Peking Opera Through Foreign Eyes

To SEE CHINA through the eyes with which foreigners watch Peking opera would be an exercise not entirely lacking in significance.' Bamboo poles overhead from which children's cotton-padded split pants are hung out to dry; big glass jars on store counters full of "ginseng-whisker" wine; the loudspeaker from one house broadcasting the sound of Mei Lanfang singing Peking opera; the wireless in another house hawking medicine for scabies; buying cooking wine under a shop sign that reads "The Legacy of Li Po": China is all of these things-colorful, shocking, enigmatic, absurd. Many young people love China and yet have only a vague notion of what this thing called China might be. Unconditional love is admirable, but the danger is that sooner or later, the ideal will run up against reality, and the resultant rush of cold air will gradually extinguish one's ardor. We unfortunately live among our fellow Chinese. Unlike Chinese overseas, we cannot spend our lives safely and reverently gazing toward our exalted motherland at a comfortable remove. So why not make a careful study of it instead? Why not revisit its sights through the eyes of a foreigner watching Peking opera? For it is only through surprise and wonderment that we may be able to find real understanding and a steadfast, reliable love.
'Chang published a version of this essay in English in the June 1943 number of The XXth Century (pp. 432-438) as "Still Alive."

 Why is it that I constantly make reference to Peking opera? Because I am an enthusiastic lover of Peking opera but also a layperson when it comes to its many intricacies. Who isn't a dilettante or a dabbler when it comes to life? I single out Peking opera here because it lends itself so well to such an approach.
When the lovely ladies who have performed onstage in amateur theatricals hear that one is fond of Peking opera, they inevitably say with an understated little smile, "But Peking opera is a very complex thing, you know. Take the costumes, for instance. There's enough in the costumes alone to last a lifetime of study." Exactly my point. If the performers wore the wrong costumes, I wouldn't know the difference. If they sang out of tune, I wouldn't know the difference. All I know is how to sit in the front row and enjoy the combat scenes, the dark silk of the warrior's robes fluttering open to reveal the red lining inside, or the rosy purple silk underneath jade green pant legs, as kicks and jousts and feints swirl storms of dust across the stage. Then comes the sharp, anxious tattoo of percussion, signifying the quiet of the middle of the night, or deep thought, or even the cold sweat that pours out when one has been startled awake in the night: these are the very best sort of sound effects.
The opinions of laypeople are important. If not, why would American reporters work so hard to induce celebrities to offer their wisdom on subjects about which they know little or nothing at all? For instance, in an interview with the female protagonist in a sensational murder case, they might ask whether she is optimistic about the current world situation. In an interview with a boxing champion, they inquire as to his opinion on the reworking of Shakespeare's original scripts into dramas about contemporary life. This is a gimmick, of course, to make the reader laugh as she thinks to herself, "I know more than he does. These celebrities aren't all they're cracked up to be, after all." But there is also another factor: the things laypeople come up with can sometimes be unusually fresh, blunt, and to the point and are valuable for just that reason.
In order to avoid attacking the main subject immediately, I will take refuge in something relatively light: traditional opera as it appears in modern spoken drama. The reason for the stunning success of Autumn Quince in Shanghai is no doubt attributable to the ambience of Peking opera that pervades the story.2 The unprecedented popularity of the play has given rise
2A dramatic adaptation of the romance novel of the same title by Qin Shou'ou, the play opened at the Carlton Theater in January 1943, to great popular acclaim, and was made into a film in 1944 by the director Maxu Weibang.

 to five or six imitators around the city, all of which incorporate Peking-style opera into their plots. The realist new drama in China has defined itself in opposition to Peking opera from its very conception, but the very first spoken drama really to lodge itself in the hearts of the common people depends for its success on its heavy use of that same tradition. This is truly an astonishing fact.
Why is Peking opera so deep-rooted and so universally accepted by Chinese people, despite the fact that its artistic quality is less than flawless?
The most moving line in Autumn Quince is a quotation from a Peking opera, which was drawn in turn from a drum song:
Wine partaken with a true companion-a thousand cups would not be enough Conversation without affection-
half a sentence is far too much
A tired old cliché, but when it is once again rehearsed by the dispirited Autumn Quince, it somehow speaks of a vast and limitless sorrow. The Chinese have always been alive to the pleasure of the apt quotation or set phrase. Lovely bons mots, words of wisdom and cautionary phrases, two-thousand-year-old jokes-all circulate freely in everyday speech. These invisible tissues constitute a living past. The body of tradition is continually strengthened by its application to new people, new things, and new situations. Chinese people will never speak directly if there is a suitable quotation at hand. And when you think about it, nearly every conceivable situation has been enshrined in a cozy little phrase of its own. Writing a preface for someone else's book becomes "smearing dung on a Buddha's head." Writing a postscript is "tacking a dog's tail onto sable." Ninety percent of what passes for wit in China consists in the skillful use of set phrases. Little wonder, then, that Chinese students of western languages invariably rely on handbooks full of idiomatic phrases, which they believe need only be linked in grammatical sequence in order to produce good essays.
