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Intercultural Aesthetics in
Traditional Chinese Theatre
From 1978 to the Present
Wei Feng
 Intercultural Aesthetics in Traditional
Chinese Theatre

“Historically engaged and theoretically provocative, Intercultural Aesthetics in

Traditional Chinese Theatre with its highly vivid description of staging practice will
completely enthral readers. The book maps out the complex trajectories along
which traditional Chinese theatrical aesthetics transformed itself within the context
of unique social and political dynamics, dialogues with Western influences, and
artistic innovations. It is a ground-breaking and compulsory read for anyone seek-
ing to understand traditional Chinese theatre and intercultural theatre in general.”
—Li Ruru, Professor of Chinese Theatre Studies, University of Leeds, UK
 Wei Feng

Intercultural
Aesthetics in
Traditional Chinese
Theatre
From 1978 to the Present
Wei Feng
Shandong University
Shandong, China

ISBN 978-3-030-40634-9    ISBN 978-3-030-40635-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40635-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

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To Xiaoyu and Qiuhe
 Acknowledgements

This book is based on my PhD thesis written from 2012 to 2016 in the
Trinity College, University of Dublin. I gratefully acknowledge the China
Scholarship Council and Trinity College Dublin for providing me with a
handsome scholarship since 2012. I am also grateful to the Trinity Long
Room Hub for offering me the best working space for four years. The
revision of this work was also supported by the Young Scholars Program
of Shandong University under Grant number 2018WLJH17. Without
these material supports, none of this would have been possible.
I would also like to extend my gratitude to my PhD supervisor Professor
Brian Singleton for his invaluable input and insightful advice throughout
this endeavour. I cherish our talks on theatre and academic research, which
have inspired me to consider and explore a larger and deeper field for
future investigation. I thank Brian also for helping me through many other
non-academic issues, and he deserves much more thanks.
I feel blessed to have so many distinguished teachers in the Department
of Drama to guide and inspire me through lectures and personal conversa-
tions. Great thanks to Gabriella Calchi-Novati, Christopher Collins,
Nicholas Johnson, Dennis Kennedy, Melissa Sihra, Eric Weitz, and Steve
Wilmer for introducing me to a kaleidoscope of theatre and performance
with various theories and methodologies.
Many of the primary and secondary materials for this research came
from the generosity of my friends and fellow scholars. First and foremost,
I appreciate the crucial help of Lee Meng-chien and Zhu Yuning. Many
other individuals were also very helpful: Farah Ali, An Bo, Bao Huiyi, Cai
Jing, Chen Cui, Chen Xi, Deng Hanbin, Hao Zhiqin, He Jiang, Hu Xuan,

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Huang Jiadai, Huang Yizhou, Kang Bindi, Ke Jun, Li Xuan, Li Wenjie,

