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Many Chinese art forms date back centuries but most struggled to survive following
the Communist revolution of 1949. Artists were organised into associations,
which meant that the Party controlled every aspect, both creative and administrative.
Travelling theatre, music and dance groups were created to take the Party message
to the masses together with teams of projectionists showing reels of ideological
films. Plays written before the 1950s, films with human interest and the Beijing
Opera were suppressed and their creators persecuted until the end of the Cultural
Revolution in the 1970s. Now many pre-Cultural Revolution art forms are performed
regularly, as well as modern versions, which celebrate ancient and current
culture, as well as ethnic differences.
As to be expected from a capital city, Beijing is leading the country’s
cultural revival, and a crop of teahouses have recently reappeared in the capital
that show a variety of Beijing Opera, martial arts and acrobatics and serve
delicious selections of tea and cakes.
Western influences have been embraced to transform traditional Chinese art
forms into contemporary pieces and the theatrical scene is changing fast. A
recent development has been a fashion for Chinese translations of Western plays,
such as (most recently) Whose Wife is it Anyway, or home-grown dramatists experimenting
with foreign styles, such as Absurdist theatre, or emulating influential playwrights,
such as Samuel Beckett. In addition, Western music and dance is now performed,
and the city often receives visits from international acts. The Beijing Concert
Hall has a mix of Chinese and Western music, whereas the Zhengyici Theatre
has mainly Chinese productions.
Also worth seeing is traditional Chinese acrobatics, which have existed in
China for two thousand years and cover anything from gymnastics and animal
tricks to magic and juggling. The style may be vaudeville, but performances
are spectacular, with truly awe-inspiring feats.
Tickets for some events can now be purchased from Webtix (tel: (10) 6592 8449
or 6594 9460; website: www.webtix.com.cn).
Music: The Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Bei Xinhua Jie (tel: (10) 6605 5812),
just off Xi Chang’an Jie, is dedicated to classical music, with regular
concerts by Beijing’s resident orchestra, as well as visiting orchestras
from the rest of China and overseas. Beijing Opera is still very popular and
the best place to see it is Zhengyici Theatre, 220 Qian Men Xi He Yan Jie (tel:
(10) 6303 3104), a short walk from Heping Men subway station. Built in the
17th century, the theatre was originally a Ming Dynasty temple before being
converted by some of the founding artists of the Beijing Opera company. Nightly
performances also take place at 1930 at the Liyuan Theatre in the Jianguo Hotel,
175 Yongan Road.
Theatre: Spoken drama was only introduced into Chinese theatres this
century. The People’s Art Theatre in Beijing became its best-known home
and, before the Cultural Revolution, staged European plays that had a clear
social message. The last decade has seen a total turnabout, with the People’s
Art Theatre, reassembled in 1979, establishing its reputation with a performance
of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. They and other companies perform
at the Beijing People’s Art Theatre, (in the Capital Theatre), 22 Wangfujing
Dajie (tel: (10) 6513 5801). Theatre will receive a big boost in Beijing in
2003 when China’s first National Theatre will open at Xi Chang’an
Jie, just west of the Great Hall of the People.
Teahouses: Traditional theatre, such as story-telling to musical accompaniment,
magic shows and acrobatics, takes place daily at the Lao She Chaguan, 2nd Floor,
Da Wancha Building, 3 Qian Men Xi Jie (tel: (10) 6303 6830), and at the Tianqiao
Happy Teahouse, 113 Tianqiao Nandajie (tel: (10) 6303 9013).
Acrobatics: The most popular venue is the Wan Sheng Theatre, Bei Wei
Lu, just west of the Tianqiao Happy Teahouse (tel: (10) 6303 7449). There are
also nightly shows at the Chaoyang Theatre, 36 Dong San Huan Bei Lu (tel: (10)
6507 2421), and Universal Theater, 10 Dongzhimennan Dajie (tel: (10) 6502 3984).
Performances at all venues start at 1915.
