The Fate Of Peking Opera Essay

to a superior but as a “letter” to an equal, the letter was in Chinese

The Qing Dynasty’s collapse was due to three main influences, with underlying reasons involved in each. The first being foreign intervention related strongly to militarism, gunboat diplomacy, imperialism and the rise of unequal treaty systems. The second influence was China’s failure to reform and uprisings, such as the boxer rebellion and lastly economic decline. These three factors ultimately resulted in the downfall of the dynasty.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, beginning as a campaign targeted at removing Chairman Mao Zedong's political opponents, was a time when practically every aspect of Chinese society was in pandemonium. From 1966 through 1969, Mao encouraged revolutionary committees, including the red guards, to take power from the Chinese Communist party authorities of the state. The Red Guards, the majority being young adults, rose up against their teachers, parents, and neighbors. Following Mao and his ideas, The Red Guard's main goal was to eliminate all remnants of the old culture in China. They were the 'frontline implementers' who produced havoc, used bloody force, punished supposed 'counter

Scholars consider Mandarin popular songs as “the first kind of modern popular music developed in China” (Lau 106). These Mandarin pop songs were developed in Shanghai in the 1920s. In Shanghai, the “trendy Chinese in Shanghai mimicked the lifestyle of the city's foreigners, engaging in pastimes brought in from the West, and this was also

What is art? Art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination. Art can be classified in many different ways, and nobody has the right to turn down someone else's creations whether they are an art critic or just a friend. In both “The Soul of Capitalism” by Robert Collins and “When Canada Met Andy” by Nancy Tousley, a talented artists finds a way to create something new with a unique technique.

The Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, collected and put into text by Chinese scholar Pu Songling, is a collection of tales of mostly alchemic, supernatural, and paranormal nature. One of the common threads that runs through the collection is that of the sexual encounters and sexual relations between people, people and creatures, and people and supernatural beings. These stories deal with the subject of sexual indulgence, and clearly connote sex as a negative and dangerous aspect of human desires. Stir-Fry, the last story in Strange Tales, however, forcefully deviates from that trend of the perception of sexual desire. In Stir-Fry, Pu glides over the topic of the dildo and treats it as if it were just any normal other object that would be ridiculous to cook and serve guests at dinner. A scholar’s sexual desires are no less strange than the tales of sex in stories such as “The Fornicating Dog,” “The Painted Skin,” “Snake Island,” and especially “Lotus Fragrance.” The sexual nature of the toy Pu ignores completely, and he enforces the idea that sexual desires or encounters are not as strange or taboo as Pu himself makes them out to be in his earlier stories in the Strange Tales collection.

The 1993 movie directed by Kaige Chen, Farewell My Concubine, addresses the Chinese political issues during the war against Japan via interpersonal issues of an opera troupe of young male actors. The movie is as long as it is engaging. With two orphan boys who are raised to act in an Opera for their entire lives, dedication obtains a whole new meaning. Dieyi's training to act as a woman and to reflect femininity in his whole life increases the dissension that is observed within the film as well as its connections to the politics of China. The use of ghastly sound effects, close-up cinematographic techniques, and military involvement combine together in this movie to create a devastatingly dramatic experience.

In subsequent years following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China came a revolutionary new approach to not only producing films, but also film’s very role in communist society. During this period the state gained complete control of the filmmaking industry, decreeing that the utilitarian functions of art and literature were to become a powerful weapon in serving the revolutionary struggle. In an otherwise artistically stifling period in which socialist realism pervaded all creative outlets, Xie Jin managed to retain some autonomy and emerged as one of the cleverest Chinese directors in the early 1960s. In his 1961 film Red Detachment of Women, Jin provides a classic revolutionary melodrama, yet also displays elements of formalism so that the viewer becomes conscious of the manipulations of his film technique. To analyze this film, I will use Mao Zedong’s 1942 “Talks at the Yan 'an Forum on Literature and Art,” clip #10 “Landmark 2,” and clip #6 “We are joining the red army” to elaborate on the major themes and cinematic style that distinguish Xie Jin’s work from his contemporaries.

