STILL ALIVE

By EILEEN CHANG

Eller 8illC8 Jllarco Polo vi.iUd C/li.nn. lItou.,td. of boob ItafHl butl wrjU811"OOllt thi. cau",ry, and 30fHe peopl8 ".i1J1lI fui tltol tAere v nodl"., '1e\O ~Jt tha'could b8 Ilaid o6ota iI. Tltw, 11_, w 1IM~. TIM ~mDj~ oj litualur8collurllillg Clti_ aM tM CltifWlH~ of tM ducriptiqn of Jad-".~l,gcograpAical, culhuol, linguUt4ic. aM othn.. But, in OO1tIrruI 10 tM "imta,atAceJltllry, o"r ag8 i. mor8 inlllruUd i" U18 "why" tIlan in tM "will/I," arid i4 ... inthill ruPlld I1atU 0 grw deal _iJl remai".. 10 b8 don8.

The jollOVltng orltek, dtoling with a jam&lU old ClainU8 iMitwion. dou,1« add j1U4 one more 10 1118 _,,~J- tJ.criplion.t of lAt• .t1Ibject, bill lriu 1oa'".wu 1M~.. toly lAw iNlilutio" w _ill «) poptI/IJr i" preHJtI-day China.

M'lM BilH" 01e4flg, WON carlicl8 "CAinue LV- and Fm,laio'I8" (Jolll/ory19/3) joulid muM acdaim among our readllr8, ill 0 Chinue W/lO, in COlitNIst to I1IQ/1'oj hcr C01I~, cIou 'WI lIi"""ly lak_ China Jor grallted. /I i.. Au deep curio8ityabollt Iter0_ fHOPle wllich enablell IIIlr to 'i'lterpret tl.e ChillUe 10 th8joreigrlu.-K.lt/.

NE\ ER before has the hardened cityof Shanghai boon moved 80 muchby a playas by "AlttU7nn Quince"

("Chiu Hai Tang"), 0. sentimental melo­drama which has been running at theCarlton Theater since December 1942.The play, freely adapted from a Dovelof the same name, haa Dot yet boonpublished, but the majority of the au­dience attend the performance 80 regularlythat they learn the dialogues by heartand anticipate everything said, repeatingaloud the more stirring speeches afterthe actors. Strong men weep copiouslyat the tragic downfall of a Peking Operastar, a female impersonator, who at18wersto the lyrical stage name of AutumnQuince.

The success of the play has given riseto a host of imitators. At one time therewere DO less than six plays showing si­multaneously in Shanghai which dealtwith the private lives of Peking Operastars and backstage intrigues. ("PekingOpera" is the term used for the prevailingform of Chinese stage play, which ischaracterized by singing after set tunesand by dialogues in a mixture of thePeking and Hupeh dialects; by conven­tionalized costumes, masks, and move­ments; and by the absence of scenery.)The color and atmosphere of Peking

Opera strongly prevails in these plays,with here and there a brief interlude ofactual Peking Opera. It astounds U8 toreflect that, although the new theater ofChina haa taken a fumly antagonisticstand against Peking Opera from its yeryconception, the first real triumph of thenew thoater is a compromise-a. humiliat­ing fact.

Why is the Peking Opera so deep­rooted and universal a favorite ill theChinese entertainment world, althoughits artistic supremacy is fa,r from undis­putedl

THE QUOTING HABIT

It is significant that tho most memo­rable line in Autl£7nn Quince i8 a quotationfrom a Peking Opera, and that in turn isa quotation from old poetry. It goesthus: .

"Wine partaken with a true friend­0. thousand cups are not enough;

Conversation, when disagrooable­half a sentence is too much."

These words deeply touch AutumnQuince, aged, disfigured, penniless, in­tensely lonely, when he sings them forthe benefit of an upstart actress whogets the beat wrong. To the audience,the situatioD is immensely enriched by

STILL A.LIVE 433

the quotation. The Chinese are everalive to the joy of &n apt quotation.Picturesque phrases, words of wisdom,jokes two thousand years old, freelycirculate in everyday speech. These arethe tissues of a living past. Tho body oftraditions is invigor&ted by its continualapplication to new people, new events.In contrast to people in the West, theChinese never say anything direct whenthere is a suitable quotation at hand­which there always is. Nearly everyimaginable situation has been enshrinedin a cozy little phrase.

