Chapter 15 Foreigners Watching Peking Opera and Others

It is also a meaningful thing to look at everything in China with the eyes of foreigners watching Beijing opera.Bamboo poles were set up on the head, and the children’s crotch pants were hung to dry; ginseng wine was filled in glass jars on the counter; Mei Lanfang was sung on the loudspeaker in one family; Get some cooking wine under the signboard. This is all China, diverse, dazzling, mysterious, and funny.Most young people love China and don't know what they love.Unconditional love is admirable. The only danger is that sooner or later the ideal will collide with the reality, and every time it will make them gasp and cool their hearts.We are unfortunate to live among the Chinese, and we are inferior to the overseas Chinese. We can safely worship the sacred motherland from an appropriate distance for the rest of our lives.So, simply take a closer look!Let's go sightseeing with the eyes of foreigners watching Beijing opera.Only with surprise and dazzle can there be understanding and reliable love.

Why can't I stay away from Peking Opera in three sentences?Because I am a layman who is very interested in Beijing opera, and everyone is a layman who knows little about life?I only chose Beijing opera for the sake of this appropriate attitude.Professional ladies who have been on the stage and have tickets for operas, when they hear that you like Beijing opera, they always smile slightly and say: This Beijing opera thing is very complicated.Even a few outfits and those exquisite things are enough for you to study for a lifetime.But no, I don’t understand if the actor wears the wrong clothes;All I know is sitting in the first row watching martial arts, admiring the Qingluo battle robe, which fluttered away, revealing the red lining, and the rose-purple lining in the jade-colored trousers, kicking and kicking the table full of dust; and the tragic and tense A long series of clapping sounds is used to represent the stillness of the night, or strenuous thinking, or a cold sweat after a fierce search. There is no better sound effect than this.

The opinions of laymen are precious. Otherwise, why do American journalists always choose irrelevant topics to discuss when interviewing celebrities?Arm Ru said, met the heroine of the murder case, and asked her if she was optimistic about the overall situation of the world; met the boxing champion, and asked him if he was in favor of adapting Shakespeare's script to a fashion drama.Of course it was for a gimmick, the readers laughed: Thinking: I know more than him.Celebrities are not as good as others!Half of it is also because the arguments of laymen are relatively fresh and crude, and there are some merits.However, in order to avoid the important and ignore the minor, let's talk about the flat drama in the talk drama first.The Qiu Haitang play became popular all over Shanghai, which cannot but be attributed to the strong atmosphere of Beijing opera in the story.Following the unprecedented success of Qiu Haitang, there were five major dramas at the same time that called for interspersed dramas.Since its inception, China's new realist drama has always been on the opposite side of Pingju, but the reason why the first popular drama is popular is that it borrows from Pingju. This phenomenon is really surprising.

Why is Peking Opera so deeply rooted and popular in China, although its artistic value is not without question?The most touching line in Qiu Haitang is the libretto of Beijing opera, and the Beijing opera is a quote from Gu'er Ci: wine is less than a thousand cups when you meet a bosom friend, and more than half a sentence if you don't speculate.The familiar catchphrase, but after such an aftertaste by the down-and-out Qiu Haitang, it adds infinite desolation out of thin air.The Chinese have always liked to quote classics.Beautiful, precise sentences, and old jokes from two thousand years ago are freely used in daily conversation.These invisible fibers make up our living past.Tradition itself strengthens because it is constantly being referenced to new people, new things and situations.As long as a suitable idiom is available, the Chinese are unwilling to speak directly.And thinking about it carefully, almost every possible situation has a suitable idiom to match.Writing prefaces for others is like a Buddha's head, and writing postscripts is like a dog's tail.Ninety percent of the proverbs that have been circulating in our country in recent years are the ingenious use of idioms.It's no wonder that when Chinese students study foreign languages, they always have a collection of proverbs, thinking that as long as those sentences are connected grammatically, it will be a good article.

Only in China is history still alive and well in everyday life. (History here generally represents public memories.) If we examine our catchphrases from this point of view, the relationship between Beijing opera and today's society also has the nature of catchphrases. Dozens of the most popular Beijing operas, each of which provides us with a timeless, standard situation where the father dislikes the poor and loves the rich, the children do not make progress, the conflict between family love and sex is happy, the dragon and the phoenix bring prosperity, Shiro The visit to the mother can be included in the last example, which strongly confirms the saying that the girl is extroverted.

The Red Maned Horse meticulously describes the selfishness of men.Xue Pinggui devoted himself to his career for eighteen years, and calmly put his wife in the cold cellar like a fish in the refrigerator.One day, he suddenly felt worried, and Xingye rushed home.The best years of her life have been ruined by poverty and the loneliness of a rebellious society, but he thought that the joy of reunion was enough to compensate for everything before.He didn't put herself in her shoes and think about it. He made her a queen, a queen in Princess Daizhan's territory!Living in the hands of a young, powerful concubine!No wonder she died 18 days after becoming a queen. She didn't have such a blessing.However, although Xue Pinggui is not very considerate to women, he is still written as a good person.The cuteness of Beijing opera lies in this simplicity and subtlety.

