming or any other CCTV shows when I ask them about what they watch. They instead mainly view American TV shows downloaded (下载) from the internet (网络).
For example, “Friends” (六人行) is hugely popular here. “Prison Break”, which had its final season last year, also has a large following in China. Alas, many Chinese people think that watching this program is a good way to learn English! Other heavily watched shows include “Desperate Housewives” (绝望的主妇) and “The OC”. Finally, South Korean soap operas, which the Chinese call “韩剧”, have a large audience among younger Chinese women. The same can be said for similar programs from Taiwan.
With respect to films, China does produce a few films (电影; 片子) every year that are genuine blockbusters with respect to their movie theater viewing audience. One was the Hong Kong director John Woo's adaptation of the famous literary classic, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” (三国演义), or “Red Cliff” (赤壁), starring Liang Chao Wei (梁朝伟) and the gorgeous Taiwanese fashion model (模特儿) turned actress, Lin Zhi Ling (林志玲). Another was the hilarious romantic comedy, “If You are the One” (非诚勿扰) starring another beautiful Taiwanese actress, Shu Qi (舒淇), and one of China's most famous male comic actors, Ge You (葛优) (I'll be doing a post on this movie at some future date).
But the limited number of Hollywood films that are screened here—China still places strict limits on film imports—typically do as well as, if not better, than their Chinese blockbuster counterparts at the box office. This goes for worthy films like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “The Reader”, as well truly awful swill, like that recent Will Smith vehicle, “Hancock”, and the newest installment of “The Mummy”. The latest James Bond movies, with Daniel Craig as “007” (零零七), were also very popular here. And in most DVD shops, I find that the selection of foreign films, particularly American movies, is greater than the selection of Chinese films.
When it comes to music, young Chinese people mainly prefer pop music (流行乐). Very few of them listen to older Chinese classical music (中国古典乐). Chinese pop singers, particularly Jay Chou (周杰伦) from Taiwan, do have a huge following. But if you translated the lyrics of their songs into English, they would certainly sound pretty much like standard Ameircan pop music tunes. And hip hop style music and the kind of music dance numbers done by Beyoncé, Britney Spears, and the like have caught on big in China as well (the same is true for music videos, although the Chinese ones that I have seen are really pretty lame).
Thus Beijing Opera's Chinese audience now consists largely of older people, like the memorable “old widow” next door neighbor from Michael Meyer's terrific new book about life in Beijing's siheyuan (四合院) houses and hutong (胡同) alleys. As was mentioned in an earlier post, this lady kept her TV tuned all day to a Beijing Opera Channel (for those expats living here who are interested, it's Channel 11). She thus became very irate when the small electric heater Meyer bought for his room blew out the siheyuan's fusebox and interrupted this programming.
To be sure, some foreign tourists go to live Beijing Opera performances while visiting China. However, these people certainly can't understand the subtleties of Beijing Opera. I have to confess that I don't either. I'll also confess to not having seen a single Beijing Opera during my 3+ years of living in the capital. Moreover, the foreign tourist audience doesn't come close to offsetting the steep decline in Chinese viewership. And very few of the old pensioners, who make up the bulk of Beijing Opera's diehard Chinese fans, can afford to pay the ticket prices theaters must charge in order to make money from staging live opera performances.
Beijing Opera is still officially touted as a Chinese “national treasure”; however, as Jasper Becker notes in his recent book, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUILITY, most of the few remaining state opera troupes are gradually going bust (破产). They not only face dwindling audiences, but declining state subsidies (补贴) as well.
I would thus be willing to bet that in another 20-30 years, after most of the audience and performers for traditional Chinese Opera have passed away (出世), live performances of this art will be few and far between. I am thus very glad to have had the opportunity to see one version of it performed live during my visit to Changyucheng Village. I'll truly remember it as another highlight of my ongoing China adventure.
The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.
业余乐师 (ye4yu2yue4shi1). “业余” means “part-time”, so the Chinese word for “part-time work” is 业余工作 (ye4yu2gong1zuo4), while 乐师 is one word for “musician”. Truly expert and professional muscians are called “音乐家” (yin1yue4jia1).
二胡 (er4hu2).
笛子 (di2zi5).
快板 (kuai4ban3). The first character is the Chinese word for “fast”, while the second can mean “board”. “Blackboard” is thus 黑 (hei1; black) 板.
鼓 (gu3).
京剧 (jing1ju4). “京”, of course, is the second character in 北京 (bei3jing1), or literally translated, “northern capital”, while 剧 can be translated here as “stage.”
钹; 铙 (bo2; nao2). “铙” are large cymbals. The left hand side of both characters has the metal radical, which provides a clue about their meaning (it really narrows it down, he! he!).
表演 (biao3yan3).
民间艺术 (min2jian1yi4shu4).
民间音乐 (min2jian1yin1yue4). “音乐” is the Chinese word for “music”.
民间故事 (min2jian1gu4shi4). “故事” is the Chinese word for “story”.
民间文学 (min2jian1wen2xue2). “文学” is the Chinese word for “literature.”
皇帝 (huang2di4).
皇后 (huang2hou4). Literally translated, “皇后” means “behind the Emperor.” Language often reflects underlying social realities and this phrase says much about the subordinate position of women in old China. Throughout China's long history, only one woman, the Tang Dynasty (唐朝; tang2chao2) Empress 武则天 (wu3ze2tian1), has officially ruled the country.
妾 (qie4).
太监 (tai4jian4).
卸妆 (xie4zhuang1). The opposite of taking off makeup, i.e. putting it on, is “化妆” (hua4zhuang1) (this term applies to actors, actresses, and women). “Cosmetics” is “化妆品” (hua4zhuang1pin3).
下载 (xia4zai4).
网络 (wang3luo4). “网” is the Chinese word for “net”, and the character really looks like a “net”.
六人行 (liu4ren2xing2). For some reason, this show's title isn't literally translated into Mandarin as “Friends” (朋友; peng2you3), but as “Six (六) People (人) O.K./Good (行)”. That's actually a more informative title!
绝望的主妇 (jue2wang1de5zhu4fu4). Unlike the show “Friends,” this is a literal translation: 绝望 means “desperate”, while 主妇 is the Mandarin word for “housewife”.
韩剧 (han2ju4). “韩” appears in the Chinese name for South Korea, which is 韩国 (han2guo2), while 剧 in this context means “program”.
电影; 片子 (dian4ying3; pian4zi5). “电影” literally means “electric (电) shadow (影)” and the right side of the “影” character does resemble a shadow. “片子” is the term for “movie” and can also mean “blockbuster movie”.
三国演义 (san1guo2yan3yi1).
赤壁 (chi4bi4). “壁” also means “screen”, as in Beihai Park's famous Nine (久; jiu3) Dragon (龙; long2) Screen (壁; bi4).
模特儿 (mo2te4er5).
非诚勿扰 (fei1cheng2wu4rao3).
零零七 (ling2ling2qi1). This literally means “007”.
流行乐 (liu2xing2yue4). “流行” means “popular”.
中国古典乐 (zhong1guo2gu4dian3yue). “中国” of course means “China,” while “古典” is the Mandarin word for “classical”.
周杰伦 (zhou1jie2lun2).
四合院 (si4he2yuan2).
胡同 (hu2tong2).
破产 (po4chan3).
补贴 (bu3tie1).
出世 (chu1shi4). This term literally means “depart (出) from the world (世)”. The verb “to die” is “死” (si3). The Chinese regard “four” (四) as an unlucky number because its pronunciation, a fourth tone “si”, is almost the same as “死”
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