Chinese Opera

I have never really taken the time to study the arts extensively. I enjoy going to various plays, symphonies, and other performances. I've even taken the opportunity to experience regular operas; however, I had never been to a Chinese opera. I actually had very little idea of exactly what made a Chinese opera unique, except for the odd costumes and slightly scary make-up effects I'd seen on billboards and other advertising material.

Luckily for me, the Chinese Opera Festival of 2013 ran from 6/20-7/28 in Hong Kong. I decided it would be a great idea to experience this art form since the opportunity may never present itself again.

The performance for Sunday, July 21 happened to be a set of excerpts, 5 of them. I figured this would be a good way to expose myself to different styles all at once.

Upon entering the theatre, we were given a program with information in it relevant to the performances and opera in general. I'll share some of the information with you since it is actually quite interesting. Mrs. Betty Fung (Director of Leisure and Cultural Services in Hong Kong) describes traditional Chinese arts as placing an emphasis on "passing passion through art." She goes on to explain how Chinese opera "displays the finest art of Chinese culture and provides for invaluable exchange of the spirit and sentiments of humanity." The purpose of the festival is to "enhance the audience's appreciation, interest and knowledge of Chinese opera." The Xiang Opera Theatre of Hunan is the performing arts group who performed during this year's festival. The Xiang Opera entangles itself with folklore art and local dialects which has four focal style genres (gaoqiang, dipaizi, kunqiang, and tanqiang). Many of the pieces are inspred by historical stories and novels in chapters while others are adapted or newly created repertoires. Anyway, there is a lot of other information provided. If you'd like to learn more, you can check out the festival's website. There are quite a few pictures and even a video clip or two. I'm not sure how long the link will work, but it's there for now:  http://www.cof.gov.hk/2013/en/

The excerpt plots that we watched were all quite depressing. The first (Su Qin's Retribution from Tale of the Golden Seal) told the tale of a man who had failed after spending time away from home to be an official. Upon his return he was basically rejected by his family for bringing shame. Even his wife no longer wanted anything to do with him. Anyway, he ended up throwing himself into a river and it ended. The second (Pan Ge Mourns for His Wife) was about a prime minister who convinced his wife, 13 years prior, to be killed in the place of the king's wife in order to bring honor to his family. The excerpt took place on his birthday as he continued to mourn for his late-wife. His son reminded him that he was the one who chose to give her up. A messenger appeared and informed him that the woman who his wife had taken the place of now had a 13 year old son, a prince, and that he could go inform an official in order to bring even more honor to himself and get a promotion. In the end, he decided against it and continued to mourn. The third performance (Meeting a Matchmaker and Being Forced into Marriage) told the story of a matchmaker and how she tricked a woman into boarding a boat to marry a man, despite the fact she had agreed to marry a different man. The woman ended up jumping off the boat and drowned, while the matchmaker was sold to a brothel since she had lost the man money. As for the forth and fifth, well, I didn't quite manage to watch those.

Now for the opinions of what was experienced this evening.
Two hours of Chinese Opera is quite enough to last a lifetime. I had planned to stay for all 5 of the excerpts, but after about 30 seconds of the first one, I knew there was no way I'd make it through. There was an intermission after the first 3, so I decided to stay for them and then head out. The costumes are extremely intricate and impressive. The singing/acting itself is also extremely impressive, however it is definitely not something that the average American would consider enjoyable necessarily. I definitely would recommend that everyone is exposed to Chinese opera, but not in the form of 3 excerpts that last a total of 2 hours. I would recommend a 5-15 minute clip perhaps. It would be enough to learn about it, see what makes it unique, and appreciate it, but anything more is a bit rough. There were English subtitles provided, so we were able to understand the stories which was a big plus.

Jim's opinion: "Interesting and excruciating. It will haunt my dreams."

Overall: Chinese opera is a very unique experience, but it is not one I care to have again. I do appreciate it for what it is, but I don't seem to have acquired the taste necessary to enjoy it.


(I skipped ahead to this event while it was still fresh in my memory. I'll catch up with other Hong Kong and Macau events soon!!)

Hong Kong: The First Day

Hong Kong. Disneyland, incredible food, reliable internet. Those were the 3 main reasons I had any interest in going there. Compared to the Philippines and most other countries around southeast Asia, Hong Kong is one of the more expensive destinations. Hostels seem to cost around 30-60USD a night for 2 people while a regular hotel is hard to find for under 100USD. One nice thing about Hong Kong is that as a US citizen, one does not need a visa to enter and can stay for up to 90 days.

Jim and I arrived in Hong Kong around 9pm on Thursday, June 27^th after our two hour flight from Manila. We went through immigrations, picked up our bags, got some cash from the nearest ATM, and found a taxi to take us to our hotel. It ended up being a 40+ minute ride. We crossed a few bridges, got stuck in a little traffic, and were incredibly shocked by the vast size of the city. I had no idea how large the place really was. I was also very surprised to see how alive the city was, despite the time. Many stores were still open and the sidewalks in some areas were still crawling with people.

The hotel was in the North Point area of the main Hong Kong island (Hong Kong consists of 3 major islands with various patches of reclaimed land, and several other smaller ones.) We checked-in and were pleasantly surprised to walk into a room that appeared to be completely ant free. At the base of the hotel was a 7-11 which came in handy for picking up some water and cups of noodles, as well as Oreo wafers and Chips Ahoy cookies. Once we stocked up on a few snacks, it was time for bed. Seeing as I was still recovering from lack of sleep from the past month plus the change in time zones, Friday we decided to sleep in. 