A man troubled by the insocurity ofhis position compares himself to "theswallow nesting on a curtain." Theopium 8D1oker is shown in a mosttlattering, fairy-like aspect as one who..inhales the clouds and exhales the mist."The Chinese are especially good at beingmodest, hence a writer calls his own epi­logue to somebody else's book or anatt.empt to complete the unfinished wQrkof some deceased author, "a dog's tailattached to a sable."

Ninety per cent of what passes for witin our country is the skillful applicationof the past to the present. To Chinesestudents, the mastery of English idiomsand set phrases is the mastery of Englishwit-which accounts for the popularityof little handbooks enlisting idiomaticphrases which, they believe, have only tobe grammatically linked together to makegood reading matter.

ROMANTIC ESCAPEl

Perhaps nowhere else in the world docst,he past play so active a role in commoneveryday life-the past in the sense ofelucidated experience, communal memo­ries analyzed by the historical viewpoint.H we see the quotations in this light, therelation of Peking Opera to the world oftoday is also in the nature of a quotation.The world of Peking Opera bears a verythin resemblance to the Chinese world inany given stage of our evolution, and yetthe public has a·t the back of its mindthe impression that the Peking Operaworld, with its tidy ethics, its beautyand finish, is a faithful representation ofthe old order. Our elders regret that it

has now passed away; two hundred yearsago, men of the last dynasty also felt asif it had jU8t ceased to exist. It neverdid exist. Is it romantic escape, then,that it o~ U8~

The Peking Opera is an escape only inthe sense of the transition from onepoint of view to another. A cook holdsup an emptied vegetable basket to shakeoff the few leaves of spinach stuck in thebottom. The leaves, a translucent greenin the checkered sunlight, remind him ofclimbers on a trellis. Now the latter isno less real or homely an object than theformer, and yet the analogy is pleasing,8S it calls up associations to things whichmeah more to us becauso men's thoughtshave dwelt upon them and men's art hasshaped those thoughts to advantage.The tiny chores in the kitchen, the im­mediate reality. uninteresting by itself,gains significance through its connectionwith a more lucid, comprehensible reality.

Whatever preys upon the peace of mindof the inhabitants of the Peking Operaworld, they "have it out," if not withother characters in the play, then straight\lith the audionce. They express them­selves flauntingly, not only in spokenwords (which we know from our owndaily experience to be inadequate), butalso in gestures, tune, movement, cos­tumes, the colors and patterns of thefacial makeup. All these means of ex­pression are highly unnatural. Men walkin a hippy 8wagger and women in timorousmincing stepe, both with an exaggeratedgrace. Even sobbing is exquisitely timed-a diminuendo of round and polisheddrope of sound. Other forms of personaldisplay are more unreasonable and borderon the ridiculous. But it is this con­sistent overoxpression which enables theone or two actors on the stage to expandand multiply themselves, so that thestage alway. looks well peopled. Thodesirable crowded effect thus achieved isan important feature of Chinese dramaand Chinese life.

THE CROWD AND CBlNE8E PSYCHOLOGY

Like French monarchs of old, theChinese are bom in a crowd and die in 8.

434 THE XXth CE~TURY

crowd. There i 110 getting away fromonlookers. A woman of the upper classeslives in nominal seclusion, but from theJUoment she rises in the morning the doorof her bedroom is not suppoped to beclosed. In rigorous weather a cotton­padded curtain wards off the icy wind,but the door remains ajar, welcoming theinspection of all mem bel'S of tho houso­hold. A door closed in day timo is con­sidered scandalous. Even under thoshelter of tho night, an uninvited guostwith any initiativo at all can see every­thing behind the barred door by lickingthe paper pasted on the window andpeering through the moistened spot.

Above all else, marriage and deathare affairs of publio concern. AJUan breathes his last under the watchfuleyes of all members of the family, thenear relatives, and the most lowly of theservants. It is not without reason thatwe find the Chinose tragedies bu tling,noisy, showy. Grief in Peking Opera hasbright, positive colorings.