Liu Chun, Luo Jinhong, Lu Lu, Miao Lu, Qiu Fangzhe, Qiu Yue, Shi
Qingjing, Su Jun, Tang Renfang, Trang Si-hong, Wang Xueying, Yang
Chunhua, Yang Ting, Zeng Linjiao, Zhang Deyi, Zhang Hongtao, Zhang
Ying, Zhou Boqun, and Zhu Xuefeng. I remain indebted to Wu Hsing-­
kuo, Lin Hsiu-wei, Chang Ching-ping, and other staff from Contemporary
Legend Theatre for receiving me in Taiwan and giving me continuous
support. Similar thanks go to Xu Fen, Lin Chao-hsu, and Tian Mansha
who gave up so much time for my interview.
This work owes a lot to my contact with senior scholars who instructed
and inspired me. I thank my MA supervisor Professor He Chengzhou for
introducing me to theatre and ultimately intercultural theatre, and for his
persistent encouragement and support. Others include Chen Fang, Fu Jin,
Bi-qi Beatrice Lei, Hsieh Hsiao-mei, Li Ruru, Perng Ching-hsi, Ma
Junshan, Mark Pizzato, Janne Risum, Sarah-Jane Scaife, Anthony
Uhlmann, Wang An-ch’i, Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, Xia Liyang, and
Zhu Xuefeng. I am thankful to a number of individuals who have gener-
ously commented on my work in various ways: Jacob Browne, Richard
Boyechko, Nadezhda Chekurova, Chen Lin (Qingdao), Chen Lin
(Nanjing), Chen Tian, Chen Yanfang, Burç Idem Dinçel, Erika Fischer-­
Lichte, Huang Yizhou, Kang Bindi, Kathy Foley, Guo Chao, Nicholas
Johnson, Torsten Jost, Kang Fang, Julian Lamb, Lee Meng-chien, Li
Ruru, Trish McTighe, James Little, Anna McMullan, Miao Lu, Mitsuya
Mori, Yasushi Nagata, Peng Lijing, Paul Rae, Sheng Yihui, Shi Qingjing,
Su Jun, Sun Tiegen, Tang Renfang, Wei Zheyu, Christel Weiler, Eric
Weitz, Wu Fan, Wu Guanda, and Zhai Yueqin.
I am deeply thankful for the continued support and friendship of my
brilliant colleagues in the School of Foreign Languages and Literature at
Shandong University. I must also thank Chang Sai, Xu Min, and Yang
Shan, who at a very late stage gave me assistance on the proofs.
Finally, I owe special thanks to my parents and parents-in-law, and most
importantly, my wife Zhang Xiaoyu, and my daughter Feng Qiuhe, for
their continuous encouragement, practical support, and love over the past
few years.
Chapter 3 was previously published as ‘Performing Comic Failure in
Waiting for Godot with Jingju Actors.’ Theatre Research International 42
(2) (2017): 119–131; ‘Chan and Chou: Buddhist Clowns in Waiting for
Godot.’ DramArt (5) (2016): 73–91.
 Note on Translation and Names

Unless otherwise noted, all translations to English are mine. Non-English

terminologies and titles are translated into English in round brackets.
Chinese names follow their native convention, with family name first,
followed by the given name. The only exception is when a person has cus-
tomarily chosen to use their given name first, followed by family name,
such as Alexa Huang and Daphne P. Lei.
The pinyin system is adopted for modern mainland Chinese names and
historical names, while Taiwanese names follow their own romanization
system largely defined by Wade-Giles.

ix
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
The Intercultural History of xiqu: Pre-modern Ages   6
The Intercultural History of xiqu: In Search of Modernity  11
Methodologies: Dialogism, Appropriation, and Agents  23
Scope and Focus  28
References  35

2 ‘Egotistic’ Adaptations of King Lear: Intercultural

Playwrights Haunted by Tradition 43
Playwriting as the First Step of Intercultural xiqu  46
Polyphonic Shakespeare  50
The Dominant Authorial Voice and xiqu’s Traditions  52
Didactic King Lear  58
The Flattening of Characters  60
Haunting Traditional Motifs  64
Emotional Lear and Reduced Lear  68
Characters as Wu’s Split Egos  72
Silenced Shakespeare  76
Coda  78
References  83

3 Border-Crossing Chou Actors in Beckettian Jingju 89

Hybridity: CLT’s Formalistic Pursuit  90
Role Types in xiqu  92

xi
xii CONTENTS

Background for CLT’s Adaptation  93

CLT’s Choice of Chan Buddhism  95
The Challenge of Beckett’s Art of Failure 104
Xiqu’s Principles 107
Performing Comic Failure 110
Coda 121
References 127

4 Expressionistic Chuanju: Ghosts and Scenography in Lady

Macbeth133
Some Principles of Chinese Scenography 134
Scenography and Its Transformation in xiqu 138
Entering the Avant-Garde 140
Xu Fen and Tian Mansha 144
Lady Macbeth in the Form of Expressionistic chuanju 147
Expressionistic Conventions 149
Traditional Scenography by Another Name 150
Coda 168
References 173