Only in China does history perform itself so persistently in everyday life. (History here represents the sum of our collective memory.) If we see our use of quotations in this light, the relation of Peking opera to the society of today also takes on an epigrammatic quality.
Each of the scores of popular plays that make up the bulk of the operatic repertoire provides us with standardized and thus eternal narrative molds: the daughter whose father wants her to marry for money, sons who fail to live up to the family name, the conflict between love of one's family and sexual love. Deyi yuan (Serendipitous marriage fate), Longfeng chengxiang (Auspicious dragon and lucky phoenix), and Silang tanmu (Fourth son visits his mother) all fit this last category, and all work strenuously to prove the old adage that "a girl's best route is to be married out."
Hongzong liema (The red-maned steed) presents the selfishness of men in exquisite detail. Xue Pinggui devotes himself to his career for eighteen years, cavalierly leaving his wife in cold storage, like a fish in an icebox. One day, he remembers her, suddenly becomes uneasy on her account, and returns home in a mad rush, riding by day and by night. Her best years have been laid waste by poverty and the loneliness of social ostracism, yet he expects the bliss of reunion to serve as sufficient compensation for her suffering. He unthinkingly puts her in an untenable position when he makes her his queen, queen of the same court presided over by the princess who helped him come to power. She must struggle with this young and powerful concubine for her very survival. Small wonder that eighteen days after having been enthroned, she dies, overwhelmed by an honor she lacks the good fortune to enjoy. Yet despite Xue Pinggui's rather inconsiderate behavior toward women, he still comes off as a good man. The charm of Peking opera lies precisely in this sort of simplicity and reserve.
Yutang chun (Spring in the jade hall) typifies the countless Chinese tales about virtuous prostitutes. For many men, a kind prostitute represents the ideal type for a wife. If she makes a living from her looks, she must be beautiful, and if she is kind, her beauty is matched by morality. The modern Chinese has abandoned many ancient ideals, but this is an exception. Not long ago a film entitled Xianggui fengyun (Storm in the perfumed boudoir) was quite economically promoted in the papers by its title and a single arresting phrase: "The Chaste Escort."
In Wupen ji (The chamber pot stratagem), the soul of a murdered man is imprisoned in an appropriately diminutive commode. It is difficult for westerners to understand how such ridiculous, dirty, and unmentionable material can become fodder for high tragedy, unless, of course, the author of the play and his audience belong to a race of people entirely devoid of humor. This is because Chinese people treat physiological functions with frankness and without unhealthy inhibitions. That is why the torments suffered by this poor soul imprisoned in the chamber pot are greeted by audiences not with disgust or sarcasm but with horror.
"Girls like flash more than they like cash," and thus the sugar daddy in Wulong yuan (Black dragon courtyard) is condemned to taste the bitterness of unrequited love. The author sympathetically portrays Song Jiang, whose elevated status as the heroic leader of the one hundred and eight bandits
 immortalized in Shuihu zhuan (The water margin) does not save him from the contempt of a lady, simply because he loves her, but she does not love him.3 The most heartrending scene in the play shows his pathetic efforts to make conversation:
MALE LEAD: "What have you got in your hand?"
FEMALE LEAD: "Your hat."
MALE LEAD: "But it's clearly a shoe. How could it be a hat?" FEMALE LEAD: "If you already knew, why did you ask?"
A play that hardly fits within the category of Peking Opera at all, verging as it does on the burlesque, is Fang mianhua (The cotton weaver). The popular Xin fang mianhua (New cotton weaver) is based on just one scene from the original. The original story tells a tale of adultery that leads to murder. The sensationally successful revival of the play draws on this gruesome subject matter to create comedy. The Chinese sense of humor is merciless.
The reasons Xin fang mianhua sells so many tickets are that the actors are dressed in the latest styles instead of traditional Peking opera costumes and that when the cotton-weaving girl breaks into folk songs and other ditties, the audience can join in the play and sing along, breaking down the barrier between on- and offstage and fostering an atmosphere of lively informality not unlike a performance in a school auditorium. This tremendous relief from the rigid conventions of Peking opera has taken the country by storm.
Chinese people like the law, and they like breaking the law, too, not necessarily through murder or plunder of property but by way of trivial and unmotivated violations of the rules. If a wooden sign by the side of the road reads, "Stay to the Right," they will inevitably walk on the left. The deviations of Xin fang mianhua from the set mold of Peking opera are in just such a spirit: less a subversion of the system itself than a playful tug at an object reverenced by all, a tug that ultimately becomes a form of recognition rather than rebellion.