The lack of privacy in China oxplainsa certain coarseness in the Chinese tem­pemment. There are no such things as, the lonely places of the soul." The mostintimate feelings have to be defensively,satisfactorily explained for the benefit ofthe ever-present crowd. Whatever can­not be mado public must perforce beguilty. The Chinese are forever astonishedby the ridiculously secretive attitudeforeigners take to entirely inconsequentialthings.

~o ECCENTRICS

The influence of the crowd has muchto do with the fact that there is verylittle genuine eccentricity to be foundamong tho Chinese notables, even in thefield of art and letters. The artists havetheir strong likes and dislikes, but muchof it is sheer affectation. They go with­out washing or take to tho oppositeextreme of being unable to stand a singlespeck of dust; loathe the talk of money;cultivate a weakness for pines and bam­boos, and propose to drink themselves todeath-all because these are the accepted

appendage. to art in China. In egregut­ing themselves from one crowd theymerely join another.

The habit of quoting, the ince ant rep­etition of trea ured ideas of the culturalinheritance, leads naturally to the doggedadherence of certain ideas to one another.The psychological meohanism is trainedto work in such a way as to make itimpossible for one who is drawn by oneidea to extricate himself from the entiredevouring system which dictates t,he lifeof a certain crowd.

Similarly, with the Peking Opera, thedifferent factors of physical and vocalexpression arc ~ystematized so that theywork in close co-operation. Touch one,and the entire frame is set in motion.The Peking Opera world materializesonly with the orderly revolution of theentire constellation. The slightest devia­tion in some one aspect, and that world,fragile like all things of perfection, faUsinto ruin. Hence the supreme emphasison the rigorous enforcement of conven­tions in Peking Opera.

THE SECRET OF ETER~Ar. YOl:TH

This method of conventionalization,with its crude thoroughnes:J, its childlikeintensity, is no different from that of thedramas of many infantile and adolescentcivilizations. But China's is the onlycase in whjch tlti teclmique has beenevolved and perfected when the civiliza­tion was already past its maturity.

The nineteenth-century Chinese foundPeking Opera, an adequate embodimentof their radal inheritance. Peking Operareflects the national trait,s and inclina­tions most faithfully because it is a nat­uml growth originating from the peasant­ry, "ith very little artificial interferencefrom the higher quarters. P king Operaoriginated not in Peking but ill the prov­inces of Anhwei and Hupeh, where itamused the gods and, incidentally, thepeasantry on divine birthdays and fe ti­vals ill geneml. For some time it remainedone of the many types of provincial dra-

STILL ALIVE

mas held in disdain by adherents of theelegant Kwun Opera, handed down fromthe previous dynasty and much polishedup by the literati. A revolutionary actor,Wang Kwei-fung, experimentally com­bined the Anhwei Opera with the dramabrought in by the Manchus. The result wasa great success, especially among royaltyand officials, so that the center of theat­rical activity shifted to the capital.

That the sophisticated upper classesare receptive to such a product is atremendous tribute, not so much toPeking Opera, as to its new audience.Then, as now, the Chinese public was fondof Peking Opera against its better judg­ment. Our case is the exact opposite tothe New York public, which takes toimpressionism, surrealism, peasant pot­tery, etc., upon the recommendation ofart critics. Chinese men of taste areunanimous in pronouncing Peking Operavulgar, lowbrow, but its childlike vigorappeals to the primitive in us which theChinese civilization has been too sloppyto root out. Somewhere about therelies our secret of eternal youth.

CLASSICAL AND COLLOQUIAL SPEECH

In its scanty dialogues the PekingOpera employs a mixture of classical andcolloquial speech. The former, thoughoutworn, is indispensable because it hasat its command the majority of thoseset phrases which the Chinese so dearlylove. With the aid of these phrases theclassical language is able to convey themost complex feelings in an amazinglyshort sentence. Young writers in theearly days of the Republic, in resolutelydiscarding classical speech, have neversucceeded in overcoming the Chineseattachment to quotations. The newliterature too often combines the pedantryof the classical speech with the clumsyforeignized style freshly imported. It isa more sensible compromise-the graphicqualities of the classics plus the intimacyof colloquialism-that Lin Yu-tang isafter in his attempted literary reform.However, nowhere else are the two co­existing languages so harmoniouslyblended as in Peking Opera. There the

dialogue is delivered in the singsong tunewhich is a natural accompaniment ofclassical recitations, and it is this singsongtune which binds together t·he two stylt:'sof speech that would otherwise be ex­tremely jarring side by side.