5 Reframing Audience Experiences: Brechtian Estrangement

and Metatheatricality Displaced in Xiqu181
Performing Spaces in Transformation 183
Change in the Creative System 185
Audience Experiences Reconsidered 188
Theatrical Illusionism in xiqu 191
Brecht in/and China 193
The Homecoming of the Good Person of Szechwan 196
Visual Elements as Estrangement 197
Failed Estrangement in Playwriting 200
Metatheatricality in Cleopatra 203
Defining Metatheatre 204
Metatheatricality in xiqu 206
Chi’s Metatheatricality 207
Coda 217
References 224
 CONTENTS xiii

6 Conclusion233
The Encounter of Tang Xianzu and Shakespeare in 2016: A New
Paradigm? 235
The Future of xiqu 242
References 244

Appendix A: Glossary247

Appendix B: Dynasties in Chinese History257

Index259
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Haida before her death. (Courtesy of Sun Huizhu) 3

Fig. 2.1 Wu Hsing-kuo as Li’er. (Courtesy of Contemporary Legend
Theatre)71
Fig. 3.1 Titi helps Kuku to take off the boot. (Courtesy of
Contemporary Legend Theatre) 119
Fig. 4.1 Lady Macbeth surrounded by draping water sleeves. (Courtesy
of Tian Mansha) 166
Fig. 6.1 Lu Sheng and Lear. (Courtesy of Ke Jun) 239

xv
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

As a child of the 1980s, I often scorned xiqu (traditional Chinese theatre)

for its association with older generations. I encountered it, whether jingju
(Peking opera) or chuanju (Sichuan opera), everywhere: on television, at
a stage set in the village conference hall, or in my grandfather’s drawer
filled with recorded performance cassettes. In contrast to my youthful pro-
test of the genre, in 2010 I was left affectively astounded while watching
a yueju (Yue opera) adaptation, Xinbi Tiangao (Aspirations Sky High), of
Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (1891). The lead role’s mesmerizing sword
dance followed by the act of taking her own life vividly presented me with
the connection to xiqu that I had been quick to dismiss in the past. This
offstage scene in the original play is brought onstage in this adaptation to
stress in every possible way Hedda’s psychological and emotional state. In
desperation because of Judge Brack’s threat and Tesman’s preoccupation
with Lovborg’s manuscripts, she sings an aria in lines apparently absent in
the original play while dancing with her red water sleeves. Bits of burned
book manuscript scatter about the stage and shadows of entangled tree
branches hang on the back wall as stage lights dim. As Hedda intends to
escape out of fear, the back wall suddenly moves forward and tree shadows
begin to shake; against the white spotlight, she herself casts a dark and
enlarging silhouette on the approaching back wall. And finally, there is
nothing but a devouring shadow of the self. The percussions, in a fast
tempo, urge her to end her pain by slitting her throat with the sword
(Fig. 1.1). After this action there is nothing but Hedda’s immense shadow

© The Author(s) 2020 1

W. Feng, Intercultural Aesthetics in Traditional Chinese Theatre,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40635-6_1
2 W. FENG