Chinese people love to believe themselves wicked and powerful and derive an immense pleasure from such fictions. A man on the street chases after an overcrowded tram. Then, realizing that it probably won't stop for him anyway, he calls out imperatively, "Don't stop! Don't you dare stop!" It does not, and he laughs to himself.
3Written in the Ming dynasty, Shuihu zhuan (The water margin) is one of the most beloved masterpieces of Chinese vernacular fiction, as well as an important progenitor of the martial arts novel.

 I have heard that Chinese are the only people on earth who maintain a sense of order and logic when they quarrel and curse. The English don't believe in the existence of hell, but when they are cursing someone, they shout "go to hell!" all the same. Their worst curse is to call something "bloody," but the real point of calling someone a "bloody arse," besides imputing their stupidity, is the satisfyingly vehement sound of the phrase. When a Chinese quarrels, he will say something very different: "You dare to curse me? Don't you recognize your own father?" The implication of an affair with his opponent's mother in some distant past imparts a tremendous sense of spiritual satisfaction.
Fang mianhua succeeds because it is the first play to exploit this instinct for one-upmanship. When the weaver's husband, Zhang San, interrogates his wife about who her lover might be, she simply points at the audience itself. The husband proceeds to bow to the deeply affected theater patrons, gratefully thanking them for "looking after my wife in my absence."
In attempting to analyze Peking opera, we may be surprised that despite the fact that China is not a warlike nation, the vast majority of the plays feature martial themes. The number of plays based on the Three Kingdoms alone is not inconsiderable. Decisive change takes place more swiftly on the battlefield than any other place, which is why we can most easily ascertain a man's character and his attitude toward his situation in that context. The defeats suffered by the Hegemon of Chu or Ma Jun present clear and easily digestible lessons, applicable to all the spectators in the audience, be they officials, businessmen, or housewives.4
I don't know if anyone else is reduced to tears like I am when they see Kongcheng ji (The empty city stratagem). The brilliant military strategist Zhuge Liang, in whom old soldiers will always have absolute faith, is a rare paragon indeed, unparalleled in ancient times or modern, China or the West.5 In this play, his beard has already begun to turn gray. He must cast aside the carefree life he has been leading at Sleeping Dragon Ridge to undertake a momentous mission, all on account of his lingering memories of the kindness of the late emperor, who has passed away. He thrusts himself into the heat of battle, risking his own life for the sake of Ah Dou, the unworthy heir of the emperor, but perhaps he wonders to himself all the while if it's really worth the struggle. There's a cold wisp of despair amid the clamor of the gongs of war.
4The Hegemon of Chu is also a character in the opera Farewell My Concubine (Bawang bieji). 5Zhuge Liang, a legendary military strategist of the Three Kingdoms period (third century A.D.) is immortalized in a number of vernacular dramas and works of fiction, including the Ming dynasty Sanguo yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

 The old plays that have been passed down provide us with formulas for feeling. To encapsulate the complexities of our daily lives within these formulas inevitably involves some sacrifice of complexity, but the results remain singularly gratifying. This condensation leaves the feelings stronger, surer, solidified by the weight of several thousand years of experience. Harmony between individuals and their environment is the happiest of occurrences, and a large part of what makes up that environment is the habits and customs of the masses.
The world within Peking opera is not contemporary China, and neither does it bear much resemblance to ancient China in any stage of its development. Its beauty and its narrowly tidy ethical system are worlds away from reality, but they are never a form of romantic escape, either. The transition from one point of view to another is often misunderstood as escapism. A cook holds up an emptied vegetable basket to shake off the few leaves of spinach still stuck to the bottom. The leaves, a translucent green in the checkered sunlight, remind him of climbing vines on a trellis. Now, the latter is no less real or homely an object than the former, and yet the analogy is pleasing, as it calls up associations to things that mean more to us because our thoughts have dwelt on them and art has shaped those thoughts to advantage. The tiny chores in the kitchen, the immediate reality, uninteresting by itself, gains significance through its connection with a more lucid, comprehensible reality.
Characters in Peking opera speak directly and unabashedly of whatever preys on their minds. If there is no one to listen to them onstage, they speak directly to the audience. If words are not sufficient, they supplement them with gestures, costumes, the colors and patterns of their face paint. Even weeping has its own distinctive meter: an exquisite diminuendo formed of a string of polished, rounded pearls of sound. On account of this surfeit of expression, those who are used to watching Peking opera find everything else pallid and lifeless by comparison. There may be just one or two actors onstage, but the volume of their presence implies a crowd.