E~1PIlASIS ON BREVITY

By far the most important feature ofPeking Opera is its music. Rickshacoolies know it only in the form of singingwhich comes to them in loud blasts fromradios in the shops. Connoisseurs go tothe theater to hear, not to see. Themusic of Peking Opera reflects the ex­treme and perhaps disproportionate em­phasis on brevity in all forms of Chineseart. We do not seem able to appreciatevast complicated construction in art.European symphonies, in which form isdiscernible only when viewed as a whole,are to the Chinese a giant, unintelligible,sprawling mass. The Peking Opera tunesare short and shapely, and their effectinstantaneous. Every line and stanza isa semidetached entity.

Drums, cymbals, castanets are onlyused to help out the atmosphere. Thechief instrument, the Hun's Guitar, seem­ingly monotonous but really very supple,plays several standard tunes: the SwingBeat, the Slow Beat, the Quick Beat, theReyersed Beat, the Original Beat, etc.As vehicles of expression these cover theentire emotional range. Anger, haste,ecstatic surprise are keyed to the QuickBeat. A man in a reflective or melancholymood sings in the Slow Beat.

The male voice is akin to the Westerntenor or baritone, but the female voice isnearer to the bird and the flute than thesoprano. It does not aim at naturalness,and that is why the public prefers femaleimpersonators to actresses. This mayseem paradoxical, since actresses are farless costly to train and the moral objec­tions to their working in the theater havenow been removed. However, a man'svoice has more volume, his figure lastslonger, and when he makes a name forhimself he does not marry the highestbidder and retire.

436 THE XXth CENTURY

CL.o\Y TEA POTS

The lyrics, written to go with the tunes,a,re regulated by severe restrictions onthe natme of vowels in the words em­ployed. We may think it hard to writelines which answer all those requirementsand yet make sense and are easily under­stood. But experience proves that re­strictions act as stimulants to Chinesethought. The Chinese always create bestwith a predetermined mold, as in thecase of Tang poetry a,nd Sung lyrics.Modern Chinose poetry has had scantuccess because it starts out with a

negation of form.

The Chinese are not a self-seeking mcein the big things of life. Maybe that iswhy they are very selfish in the smallthings as a compensation. In the bigthings by which a nation is knmvn to itsdistant neighbors and posterity-art, forinstance-form comes first, invariably.Personal success is judged by the degreein which the individual is submerged inthe traclitional form. It is not thatoriginality is not valued, but the artistspends his originality on the effort toovercome those qualities in him whichmay be excellent but which hinder aperfect fit into the form.

With the clay teapots of China, theolder the pot the better the tea tastes init, because the porous clay has suckedup the essence of the tea of other days.Similarly, the ilmovators in Peking Operaenrich the eternal mold with the faintaroma of their own personalities. To saythat they leave behind the imprints oftheir personalities would suggest toomuch violence done to the pre-existingform.

The humility of the Chinese attitudetoward form is equally manifest in otherfields. Politically, tho Chinese neverdream of imposing their own privatetheories upon existing social patt,erns.The only three daring reformers in Chinesehistory-Wang Mang, Wang An-shih, andRang Yu-wei, living respectively in thesecond, eleventh, and nineteenth centuries-unanimously refer to saintly legendaryemperors (whose pleasantly vague style

of government has become an inseparablepart of Chinese political science) as thesources of their new measures. Thisreliance on authority cannot be dismissedas a mere symptom of the habitual fearof responsibility. Rather does it show aconsciousness of the integrity of the pastand present as a whole.

