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Chinese Puppet Plays

a@b.com (ben) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 04:05:57 +0800

People around the world have used puppets for entertainment. People have used them to stage dramas and comedies and added musical entertainment and sound effects. Puppet plays of various types were popular in China. It is said that Mongol troops entertained themselves with puppet shadow plays as they conquered China and many countries to the west. There were several forms of puppet theaters in China. It isn’t known which developed first. The Chinese puppet theaters come in four forms: marionettes on strings or wires, rod puppets, shadow plays, and hand manipulated glove-type puppets.

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The Chinese Folk Dances

a@b.com (ben) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 04:01:16 +0800

When one speaks of folk dances in connection with Chinese culture, most people today think of the quaint folk dances of ethnic minorities, forgetting that the forefathers of the "tribe" that would later be referred to as the Han Chinese were perhaps the first Chinese people to make use of ritual dancing. The early Chinese folk dances, like other forms of primitive art, were essentially ritual enactments of superstitious beliefs performed in the hope of a good harvest, or – in the case of the earliest Chinese folk dances – in the hope of a good hunt, since the earliest Chinese folk dances were performed by hunter-gatherer folk.

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Chinese Shadow Plays

a@b.com (ben) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 03:58:36 +0800

People in ancient India, Indonesia and China and other places used shadow puppet plays for entertainment and religious purposes. One can imagine that stone-age people sat next to campfires and watched stories told on rock walls by shadows cast by using hands or figurines. In China, people staged dramas on screens and added musical entertainment and sound effects. Shadow plays were one of the types of puppet theater that were popular in China before the modern era. Three other types of puppet shows used rod puppets, glove puppets or marionettes on strings or wires. Shadow puppet theater was mainly an evening entertainment. Even in rough camps of troops or primitive villages, the people could entertain themselves by moving figures against a screen or sheet illuminated by a lamp. For the royal courts or the rich people, the performers added refined music and sound effects, and the shadow theater performers might have been highly experienced. Shadow puppet theater was a popular entertainment in China for at least a thousand years, and sometimes it is still seen in different forms for visual effects or entertainment.

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Roles in Beijing Opera

a@b.com (ben) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:51:26 +0800

The ten Chinese characters shown on left are from a song sung in a Chinese New Year Eve television program. It probably says everything about the roles in Beijing Opera. The first five characters list the five role categories. The rest tells what roles appear in the plays, from the powerful supernatural beings to animals like tigers and dogs. There are currently four main role categories in Beijing Opera. They are Sheng - Male Role, Dan - Female Role, Jing - Painted Face Male and Chou - The Comedy Role.

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Famous Beijing Opera Players

a@b.com (ben) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:50:06 +0800

The theatrical or musical occupation was considered the lowest class in the society. Opera performance used to be a male dominated profession. Mixed performances were prohibited. All the roles were played by male. Most of the actors entered the Training School as apprentices in their childhood because their parents could not feed them. They had to absolutely obey the commands of the school master and teachers. Any of the failure or even success would result in some heavy slashes or other physical punishment. Far earlier than the dawn, they had to get up to practice their voice and performance skills and do their mandatory works. Director CHEN Kai-Ge's film Farewell my Concubine gives a picture of the situation. Female were rare and usually took this profession because of their family background. But this also gives an account on how hard they should practice their skill in order to be a successful player. It is said that a flash in the stage is a reflection of ten years unremitting hard work.

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Beijing Opera Stage Set-up

a@b.com (ben) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:48:10 +0800

In the past, stages in most Chinese theaters were square platforms exposed to the audience on three sides, even all sides sometimes. In the latter case, performances could be watched from the back also. An embroidered curtain known as a shoujiu was hung over the platform, which was thus divided into two parts: the back stage and the stage.

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Beijing Opera

a@b.com (ben) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:45:34 +0800

Beijing Opera of China is a national treasure with a history of 200 years. In the 55th year of the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1790) , the four big Huiban opera Troupes entered the capital and combined with Kunqu opera, Yiyang opera, Hanju opera and Luantan in Beijing's theoretical circle of the time. Over a period of more than half a century of combination and integration of various kinds of opera there evolved the present Beijing Opera. Beijing Opera is the most significant of all operas in China, and it has a richness of repertoire, great number of artists and audiences, that give it a profound influence in China and plays a large role in Chinese culture.

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Chinese Kung Fu

a@b.com (ben) — Thu, 12 May 2011 04:37:21 +0800

Kung fu, (also known as wushu or martial arts) is one of the most well known examples of traditional Chinese culture. It it is probably one of the earliest and longest lasting sports which utilizes both brawn and brain. The theory of Kung Fu is based upon classical Chinese philosophy. Over its long history it has developed as a unique combination of exercise, practical self-defense, self-discipline and art. In sports like track and field, ball sports, weightlifting, and boxing, an athlete typically has to retire from full participation in his 30s. Injuries sustained during years of active sport participation at a young age can that affect our health in later life. In Chinese Kung fu however, a distinction is made between "external" and "internal" kung fu. It is said that "In external kung fu, you exercise your tendons, bones, and skin; in internal kung fu, you train your spirit your qi, and your mind."

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Chinese Food

a@b.com (ben) — Thu, 12 May 2011 04:27:14 +0800

RICE

China is the world’s largest rice producer, and one of the earliest centers of rice cultivation. For thousands of years, the Chinese people have been diligently cultivating their land for favorable harvests. The agricultural way of life, with rice as the center, has played an important role in China’s history. In the past, people held the belief that the precious things of life are the five grains with rice being number one, instead of pearls or jade.

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Traditional Chinese Medicine

a@b.com (ben) — Thu, 12 May 2011 04:19:54 +0800

Traditional Chinese Medicine (abbreviated as TCM) is more than just a collection of roots and herbs that are believed to have healing powers. According to Chinese religious philosophy, all things in nature, both on this planet and beyond, are interrelated. Traditional Chinese Medicine embraces a number of other health-related concepts, in the broadest sense, concepts such as animism (the notion that all things possess a spirit), the yin and the yang (the notion of opposing forces in nature and of striking the right balance between the two), Qi Gong and Fengshui (both are based on the mind-over-matter notion that there exist exogenous forces in nature that can and should be harnessed in order to provide well-being, and that where these are not properly harnessed, or are ignored, they can in fact do harm), and even a cosmic dimension.

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