A Foreigner Learns Peking Opera

Born in Iran and raised in the UK, Gefa came to Beijing at the age of 32 to study Peking Opera, which he has been doing for 14 years now. Because he studied Monkey Opera, everyone called him the Monkey King. In order for foreigners to better understand Peking Opera, he has adapted it

into an English version, and for each performance he finds a few ordinary foreigners to play minor roles in the play,

and the man

will play the land in this performance. "Blue-faced Douerdun stole the imperial horse, red-faced Guan Gong war Changsha ......" in the ticket hall of Chang'an Grand Theater, the reporter has just thrown a question to the British young man Jiang Bi, who is studying in the Department of History at Peking University, and he generously sang the opera song, "Rap Faces". Jiangbi came to China only two years, but has become a fan of Peking Opera, he is very insider said: "Peking Opera is full of humor, especially the clowns, no clowns can't make a play! Although countries have different traditional cultures, but the art is common, especially martial arts theater that unique theatrical language is more easily accepted by people around the world."

Jiangbi was dragged to a Peking opera by a friend when he first came to Beijing. "There was a scene where I saw an old man rowing with an oar, and I thought there was a problem with the choreography and the boat had forgotten to be moved to the stage. Later I realized that they rode horses only with a whip, and like the Peking Opera "Pick up the Jade Bracelet", only through the heroine's virtual sewing, feeding the chickens and showing the joy after picking up the jade bracelet, it was very graphic to explain the place and time of the story very clearly, I was immediately excited. Although I couldn't understand the plot the first time I saw the opera, and the singing and music I heard were so strange, their costumes and face paint were so beautiful, and the martial arts scenes were like Chinese kung fu movies, so wonderful. Peking Opera is really brilliant in showing human activities so realistically without props."

Bilingual Peking Opera Attracts Foreigners to Theater

Tian Jiaxin, who is in charge of publicity for the Chang'an Grand Theater, recalled, "In 2005, the Beijing Peking Opera Theater's production of 'The Dragon and the Phoenix' with bilingual subtitles drew a large number of foreign journalists based in Beijing to come see the play. Throughout the performance, their eyes followed the actors on stage as they tumbled and thrashed and fought, while at the same time they kept going back and forth between the performances and the subtitles, which, according to Pilat, a reporter from the Latin News Agency, 'really kept them busy'."

Al Jazeera reporter Amal Hagri, who studied in China for a year, also dragged her husband and two children to the Chang'an Grand Theater to see the bilingual Peking opera. Hagri said with interest: "Foreigners watch Peking Opera mostly to see the hustle and bustle. In the eyes of foreigners, Peking Opera is the representative of China's thousands of years of ancient civilization, they are rushing to this."