Film: Many cinemas in Beijing are dedicated to feeding a seemingly
insatiable appetite for kung fu movies, although there is plenty of opportunity
to catch the serious and fairly controversial movies emerging from a new wave
of younger film-makers. Foreign films are mainly dubbed and carefully censored
by the authorities before they are put on general release. A popular, central
cinema is the Capital Cinema, 46 Xi Chang’an Jie (tel: (10) 6605 5510).
The Sun Dong An Cinema City, 138 Wangfujing Dajie (tel: (10) 6528 1988), shows
major films from the USA.
Beijing’s appeal for film directors as a sweeping, cinematic panaroma
was most brilliantly demonstrated by Bernardo Bertolucci in his famous 1987
epic, The Last Emperor. Set in an old Beijing bathhouse, which is threatened
by developers who want to turn it into a shopping complex, Zhang Yang’s
1999 film, Shower, epitomises the tension between tradition and the dictates
of commerce in contemporary Beijing. Farewell My Concubine (1993) is a stunning
epic spanning half a century of modern Chinese history including the Cultural
Revolution and is about the relationship between two friends growing up in
the world of Beijing Opera. It was a triumph internationally for the director
Chen Kaige. An extremely funny film set in modern-day Beijing is Sorry Baby
(1999) directed by Feng Xiao Gang, about a feud between a wealthy businessman
and his driver.
Cultural events: The Chinese New Year, which takes place either in
late January or early February, is the most important festival of the year.
The build-up to the festival is as frenzied as Christmas is in the West, with
parties, the exchanging of gifts, and streets and houses decorated with lights.
Most Chinese celebrate the start of the New Year with their families. The Mid-Autumn
Festival in September or early October is celebrated by displaying lanterns
in various shapes, such as animals, and by eating moon cakes made of ground
lotus, sesame and egg.
Literary Notes
There is a good joke in the most recent novel by the Chinese-American writer,
Amy Tan – The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001). A Chinese character in
the book gives the following dismissive appraisal to a Westerner who is enthralled
by Beijing’s Forbidden City: ‘In those day, so many thing forbidden,
can’t see. Now everyone pay money see forbidden thing. You say this forbidden
that forbidden, charge extra.’ This epitomises much of the current Chinese
attitude towards Beijing where reverence towards the city because of its history
and tradition is put very much to the effort of making money.
Numerous highly acclaimed contemporary works of fiction that explore China’s
tumultuous history and the impact of the Cultural Revolution have become international
bestsellers, notably Half of Man is Woman (1985), an autobiographical account
of life in a labour camp by Zhang Xiangliang. Heralded as the Chinese Milan
Kundera, Xianliang was born in Nanjing in 1936 and educated in Beijing. Other
celebrated novels include Wild Swans (1991) by Jung Chan and Amy Tan’s
The Joy Luck Club (1989).
Lu Xun (1881-1936) is celebrated as the father of modern Chinese literature.
His story, A Madman’s Diary (1918), is considered the first story written
in modern, colloquial Chinese – namely in the language spoken by the masses
as opposed to the classic literary language. Lu Xun embraced the early Communist
movement and is still regarded as a hero by the authorities. The small house
he inhabited in Beijing from 1912 to 1926 can be seen next to a museum (open
Tues-Sun 0900-1530) dedicated to his life and work at a hutong just off Fucheng
Men Dajie, near Fucheng Men subway station.
However, for a contemporary Beijing-based writer who marks a break from the
serious tradition of political and social responsibility favoured by the Communist
Party, there is Wang Shuo. Dubbed the ‘Chinese Jack Kerouac’ for
his sharp mockery of almost every aspect of Chinese life, delivered in a savvy
Beijing slang, his novel Please Don’t Call Me Human (1989) is perhaps
the best introduction to his work for foreign readers. Written in the aftermath
of the Tiananmen massacre, the book wickedly lampoons the state security apparatus
and its need to bend the individual into serving the interests of the nation.
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