cast on the wall, which gradually merges into complete darkness. Contrary
to my expectations, no morals about traditional loyalty, filial piety, chastity,
or righteousness are implied in this ending—the ending overwhelmed me
through nothing more than the sheer tragic power of Hedda’s death.
This 2006 play was chiefly adapted from the Ibsen play by play-
wrights and scholars Sun Huizhu (William Huizhu Sun) and Fei
Chunfang (Faye Chunfang Fei), performed by Hangzhou Yue Opera
Company, directed by Zhi Tao and Zhan Min, with the stage designed
by Liu Xinglin, lighting by Zhou Zhengping, and percussions by Ruan
Mingqi. I was certainly not the only person to be affected, because this
play won several national and international awards: Zhou Yujun, per-
former of Hedda, became a Plum Performance Award laureate in 2017;
other awards from Norway, India, and Germany were bestowed for the
play, the music, and the acting, among others. Although some senior
audience members might object to this non-traditional play, what still
proves provocative for me, as a young, was a simple question: why was
I affected now if neither Ibsen’s play nor xiqu were sufficiently affective
by themselves? Might there be some new aesthetics at play in this novel
intercultural encounter? Aspirations Sky High’s rendition of Ibsen with
yueju, its creative use of set design and lighting, music and choreogra-
phy, subject matter and characterization, as well as its dissemination
abroad, all crossed the boundary of traditional yueju, making it an
exemplar among many contemporary pieces that have pushed further
xiqu’s aesthetic tradition through intercultural appropriation. These
initial considerations were further confirmed when I came across other
similar theatre works, especially the Contemporary Legend Theatre’s
jingju production of Lear Is Here. These plays, performing against pre-
vious discourse that fed my learned scorn for the ‘old-fashioned’ xiqu,
recaptured my attention with their magic charm that spoke to the mul-
ticultural contemporary world and with their modern spirit largely
expressed through Chinese tradition. Such a phenomenon was equally
emblematic of the broader cultural transition taking place in China
over the past century.
The early twentieth century witnessed numerous adaptations of Western
plays and novels in China (Zheng and Zeng 2012, 81–82). Xiqu adapta-
tions of foreign plays reached efflorescence after the Cultural Revolution
(1966–1976) and became a prevailing practice with varied adaptation
choices in terms of styles, playwrights, theatrical schools, and target audi-
ences. According to Ric Knowles, ‘theatrical performances [are] cultural
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

productions which serve specific cultural and theatrical communities at

particular historical moments as sites for the negotiation, transmission,
and transformation of cultural values’ and ‘the products of their own place
and time that are nevertheless productive of social and historical reification
or change’ (Knowles 2004, 10). In this light, the intercultural xiqu has
played a significant role in the overall agenda of re-establishing Chinese
identity amid the influx of Western ideas. Such blending of traditional and
modern cultural forms is vital to preserving a culture whose legacy had
been damaged and challenged by historical, social, and political events
throughout the twentieth century.
This book explores how xiqu artistically transforms itself through
appropriating Western plays and theatrical forms since 1978, when China1
bid farewell to Mao Zedong’s era and entered the Deng Xiaoping era.
Two significant developments in scholarship have driven this book. The
first is intercultural theatre studies, championed by theorists such as
Richard Schechner, Erika Fischer-Lichte, Marvin Carlson, Patrice Pavis,
Rustom Bharucha, Ric Knowles, Jacqueline Lo, Helen Gilbert, Daphne
Lei, and recently Charlotte McIvor and Jason King. These scholars have

Fig. 1.1 Haida before her death. (Courtesy of Sun Huizhu)

4 W. FENG

participated in the several turns of intercultural studies from the early

focus on transmission of aesthetic codes, to the political investigation
driven by postcolonialism, and to what McIvor calls ‘new interculturalism’
with diversified and multiplied critical approaches and subject concerns
(McIvor 2019, 4). Then there are studies on contemporary xiqu, includ-
ing intercultural xiqu and xiqu’s transformation in modern times, repre-
sented by Li Ruru, Wang An-ch’i, Tian Min, Siyuan Liu, Elizabeth
Wichmann-Walczak, Catherine Diamond, Li Wei, Lü Xiaoping, Chen
Fang, to name but a few. Inspired by those lines of research but also
departing from them, the present project uses xiqu’s aesthetic transforma-
tion catalysed by intercultural appropriations to challenge, revise, and
supplement existing conclusions in both fields.
Xiqu was chosen as the research object on two accounts. First, xiqu has
partaken in and suffered from numerous intercultural exchanges since the
very beginning of its genesis, either appropriating other cultural practices
or being appropriated itself. As a typical East Asian traditional theatrical
form, xiqu enters into complex histories of negotiation with the spatial
and temporal distance from Western theatre. However, it is neither too
indigenous like Chinese calligraphy to be intercultural, nor too adaptive
like pop music to be non-Chinese. Second, the fact that xiqu has more
than 300 genres and multiple styles would reveal the plural dynamics of
intercultural theatre even in one theatrical tradition. As such, xiqu is a
promising site to examine the contrasts, conflicts, conversations, compro-
mises, and combinations between Chinese and non-Chinese (predomi-
nantly Western) cultures. It might even be a source of alternative views
regarding world intercultural theatre discourse that has so far been domi-
nated by the West.
Because of the wide variety of xiqu genres, not all of which participate in
the intercultural practices—such as adaptations of Western classics and
appropriation of Western theatrical forms/ideas—this book concen-
trates on only a few that do. Situating contemporary xiqu’s aesthetic trans-
formation within the convergence of synchronic (both Chinese and foreign)
and diachronic (traditional and modern) impacts, it provides a close analy-
sis of theatre’s primary constituent elements (playwriting, acting, scenogra-
phy, and stage-audience relationship) in specific adaptations defined by
intercultural politics. These elements of theatricality are concretization of
the idea of aesthetics, which here includes the principles and artistic pur-
suits that govern and guide xiqu practices, some remaining necessarily
unchanged, while others changing over time. The issue of aesthetics,
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