Crowdedness is an important feature of Chinese drama and Chinese life. Chinese people are born in a crowd and die in a crowd, not unlike the French monarchs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (The last empress, Marie Antoinette, gave birth to her children in a large hall, separated from a crowd of nobles and ministers awaiting the good news only by a large screen around her bed.) For Chinese people, there is no escaping onlookers. A woman of the upper classes, if she is of a traditional bent, lives in nominal seclusion, sequestered in her boudoir, but once she wakes up in the morning she lacks even the right to close her bedroom door. In winter, a quilted curtain blocks out the wind, but the door is left wide open, inviting
 the scrutiny of every one in the household, great and small. To close a door in daylight hours would be to invite scandal. Even under the shelter of night, with the door closed and barred, an uninvited guest is able to see everything simply by licking the window paper with his tongue and peering in through the moistened spot.
Marriage and death are above all else matters of public concern. Spectators hide under the bed in the bridal chamber, and a man breathes his last surrounded by a roomful of people waiting to hear his last words. It is not without reason that Chinese tragedies are loud, bustling, and showy. Grief in Peking opera is rendered in bright tones and vivid colors.
This lack of private life explains a certain coarseness in the Chinese temperament. "Everything can be spoken," and that which is left unspoken is almost certainly dubious or criminal in nature. Chinese people are always astonished by the ludicrously secretive attitude foreigners bring to completely inconsequential matters.
The result of this lack of privacy is that even the most subtle and intimate feelings must be justified to an ever-present crowd of onlookers. This leads in turn to a habit of making excuses. Chinese are used to making excuses not only for themselves but also to themselves, which means that very few individuals truly understand their own behavior. Collective life has had its impact on the Chinese psyche. There are very few genuine eccentrics among the Chinese. A few exceptionally cultivated types may affect a passion for pines and bamboos, drink themselves silly, refuse to bathe, be unable to tolerate a single speck of dust, or refrain from speaking of anything having to do with money. But all these are commonly accepted eccentricities, with plenty of precedents in the culture. In segregating themselves from one crowd, they merely join another.
Nowhere is it possible to avoid the rules. In Peking opera, it could be said that the repetition of the rules has reached its pinnacle. The highly conventionalized beauty of the movements of the actors across the stage is referred to by westerners as dance, when in reality it represents the essence of ritual protocol. Ritual does not necessarily require a function or a meaning; often it is performed solely for the sake of performance. The custom of kowtowing in greeting has long since been eliminated. Apparently, to kowtow with style required a great deal of skill. Although I don't quite know how to do it correctly, I am quite willing to kowtow on holidays or other special occasions. Usually one's elders will only request that you pay your respects with a bow. Once when I was visiting my grandaunt's house, I went ahead and made a couple of kowtows instead, and no one tried to prevent me. In recent years, one rarely encounters people who were once accustomed to such practices. It is likely that people in the past had very little sense of just how precious the innocuous hindrance imposed by such rituals could come to seem. It is only now when the custom is about to die out entirely that it is mourned. Watching students file up to the podium to receive their diplomas at a graduation ceremony, one realizes immediately that most Chinese are not accustomed to bowing.
In the movie Nong ben chiqing (I'm a fool for you), Violet Koo asks for a divorce from her husband. Just as she is on the verge of leaving him forever, she offers to shake his hand. Suspecting that she has not been loyal to him, he ignores this gesture, and she slips forlornly away. In the West, a scene such as this might have rung true and tugged at the audience's heartstrings, but it simply does not play as well in China. In the West, the handshake has a history of several hundred years, such that it has become a natural form of expression that functions on an almost subconscious level. Chinese have also learned to shake hands in social situations, but in a life-altering situation, with the most powerful of emotions in play, no Chinese would ever use a handshake to mark a parting. A handshake would be inappropriate, as awkward as an exchange of farewells, a gesture of benediction, or even a bow. Modern Chinese have no etiquette at all, except onstage. The symbolic expressionism of Peking opera is complete. It possesses the childlike intensity of a people still in its infancy. What is strange, however, is that by the time Peking opera became popular, Chinese civilization was already long past its maturity. How is it that such a coarse product of the popular imagination could have gained the respect and approbation of the elegant denizens of the ruling class in the late Qing period? The New York public takes primitivist paintings and peasant pottery to heart on the enthusiastic recommendation of the art critics. The Chinese turn toward Peking opera and away from Kun-style opera directly contradicts the judgment of almost every connoisseurs Civilized people find the more civilized Kun style amenable to their tastes, but the newly emergent Peking opera has a childish vigor that ministers to our inner needs. The primitive in us has yet to be rooted out, perhaps because we are too tolerant as a civilization. And herein may lie the secret of our eternal youth.
6Kun-style opera (kunqu) originated in Kunshan, Zhejiang province, and reached the zenith of its popularity in the late Ming and Qing periods. It is known for its elegant emphasis on poetic diction and mellifluous, woodwind-based music. The style has usually been associated with literati patronage, especially in the prosperous and cultivated southeastern coastal cities such as Yangzhou and Suzhou, in marked contradistinction to the more popular, northern roots of Peking opera.