I’d done a little bit of research into activities in Hong Kong and came across some fancy light show choreographed to music that started each evening. The Symphony of Lights they call it. I had learned that this show was in English on Fridays and Mondays, and seeing as Monday was going to be spent at Disneyland, that meant Friday was the day to watch the show. Jim and I ventured out and took the subway to the Tsim Sha Tsui area where the show was. 

Hong Kong has the best subway system I have ever seen. Signs are easy to find and tickets are simple to buy. They sell both single trip tickets or something called an Octopus card. The Octopus card is brilliant. It’s essentially a debit card that one can just tap to pay for the subway, 7-11, Starbucks, and various other eateries through the city. Jim and I decided to opt for the single ticket this first day since we didn’t know how often we’d be using the subway system. Upon purchasing the ticket, we scanned it to enter the train area and easily found the train we needed. Hong Kong seems to be a very clean city, and the subway trains are no different. The trains are air-conditioned and they have maps of the subway routes above the doors that light up based on the stop you’re about to reach. It also tells you which side of the train you’ll need to exit from. In addition, if you are reaching a station with transfers, it will light up the train route that you will be able to reach upon exiting. It really is a great subway system.

We made it to our destination with no problem. The show is over in the area with the cultural center, art museum, a space museum, malls, and a walkway called the Avenue of Stars which is the Asian version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We had arrived much earlier than necessary for the show seeing as we planned to wander a bit and find food.

We exited the train station and were slightly overwhelmed by the number of people, alleyways, shops, and just the myriad options of things to see. We ended up walking toward a very upscale mall. It reminds me of the shopping in Vegas, at least in the casinos on the strip. Jim admitted that he had never even seen most of the stores before.

We continued to wander and then came across a jewelry store with the remains of a tunnel system from decades ago near the Former Marine Police Compound. We walked in and looked for a minute or two before continuing through the plaza. There is a signal tower building there with a time ball on it. A time ball was once used by ships to keep time synchronized. Back before everyone had access to the internet, gps, and cell phones, they would rely on the dropping of the ball at 1:00pm to reset clocks in order to insure they were on the right time and in sync with the city and everyone else. In addition, there was a little area displaying the different shapes that are raised for various cyclone warnings. Depending on the severity, a different symbol would be lifted to warn the boats and people of the impending storm.

We wandered the Avenue of Stars, which was a pleasant walkway along the water and then we went in search of dinner. We ended up at an incredible Italian restaurant and shared cheese/tomato salad and a tasty four-cheese pizza. Then we went back to the viewing area to watch the Symphony of Lights.

Music began and an introduction was made. Each building was presented by name. And then...nothing. Music continued to play. Apparently there was a choreographed light show on the other side of the river, but we saw nothing or the sort. A few buildings flashed their lights. A few even shot green lasers from their roofs. Overall, this was the worst "show" I've ever seen. We couldn't figure out what was so great and what was so special. Music continued and the same buildings kept randomly flashing their lights on and off and we decided to head out after about 10 minutes of waiting to be impressed.

That concluded the first day in the city. The plan from there was to wander a bit Saturday and Sunday, hit Disneyland on Monday, and migrate over to Macau Tuesday-Friday and then move on. We were learning towards Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. We still had to do some research regarding visas. I'll write more about Hong Kong and Macau later.

Destination Uno: Manila

For those of you that read my last post, you know that I made it on my plane from Seattle to Tokyo despite the issue I encountered. The flight was long and uneventful. We flew through daylight for the entirety of the flight. Upon arriving in Tokyo I had just under an hour to go through security again and find my gate before the flight to Manila would be boarding. I made it without any problems, boarded my plane, and was pleasantly surprised when we landed in Manila around 9:30pm, 30 minutes earlier than our expected arrival time. 

Jim had been in Manila for a day or two prior to my arrival. He’d been in charge of making sure we had a place to stay and he was going to meet me at the airport around 10 when my flight landed. It worked perfectly seeing as immigrations and luggage pick-up took a bit of time. I went outside and sat down for about a minute or so before noticing him walk by. We attempted to find the taxi he had set up and failed before finally settling on a different taxi to take us to the hotel. The room was a very unique room, and no, I do not have a picture. You walk through the door into a kitchen with one small round table and 2 chairs. There is a bathroom and a closet. Then there is a ladder. You go up the ladder and what do you find? A bed! It was a strange little loft room full of biting ants. One of those crazy little guys even decided to bite me in the belly button! I didn’t even know ants went there.

The original plan and been to meet up with Jim in Manila, spend a couple days catching up on sleep and then fly off to Palau, an incredible little island you can only reach through Manila, Taiwan, or Guam. Unfortunately we didn’t plan in advance and it turns out flights are at least 400+ each way! We then decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to extend Jim’s visa again and head south while remaining in the Philippines to visit Apo or Coron. The fact that it happens to be the rainy season put an end to that plan. That is not something we really wanted to put up with, so we spent a day or so figuring out other options. Hong Kong won. We decided to fly up to Hong Kong, mainly so I can see Disneyland and eat delicious food and so Jim would have decent internet for a change, and then we would go to Macau for a few days. With good internet we’d also be able to plan our next course of action. 

Our time in Manila was pretty uneventful. We went to the Mall of Asia one day. I saw Monster’s University in the comfy theatre at Resort World. The ticket price included a free medium popcorn, but unfortunately this popcorn was covered in a taco or pizza flavored powder. Jim and I spent some time catching up on Game of Thrones (neither of us had watched the most recent season yet). We didn’t venture out much since I was still pretty tired. We weren’t able to meet up with my friend Pam, as I had wanted to, so that was sad. Anyway, we departed Manila on Thursday, June 27^th and headed to Hong Kong. Hooray.

(Written around July 8/9, 2013)