however, concerns not merely art per se; rather, it has been tethered to the
ever-changing social and political climate. In the final analysis, the theatre
practitioners’ reaction and adjustment to an increasingly globalized world
through intercultural appropriation become the basis for this book’s
project.
The project makes use of the intercultural xiqu productions from 1978
to the present as case studies of the larger issues surrounding intercultural
xiqu, aesthetic transformation, pursuit of modernity, power struggle,
intercultural ethics, and so forth. In this way, it investigates the theatrical-
ity of xiqu in relation to both the internal (aesthetic) and external (politi-
cal) factors. More concretely, the book explores the theatrical landscape of
mainland China and Taiwan by tracing the work of seven xiqu troupes that
are working across cultural borders toward a new aesthetics. The general
argument presented here is that various tactics in xiqu’s intercultural
appropriations reflect the contemporary China’s diverse and dynamic
responses to the construction of identities from its cultural legacy and
Western influences. These responses include one-sided domination by
either the Chinese or the West, border-crossing hybridity, and fusion.
The purpose of this exercise is to come to some understanding of how
intercultural xiqu reflects the contemporary Chinese aims for modernity
by way of addressing the following questions:

1. How do non-Chinese theatrical elements contribute to the forma-

tion and growth of xiqu throughout history? How does xiqu reveal
the shifting Chinese-foreign power relations that have evolved
according to the Chinese understanding of ‘foreign’ (encompassing
both neighbouring countries and the rest of the world)? Finally,
how is xiqu’s identity constantly negotiated within these evolutions?
2. How do contemporary appropriation of Western plays and ideas
transform xiqu’s aesthetics in terms of the major components of its
artistry? What modes of intercultural dialogue are employed? How
have those adaptations challenged ideas and practices in intercul-
tural theatre and xiqu?
3. What are possible solutions and pitfalls revealed by these adaptations
in terms of intercultural interactions? How do they mirror the poli-
tics involved in the encounter in the contemporary world between
China and the West, modernity and tradition? Do they anticipate
any paradigm for fruitful dialogue between these binary pairs?
6 W. FENG

My approach to addressing these questions is a comparative perfor-

mance analysis of cases within a historical and political context and involves
theoretical and critical research with special attention to nuances in perfor-
mance. Such an approach is inspired by Li Ruru, Catherine Diamond, and
Chen Fang, whose analytical strategy leans heavily on theatrical subtleties
of a specific work; in this way, it exposes the oversights in a production’s
meaning left by the studies on cultural politics. The close and critical anal-
ysis of performance aesthetics also emphasizes factors surrounding the
transformation of aesthetics: artist agents, degrees and modes of intercul-
tural dialogue, and relevant contexts. I will return to the question of
methodology more fully later, but first let me contextualize xiqu’s aes-
thetic transformation since 1978 by surveying its history from an intercul-
tural perspective.