WATERTIGHT TYPES

Once we tmderstand the Chinese at­titude toward origina,lity, we find iteasier to accept the fact that the wholelot of popular Peking Operas a,re curiouslyfree from the slightest mark of individualcreativo genius. It appears to be ashattering conclusion that all the playscould have been written by one man.But then, the numerous restrictions ruleout the free choice of style, and as forthe subject, there is only one-which isMan, and not the individual. Personalirrelevancies are ruthlessly suppressed orignored.

The characters are divided into water­tight types, but these are only Man inhis different moods and capacities. Wehave the :Military Actor, the MilitaryActress, the Bearded Actor (the maturedman), the Young Actor, the Blue Gown(the good woman, usually a tragic char­acter), the Flower Actress (the Yamp),the Clown, the Literary Clown, theMilitary Clown, etc.

This thoroughgoing generalization elim­inates scenery, because the historicalbackground is unimportant. In whatevertime or clime, the lover would be a lover,the fighter a fighter.

China is the only country consistentlyloyal to Man as he is. The Chinese aremore interested in the ordinary man thanin his aspirations-the ascetic, the super­man, the regimented fighting machine,the skilled specialist. This contentmentwith the strictly human plane is clearlymarked in Peking Opera. China has itsfantasies, its colorful stories of the super­natural, but the Chinese mystery playswith their gorgeous gods and demonshave never enjoyed any permanent pop­ularity.

STILL ALIVE 437

CRINESE MORALS

Although the operas are apparentlygoverned by a tidy moral code, moralitynever amounts to a religion with theChinese. From the Age of the WarringNations onwards, a number of dashingwn,rriors, scholars, and statesmen, obsessedby a fastidious sense of honor, have diedfor IIlore nothings and have been lavishlypraised by historians; but they do notha\'e the wholehearted approval of eldersand housewives, those who really matter.The lifo of an individual is not his ownto dispose of, because it involves toomany weighty institutions. The Chinesemay marvel at extravagantly moral menand women, but they secretly consider ita misfortune to have them for membersof their own family. They want theirown offsprings to be modest, unasaumingpeople who keep the ancestral belongingsin order, attend to the ancestral graves,beget children to carryon the line, anddie in quiet mediocrity. Even in a morerespeotable era than ours, the IIlorals inPeking Opera were to the audience onlythe Sunday clothes in their psychologicalwardrobe. Hence the supposed collapseof old moral standards does not at all affectthe Chinese devotion to Peking Opera.

8.ulPLES

In attempting to analyze the contentsof the operas, we may be surprised atthe large number of war plays. The twogreat cycles based on TM Tak of 1MThru Kingdoms and .AU Men AreBrotlters taken alone add up to animpressive one third of the popular rep­ertoire. The Chinese are not a warlikerace, but the life of a military man, fullof the swiftest changes, excitement, andups and dOWDS, provides much materialfor analogy to the official or businesacareer. A war ill Peking Opera is neverdirected toward a,oy other end exceptthe personal fortune of the loader andhis dependents.

Lady Precious Stream, one of the best­knOWJl of the Peking Operas, portrays theexquisite selfishn688 of men. It is char­acteristic of the male temperament thatthe hero pursues his oareer for eighteen

years with never a thought of the wifeback homo. But, once he is rominded ofher existence, he rushes back day andnight to deliver her from the state of asocial outcast in which he has left her.He expects that the bliss of reunion issufficient compensation for the povertyand loneliness which has laid waste thebest years of her life. He does not realizethat he is offering her an impossible situs­tion-she has to maintain her authorityas head of the house in the face of ayounger, all-powerful wife to whom heowes his rise. She dies eighteen daysafter having been made a queen, sup­posedly killed by the joy of it. Such isthe charm of Peking Opera that it makesthe hero no loss sympathetic a role onthat account.

GIRL GUIDE AND SUGAR DADDY

Spring in the Hall of Jade typifies thecountle88 talee in China on the theme ofthe virtuous prostitute. That she makesher living on her looks implies that shemust be attractive, in addition to whichshe is good. The modem Chinese hasoutgrown many ancient ideals, but notthis one. (In a recent film entitledTroubles in tl,e Fragrant Bower, troublearises because of a "girl guide," whoseprofession is a most infamous institutionin Shanghai. The movie advertisementin the newspapers is devoid of all detailsexcept a single arresting phrase: "TheChaste Girl Guide," which alone is suffi­oient to make the movie a draw.)

