Chinese Opera With Dr. Lu Senior

 This character is actually a monkey from the Monkey King story. I guess it's very popular in China - especially among the children.


We had another team meeting tonight where we met Dr. Lu Sr. (former dean of Beijing Opera), Dr. Pong (Dr. Lu Sr.'s wife - a renowned physician in China), Dr. Lu Jr. (founder of Golden Courage International). It was so great!! All are very nice are so excited to have us come to China this summer. Dr. Lu and Dr. Pong spoke little English, so Dr. Lu Jr. translated for most of our conversation. Since they have much experience with Chinese Opera, Dr. Lu (Sr.) shared a powerpoint presentation, complete with clips and videos, of what opera is like in China. 

Classical Chinese opera is very different than what Americans think of opera. In China, it includes singing (in Mandarin), dancing (Chinese dance), acting, Kung Fu (Asian stage fighting), and acrobatics/tumbling. The costumes are very intricate and actors usually have their faces painted. Each color of paint has a different meaning. For example, red is courage and bravery; blue and green represent fierceness and astuteness. Yellow is a sign of a violent temper. And silver and gold are colors of gods. If interested, this website is a really good resource for Chinese opera:

http://www.southbaychineseschool.org/FLAP/0607/ChineseOpera.pdf

So after the opera presentation (Dr. Lu Sr. even acted out a scene and sang for us!) we learned how it is going to play into our trip to China. Before today, I believed our team was going to watch performances each night our first week. But it gets even better.... that whole first week in China, it is going to be like we are opera students. We are going to watch the various classes (singing, dancing, acting, Kung Fu, acrobatics). We also are going to shadow the performers and learn their parts!! We get to try on the opera costumes and even get our faces painted with our favorite colors!! I cannot believe it. It all sounded so exciting while Lucinda was telling us, that I wanted to squeal. Trying on costumes and make up?! WOW!

Towards the end of our meeting, we all went around the room and introduced ourselves to our guests. After introducing ourselves, Dr. Lu Sr. asked if we wanted Chinese names for our time in China! Apparently, Chinese names are taken very seriously and a lot of thought is put into a person's name. Not to say that names aren't important in America, but Americans probably do not care quite the same way about a name as the Chinese do. So Dr. Lu Sr., Dr. Pong and Dr. Lu Jr. are going to look at our pictures, read our biographies and they are going to assign us our Chinese names next week! When we are in China this summer, we will be able to get "chops" (I guess they're like stamps) that we can use to stamp our names back in the states. We'll also learn Chinese calligraphy so we can write our names with their special brushes and ink. This is going to be great!

I posted pictures of what the face paint looks like in traditional Chinese opera. It's very intricate and symbolic. If you have any suggestions on what colors/designs I should have my face painted like this summer, I'd love to hear them! 

Xie xie! (Thank you!)

Love,

Morgan