Yutangchun represents the countless stories of virtuous courtesans popular in China.A good whore is the ideal wife for most people.Since she relies on her appearance to make a living, it can be seen that she must be beautiful, and morality is added to beauty.These are two exceptions to the modern Chinese who have given up many long-held ideals.Not long ago, there was a movie "Sweet Boudoir". In order to save the advertisement space, in addition to the title, there was only one line of eye-catching introduction in the newspaper: Zhenlie's guide girl. The Upen Ji tells the story of a murdered ghost who is imprisoned in an upen that is used as a commode.Westerners will never understand how such a filthy, ridiculous, unmentionable thing can be mixed with sublime tragic elements, unless the weavers and the theatergoers all belong to a nation that does not understand humor.That's because the Chinese have a straight-forward attitude towards physiological functions, and there are no unhealthy taboos. Therefore, the Chinese people only fear the suffering of the soul in the black basin, and have no hatred or ridicule.

Sisters and children often love beauty more than money, so the uncle who spends money has suffered the pain of unrequited love in the Oolong Yard.The playwright outlines the hero Song Jiang with sympathy, but he is also despised by women, purely because he loves her and she doesn't love him.The saddest thing is the part where he has nothing to say: Student: What are you holding? Dan: Your hat. Student: Hey, it’s clearly a shoe, why is it a hat? Dan: I know you still ask! Spinning cotton, which is close to juggling, escapes the scope of Pingju opera, and the popular new spinning cotton is just a scene drawn from the whole play.The original story was about the crime of rape and murder. From this grim subject matter, we extracted this sensational comedy.Chinese humor is relentless.

The popularity of Xinspin Cotton is of course for the fashion stage, but also because when the protagonist sings two southern accents and northern tunes at will, the audience can occasionally intervene in some drama, and the stage and the audience mingle together. The pleasant and informal atmosphere is close to that of a school. Entertainment.Beijing opera has strict rules, and it is rare for such an indulgence to make the whole country go crazy. The Chinese love the law.Also likes to break the law.The so-called breaking the law does not necessarily mean killing people for money, but a small deviant act, which is purposeless.There is a wooden sign on the roadside to keep to the right, but you have to go to the left.The foul of spinning cotton is a book of this kind of spirit. It is not a resistance to the basic system of Pingju opera, but a kind of opposition that gently pushes and rubs the golden rules that everyone respects is actually an acknowledgment.

The Chinese often delude themselves that they are wicked and take great pleasure in this assumption.Pedestrians on the road were chasing the tram, and it was very crowded. He saw that it would not stop, so he yelled viciously: "Don't stop!"Tell you not to stop, do you dare to stop?It sure didn't stop.he laughed. It is said that only the Chinese in the world are orderly and logical when they scold others.The British don't believe in the existence of hell, but they still curse people to hell. For example, their most poisonous word is bloody. Calling a bloody donkey doesn't make much sense except to say that people are stupid, but the tone is so sharp that it can be used to vent their anger. That's all.The Chinese said: How dare you scold me?You don't know your dad?It gives him spiritual satisfaction to suggest that he has had friendship with the other party's mother.