In the Peking Opera TM Scheme of 1MBlack Bowl, a man is murdered and hissoul imprisoned through witchcraft in avessel used as a commode. To Western­ers, it appears puzzling how such ridicu­lous, Unmentionable things can be as­sociated 'lith high tragedy, except by 8

people entirely devoid of any sense ofhumor. It is owing to their incrediblefrankness with the physiological functionsthat the Chinese feel no disgust, only pit~·

and horror, at the poor soul's torment.

The sugar-daddy theme is given sym­pathetio treatment in TM, Courtyard oftM, Black Dragon. The man here is theswashbuckling leader of the 108 brigands

438 THE XXth C~~URY

THE "WICKED" CHL"iESE

gesture of rec-.great reverence - aognition.

The success of TM Cotton Weaver isalso partly due to the Chinese enjoymentof a fictitious sense of wickedness andpower. The man in the street hails anovercrowded tram. Then, realizing thatit probably will not stop to pick him up,he calls out imperatively, "Don't stop!Don't you daro stop!"-and it does not.He laughs, aglow with terrible might.

When a man quarrels with another heshouts, "You dare swear at me? Don'tyou recognize your father?" The im­plication of an affair with his opponent'smother in the distant past gives himgreat spiritual satisfaction. The Chinesein a moment of manly anger invariablysuggests that his enemy's wife or motheris his mistress.

The CotUm We.GtV' succeeds because itis the only show to exploit this instinct.The weaver's husband returns from afar,discovers she has been unfaithful, andforces her to confess who is her lover.She points at the audience. Instead ofexploding with anger, the husband bowsto the deeply affected audience a.nd sa.ys:"Thank you for looking after my wifeduring my absence."

• • •These typical, timeless, universal situa­

tions provide well-established emotionalformulas for the Peking Opera public.When the complicated feelings in actuallife afe resolved into such olear-cutformulas, much may be lost during theprocess, but the result is singularlygratifying. The simplification leaves thefeelings stronger, surer, with the weight

of centuries of experience be­hind them. It is alwayspleasant to fall in with an oldtradition, to be harmoniouswith the communal habitwhich makes up a great partof one's surroundings. ThePeking Opera is to the Chinesean emotional rut, well oiledby the generations who havefallen into it.

immortalized in All Men Are Brother8,but that does not prevent him frommaking a fool of himself before a courtesanwhom he is keeping. We see his patheticattempts at conversat,ion:

'What is it you ha.ve in your hand?""Your hat," she replies."Oh, but it is evidently a shoe. How

can it be a haU""You know it, and yet you ask?"

The wearisome affection of aD unwantedman and the cruelty of the woman whodoes not love in return cannot be betterdepicted than in this sardonic comedy.

THE MACABBE BUBLESQUE

Another show which can only betermed Peking Opera by courtesy is TheCotto7& Weaver, a burlesque, a little piccowhich has detached itself from a playabout adultery which leads to murder.The callousness in the Chinese sense ofhumor is such that out of this gruesomesubject it hll8 made the most sensa­tional comedy of many years. Pekingand Shanghai have gone wild over itsrecent revival.

Dressed in the latest style instead ofa Peking Opera costume, the CottonWeaver sings while she works, mimickingthe mannerisms of the Four Great FemaleImpersonators and other celebrities, andbackchats with the audience, which has avoice in the choice of her subjects. Anatmosphere of cheery informality pre­vails, a tremendous relief from the rigidconventions of Peking Opera.

The Chineso are a law-abiding people.They get the full flavor out of laws, notnecossarily in the dexterous manipulationof legal quibbles to save a man's neckor gain him a fortune, but indeliciously pointless little vio­la,tions, such a8 walking on theright side of the street whenthere is a poster telling themto go by the left. The CottonWea.ver sins ltgainst the PekingOpera tradition in the rightspirit. It is not a reactionagainst the system, only apla.yful tug at an object of