One Night At the Teochew Opera (part I)

My Hong Kong internet friend, Sun Di, had arranged to meet me after my training today to visit a shop selling Chinese opera accessories. However, he had a change of plan and instead he brought me to watch a Chinese opera performance in Shek Kip Mei. Shek Kip Mei is a district north of Tsim Sha Tsui and just 5 MTR stations away. My friend told me that in previous years, the Chinese opera crowd was large, but the number dropped over the years as local residents moved away due to redevelopment of the area.

The moment we walked out of the MTR station, I could see bright lights from a distance, as well as a tall and colourful bamboo-and-paper structure, typical setups for Yu Lan Festival celebrations (in Singapore this festival is known as Hungry Ghost Festival). The opera troupe performing today is Yun Xiao Teochew Opera Troupe from Yunxiao district of Zhangzhou, Fujian province. I was pleasantly surprised as I had long wanted to watch their performance although I have only heard of them in the past. Little did I expect that I would be able to see them perform live in Hong Kong.

Sun Di was very familiar with the troupe and I had the chance to visit the backstage with him. Once on stage I had this sense of familiarity almost immediately, as every member of the troupe converse with one another in southern Min dialect (Hokkien), instead of Teochew or Cantonese. The people in the troupe were quite friendly, and some of them even asked me about my background. Their show, however, was far from my expectation. First, quite a number of the actors still have that Zhangzhou accent when they were on stage, which sounded very weird. I don’t know if I was watching Teochew opera or Xiang opera (Hokkien Gezi opera popular in Zhangzhou)! Also, some actors kept forgetting their lines on stage and it was very obvious. There was also a scene whereby 3 actors had to hold hands in a line and weave in and out among themselves. However they did a wrong move and ended up entangled. It just looked ugly, and simply not what a professional troupe should be. According to my friend, the troupe had split up into 2 small groups to perform in 2 areas simultaneously. Perhaps that’s why the mess as these actors could be new to this show. Nevertheless I did not finish watching the show as it was just not good, and hence left with Sun Di for supper, together with another Internet Teochew opera friend Ling Jie who happened to be there as well.

I hope this is not the usual standard of this troupe, as from what I know, they are rather well known back in Zhangzhou. I wish I can have more chance to catch their other performances, and hopefully they will not be as disappointing as today’s show

Post published on 27 August