The Intercultural History of xiqu: Pre-modern Ages

Recent studies of intercultural theatre have extended to other forms of
practices in historical and contemporary non-Western regions to negotiate
Western-centric conceptions of interculturalism, evident in the subtitle of
Fischer-Lichte’s edited book that covers a wider range of intercultural the-
atre: ‘Beyond Post-colonialism.’ Joining in this extension, the following
section uses interculturalism as a historiographical tool to explore issues
relevant to or even contrasted with xiqu’s recent aesthetic transformation
and world intercultural theatre studies. Even before the maturity of xiqu,
Chinese performing arts had been actively interacting with foreign cul-
tures. As the margin to the Western-centric narrative of intercultural the-
atre, xiqu’s intercultural history remains largely undiscussed in Western
academia. Despite many Chinese studies on this topic, they are equally
ignorant of the Western discourse, and thus both discourses remain sepa-
rate. Retelling the Chinese story with Western intercultural theatre in
mind would be mutually illuminating. It is worthwhile, however, to start
the discussion before xiqu had reached its complete form.
Unlike ancient Greek theatre that prospered as early as between the
sixth and the fourth centuries BCE and Indian theatre that reached its
heyday during the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, xiqu did not come
into full development until the emergence of nanxi (southern drama) in
the twelfth century and Yuan zaju (northern plays) in the thirteenth cen-
tury (G. Wang 1933, 160). The reason for its belatedness, according to
historians, was the lack of mature narrative forms in Chinese literature,2 as
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

will be explained later. The germination of secular theatrical forms never-

theless found its origin before 221 BCE, when you (jesters) imitated real
figures in the court for both entertainment and expostulation.
Buddhism’s dissemination in China during the Eastern Han dynasty
(25–220) initiated a long-lasting and significant acculturation of foreign
elements. Additionally, the constant contact with other parts of xiyu
(Western Regions)3 via the Silk Road4 also brought cultures from Western
and Central Asia, India, and Europe. Later from the tenth to the four-
teenth centuries, Northern nomads’ (i.e. the Khitans, the Jurchens, and
the Mongols) invasions and final occupation of the South also increased
cultural diversity. The confluence between these various cultures and the
Han tradition co-influenced almost every aspect of subsequent theatre.
Chief among those influential factors were ‘foundations of xiqu’: gewuxi
(song-dance plays) of minority groups in Western Regions and the
Buddhist plays that ‘blended music, dance, acrobatics, poetry, and fine
arts’ (Q. Li 2002, 370). To further elaborate on and detail these foreign
influences, I have divided them into major theatrical components: music,
movements, and narrative. Such division resonates with the widely
accepted definition of xiqu by Wang Guowei (1877–1927), the forefather
of modern xiqu studies: ‘enacting a story with speeches, movements, and
songs’ (G. Wang 1933, 39).
Chinese music relied heavily on foreign sources. Qiuci (present-day
Kucha) musician Suzhipo5, who was active during the Northern Zhou
dynasty (557–581), introduced the theory of seven modes and five tones
from Western Regions into the Chinese court around 567. The theory facili-
tated the reconstruction, reformation, and enrichment of musical modes and
temperaments that had been lost during previous political and social turmoil
and was crucial to the development of Chinese music, partly because zhu-
gongdiao (medley, or lit. ‘all keys and modes’), a form of jiangchang (recita-
tion and singing) literature in the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1206–1368)
dynasties that used a series of tunes in several musical modes, benefited
directly from these enriched modes.6 Decades later, yanyue7 (court banquet
music) in the Sui (581–618) and the Tang (618–907) dynasties, a major
source of Chinese music, ‘was overwhelmingly dominated by music from
Western Regions and minority groups while music from zhongyuan (the
Central Plain, synonym of China in broad sense) was marginal’ (T. Tian
2007, 32). Of the ten types of court music established in 642, eight were
from non-Chinese sources: Funan, Koguryo, Qiuci, Bukhara, Western
Liang,8 Kashgar, Samarkand, Khocho (Yang 1981, 215). Many of these
8 W. FENG