The Peony Pavilion is a Chinese play written by Tang Xianzu and first performed as Kunqu in 1598. Tang Xianzu was one of the greatest poet-playwright that lived in Ming dynasty of China. The Peony Pavilion was a very popular play at that time, and it was also a very long play that had total fifty-five scenes. The Peony Pavilion is not only telling a story of love but also proved true love can beat everything including feudal society and death.

China has about five thousand years history which is a very long period of time. Also, the Chinese civilization was growing with these periods of time and it will continues greater than ever. Many wars and unhappinesses were happening during this period. Although, the time has passed, the histories and the civilizations have not passed. These family virtues, serious, working attitudes, sense of justice and the great Confucian tradition have been deeply assimilated into the Chinese people. Some Chinese traditions are different from North American’s. The Chinese culture has many special characteristics which are very interesting for people to learn.

On Friday November 3rd I had the pleasure of attending an evening of Opera titled Love Through the Ages with Maria Fortuna and Nancy Townsend at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre. Having never been to an Opera performance I had no idea of what to expect and was looking forward to this new experience. Fortuna was accompanied by multi-faceted pianist Nancy Townsend. These two musicians showed tremendous expertise and were able to keep my attention through the extent of the program.

Art is supposed for expressing feeling and the visualizing the feeling or thoughts of the artists. Censorship is the suppression of content, which is defined as harmful, politically incorrect or sensitive by the authority (cited in Merriam, n.d.). Art and censorship have been connected for a long period of time together. In the recent society, the censorship on artworks is one of the most severe issues when it comes to censorship and the problem happens internationally. Since every individual has the right to define what is acceptable for him/her or not, instead of the government or others, Art should not be censored. The censorship on Art may influence the freedom of Creativity‬ of the artist; the right of the general public to view different topics of artworks and censorship on political Art may affect the human rights and freedom of speech.

The classical music period extends from 1740 to 1810, which includes the music of Haydn, Mozart, and the first period of Beethoven. The classical period of music combined harmony, melody, rhythm, and orchestration more effectively than earlier periods of music. With the natural evolution of music slowly changing with the culture, the baroque era had ended. That era had left a structure, articulation and periodic phrasing of music which would shape classical music.

It was released in the year 1993, covering the period of the Chinese social upheavals between the 1920s through to the 1970s in the setting of the Beijing Opera. The film raises the attitude of homosexuality in the most painful period of the traditional Chinese history, for the Chinese and Western viewers (Lau 1995, 22). Despite that, China holds a strong homosexual stigma within the twentieth century. According to Lau, this film was an opportunity to stimulate the inherent of the Beijing Opera in relation to the homosexual practices that were tolerated during the era (Lau 1995, 22). Zheng further suggested that the film was also a chance to understand the homophobic anxiety of the historical and political brutality in Chinese history (Zhang 1999, 101). The film attempts to illustrate that the Chinese cultural connections and homosexuality cannot coexist. The main protagonist, Cheng Dieyi, sense of identity is heavily reinforced by the power structure within the environment through harsh symbolic rapes. Lau suggested that the symbolic rapes, such as the loss of finger and getting a pipe forced into the mouth are indications of homosexuality (Lau 1995, 23). According to Zheng, the scene when Dieyi gets raped by the eunuch has exhibited Dieyi’s disruption towards the societal rejection of homosexuality (Zhang 1999, 104). Zheng also stated that Dieyi’s violent

Singapore, being a well-known cosmopolitan city, has many of its cultural roots coming from all over the world. Ever since the first record of Singapore’s’ population structure, the Chinese have dominated in racial concentration, now with a staggering 74.2% in 2013 . Through the course of history, these Chinese migrants have brought different cultural and religious norms, food preferences and conversing language to the little red dot from their various provinces. This essay will focus mainly on the entertainment pastime, Cantonese Opera; on how the Singapore government unintentionally had a hand in the decline of amateur Cantonese opera troupes, with specific