Spinning Cotton succeeded because it was the first play to cater to this tofu-eating addiction.Zhang San interrogated his wife, who is her lover.After pointing to the audience, he bowed to the audience and said: When I go out, my wife takes care of me.The audience was deeply moved. When we analyze the content of Pingju, we may be surprised. China is not a country that favors martial arts. Why do martial arts dominate the majority?Just based on the string of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the number is considerable.The most rapid change is on the battlefield, so we can most easily see a person's personality and attitude in war.The failures of Chu Overlord and Ma Di are simple lessons, and the spectators in the audience, whether they are officials, businessmen, or daughter-in-laws, are all the same thing. I don't know if people just want to cry like me after watching the empty city plan.Zhuge Liang, whom the veterans absolutely believed in, is a rare perfect man in all ages and in all over the world.Here, he has whitened his beard.Abandoning the free life of Wolonggang to do great things, for the memory of the late emperor's confidant, he sacrificed his life to fight the world for Ah, did he also secretly feel that it was not worth it?Amidst the din of gongs and drums, there was a slight sense of desolation. The old plays handed down from generation to generation have given us many emotional formulas.Putting the complex emotions of our real life into the formula, many details have to be removed, but the result is still satisfactory.After the feelings are simplified, they are stronger and more certain, adding the weight of thousands of years of experience.It is the happiest thing for an individual to feel in harmony with the environment, but the so-called environment is largely the habit of the masses. The world in Beijing opera is neither the present China nor any stage of ancient China in its process.Its beauty, its narrow and tidy moral system, are far from reality, yet it is by no means a romantic evasion. The extradition from one point of view to another is often mistaken for evasion.The immediate reality, because the distance is too close, must be connected with another clearer reality to see clearly. No matter what is on their minds, the characters in Beijing opera always speak out freely; if they have no confidants around, they just tell the audience. Words are not enough, so they add actions, costumes, colors and patterns of facial makeup.Even crying has its distinctive beat, a string of beads of large and small sounds, round and clean.Because of this exaggerated confession in many ways, I am used to watching Beijing opera and feel that nothing is lively enough.There may be only one or two actors on stage, but it can also create a crowded impression. Crowding is one of the elements in Chinese theater and Chinese life.The Chinese were born among a large group of people, and died among a large group of people, just like the French kings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (Mary Anthony, the queen of the dynasties, gave birth in the central hall. There was only a screen around the bed, and outside the screen was crowded with ministers and nobles waiting for the good news.) The Chinese could not hide from onlookers anywhere.Women of the upper class, if they are of the old style, even though they live in deep boudoirs, they do not have the right to close the door when they wake up in the morning.In winter, the cotton curtain blocks the wind, but the door is still wide open.Family-sized surveys are welcome.It is very dishonorable to keep the door closed during the day.Even at night, when the door is locked, you only need to lick the window paper to see the situation in the house at a glance. Marriage and death are more public affairs.The troublemakers even hide under the bed.When the patient returned to the light, a dark crowd gathered in the room to listen to the last words of the dying. Chinese tragedies are lively, noisy, and ostentatious, and they have their own reasons; the sorrow in Beijing opera has a clear and fiery color. Because of the lack of private life, the Chinese people have a bit of vulgarity in their personality: there is nothing that cannot be said to others, and what is unspeakable is doing evil.Chinese people are always amazed that foreigners like to keep such unnecessary secrets. As a result of the failure to keep the secrecy, the faintest genial feelings had to be explained in self-defense to the indispensable spectators.This creates a habit of making excuses.I also like to use excuses to prevaricate myself, so Chinese people don't quite understand their own behavior.Living in groups affects the psychology of Chinese people.There are few real eccentrics among the Chinese.The masters of Tuolue are addicted to bamboo and alcohol, love to go crazy with alcohol, or have a cleanliness addiction, or do not take a bath, and pay attention to talking about lice, but these are all eccentricities that follow the rules, and there are no shortage of precedents.They jumped out of the crowd and joined another crowd. You can't escape the rules wherever you go.The heaviness of the rules can be said to be at its peak on the stage.The regular and graceful movements in Beijing opera are called dance by foreigners, but in fact that is the essence of all etiquette.Etiquette does not necessarily have meaning and function, it is often just salutation for the sake of salutation.Kowtow in peace has now been abolished.It is said that kowtowing looks good, so it needs some research.Although I don't know how to kowtow, I am willing to kowtow twice during festivals.The general elders always shout: bow!bow!Only once, when I went to my aunt's house, I kowtowed several times in succession without anyone stopping me.People who are used to kowtow like them are rare these days.Kowtow, a kind of small, non-obtrusive restraint, probably people in the past didn’t think it was cute, and now it’s about to be lost, so I just feel sad, but watching the students file up on the stage to receive their graduation diplomas, you know that the Chinese National University of China Neither will bow. Gu Lanjun broke up with her husband in Nongben's infatuation, and was about to divorce, so she reached out her hand to say goodbye to him before leaving.He suspected her of infidelity and ignored her.She left sadly.This scene, if in the West, is certainly reasonable and touching, but in China, it is not.Xili's handshaking habit has a history of hundreds of years, so shaking hands has become a natural expression, almost a subconscious effect.The Chinese have also learned to shake hands in the entertainment field, but at the moment of parting from life and death, when they have real feelings, they never think of shaking hands as a sign of eternal farewell.In this case, shaking hands is definitely inappropriate, and you can't say goodbye, give a blessing or bow.Modern China is rude, except on stage.The performance techniques of the symbolism school in Beijing opera are extremely thorough, with the style of the early people. The strange thing is that when Ping opera became popular in China, Chinese civilization had already passed its maturity.How could vulgar folk products be valued by the elegant and romantic ruling class at the end of the Qing Dynasty?New Yorkers listened to the enthusiastic recommendations of art critics and embraced primitive pictures and rural homemade pottery.The Chinese give up Kunqu opera and focus on Beijing opera, which is contrary to the remarks of ordinary drama critics.Civilized people listen to civilized Kunqu opera, which is just right for their status. However, there is a childish force in the emerging Beijing opera, which meets our inner needs.The originality of the Chinese people has not been eradicated, presumably because our culture is too casual. At this point, it is not difficult for us to find the secret of the Chinese people's eternal youth.