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Life in China Peony Pavilion | Peony Pavilion |
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| China | |
| Tuesday, 19 June 2007 | |
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Beijing 11 Peony Pavilion - the young lovers' edition by Pai Hsien-yong A lot has happened since I last wrote. First of all, I have been studying hard. I think everyone in our class studied harder during the second month of our course, as the teachers started to put us into positions for the half term show/exams. Obviously, the best ones stay in the front row rather than the second, third, fourth or fifth row. Everyone seemed to practise harder to keep their positions or to be moved forward rather than backward. I am glad to tell you that I am in the front row for all of the sixteen dances that we will be performing. Secondly, I visited my family in Nothern Jiangsu province during our May Day Holiday. We had nine days off. From The Beijing Dance Academy to my home, I travelled for sixteen and a half hours. The journey sounds long but shorter than many of my classmates' in fact. And it was worth it, just be able to seeing my parents, my brother and eating home food... But I was sad to see the same grey sky there, like Beijing's. I didn't remember it being this grey. Well, industrialisation... One thing that made me especially sad was that half of the stars had disappeared from my hometown's sky! Scientifically, the stars of my hometown are the same ones as Britain, but they are different to me. I had the habit of watching stars almost every night since I was little. And in my mind, the image of the little me looking up at the sky of thousands and thousands stars represents my hometown and my childhood. But all of a sudden, I lost half of them! It felt like half of them betrayed me, they've gone! :( Thirdly, I was accidentally in hospital. It was Friday the 13th. Jingwen, Jing and I were planning to cook dinner together after our lessons. But as soon as we finished our lesson at 7pm, Jingwen mentioned that she got her salary that day and she was paid twice as much as she should have been. "Well, you should buy us dinner then." I was joking but Jingwen took it seriously and insisted on buying us dinner. It was a delicious and a very big dinner. A few hours later, my stomach started to feel uncomfortable and later painful, shortly after midnight, I was sent to hospital when I couldn't stand the pain any more after I had been sick... It was rather bad. I was in hospital until Saturday afternoon. One thing that I always hear about doctors was proved true – once you are in their hands, they'll try to make you spend as much money as possible. I spent almost 300 hundred yuan in the hospital. How much is 300 yuan? Well, 300 yuan can feed me for a month in Beijing. More than half of this money was spent on things that weren't necessary though. The doctor made me to go to have a scan. I knew it would be expensive, I asked her five times in total "Is this really necessary?" Her answers were all "Yes." It cost me 179 yuan to have that scan done! When I was there feeling bad, I thought I'd better listen to the doctor, but later, I couldn't help to keep wondering – "my stomach was wrong, but why do I have to go to scan my kidneys, my liver and my...???" Fourthly, also leisure, I enjoyed seeing "Peony Pavilion" - the young lovers' edition by Pai Hsien-yong (BAI Xianyong). I not only enjoyed the performances of this kunqu opera, but also enjoyed seeing how it was promoted and becoming popular. It was the No. 100, 101 and 102 shows of this production. I have to say, it was absolutely wonderful! If your memories/opinions about Chinese Opera came from Peking Opera, well, this is something very different. It's rather gentle, smooth, delicate, at the same time, impressive, funny and beautiful! The photo exhibition of this opera was also taking place in Beijing University. Those very fine photos were taken by Hsu Pei-hung who has been following this Opera team around and taking photos for them for three years. An excellent photographer can always catch the best moments, and really lighten up the beauty. In another word, can make the beauty even more beautiful, and really move the viewers. Apparently, "Many people were moved by the photos first and then decided to come to see the show..." – said Mr Bai. I still remember how happy I was when I first saw the advert of this show in an underground station of Beijing. "It's kunqu, it's really kunqu this time!" my heart was shouting! Something very precious, belongs to us Chinese and the whole human society. We nearly let it slip away from our own hands, but Mr Bai caught it and worked extremely hard on putting it back in front of us again. I have to pay my respects. The good news is "Peony Pavilion" - the young lovers' edition is probably coming to London, to our next annual Chinatown Art Festival! What good news! I hope both the performance and the photo exhibition will take place in London. These are some things you really shouldn't miss. If it is coming to London, I hope the advert would make it to the London Underground. From what I know, in the last four years, no advert about Chinese performing arts have made it to the London underground except the advert for the Beijing No. 2 Peking Opera Troupe's visit to London. This time, it's kunqu - 'Elegant Drama', the mother of all Chinese Operas, with over six hundred years of history and a very deep and literary background. UNESCO placed kunqu at the number one spot on its list of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity." I am one of the Chinese who needs to work hard on my Chinese! When I was watching "Peony Pavilion" recently, I was reading the English subtitles rather than the Chinese subtitles most of the time. The English translation indeed helped me to understand it better. (The Chinese script was written in Ming Dynasty, it is old Chinese.) Here is another reason you shouldn't miss it – the English translation is excellent! You will surely enjoy it. |
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