countries paid tribute to the Tang emperors with trained entertainers, who
were tremendously popular in the court, fuelling continuous demand for
such tributes (Ye and Zhang 2004, 77). This form of court music included
vocal and instrumental music, dance, and baixi (hundred games) (Schafer
1963, 50–57). Daqu (great suites), the most representative form of yanyue,
consisted of a series of songs and dances with a certain plot and thus antici-
pated the theatre in the following centuries. Significantly, since the structure
of these musical forms was inclusive and vast enough to accommodate
lengthy stories, it also prepared a ready frame when such narratives arrived.
Similarly, musical instruments, such as the huqin (a general term for certain
two-stringed bowed instruments), the gong, the pipa (the Chinese lute from
Kucha), clappers, and so on, also originated from Western Regions and are
still widely used in xiqu performances.
Since dance and music to some extent were inseparable in performance,
the status of foreign dance in China mirrored that of foreign music. For
example, some arm gestures in xiqu derived from Buddhist dances. Buddha’s
images and mudras were also seen in hand gestures, finger gestures, and
body postures (Kang 2004, 335–49).9 As another physical aspect of equal
importance to dancing, some particular acrobatic performances, such as
choreographed combat and fire spiting that are still in use, could trace their
ancestry to baixi. This form widely appropriated Buddhist magic tricks,
Roman wrestling, and Persian and Manichean plays that were disseminated
in China through commerce, diplomatic delegates, and travelling Buddhist
monks from as early as the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–25 CE). Some
of these shows were preserved in zaju (variety plays) (Savarese 2010,
39–43), which from its origin during the Tang dynasty involved acrobatics
but excluded song and dance; in the Song dynasty, however, it became a
prime entertaining theatrical form that included singing, dancing, music,
and pantomime. Although the story of zaju was episodic, basic role types,
structure, and play scripts had already come into being.
When Song zaju was blended with narrative songs and dances, respec-
tively from Southern and Northern China, the two mature theatrical
forms of nanxi and Yuan zaju gradually emerged. In these conflations of
disparate performing forms, a full-length story was vital, though the dra-
matic structure was entangled with the musical structure, which estab-
lished the predominance of singing in xiqu.10 In order to make sense of
the songs from the perspective of the plot, first-person narratives in the
form of speeches and occasional dialogue were added, a method similar to
early classical Greek tragedy.
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

How is it, however, that such attention to literary narrative came about
if it had been underdeveloped for centuries? According to theatre histori-
ans such as Zhang Geng (Zhang et al. 1989, 11–12) and Liao Ben (Liao
2004, 304), it was under the direct influence in the Tang dynasty of the
Buddhist practice called sujiang (secular sermon).11 In order to effectively
preach Buddhist doctrines to an illiterate populace, monks had to perform
Buddhist stories by recitation and singing. The written script was termed
bianwen (variant text); contrary to jingshu (Buddhist scriptures) that
denoted stable and classic texts, bianwen indicated variant scriptures
(G. Zhang 1983, 20) as well as ‘secularization and retelling of classical
stories for people to understand’ (Fang-ying Chen 1983, 32). It featured
vernacular prose and verse, imaginative and gripping stories, and various
performing skills and techniques, all of which were soon secularized by lay
storytellers. Under secular sermon’s influence there emerged numerous
forms of narrative literature that developed with diverse literary techniques
and intriguing stories. When individual storytellers enacted characters in
zaju by reciting and singing full-length stories in public places of enter-
tainment, the theatre became a full-fledged form as well.
Buddhist stories in bianwen also entered the repertoire of xiqu. Chief
among them was Mulianxi (Maudgalyāyana plays). According to Chen
Fang-ying, among all theatre stories in China, this story is peerless in
‘age, geographical coverage, or literary genres’ (Fang-ying Chen 1983,
4). Originating from The Ullambana Sutra, it tells the story of
Maudgalyāyana, a disciple of Gautama Buddha, who went to the under-
world to save his particularly sinful mother. It was popularized by secular
sermon and later became widespread during the Ghost Festival, the fif-
teenth day of the seventh lunar month, on which people made offerings
to their deceased ancestors. Secularized and localized versions of this
archetype still survive in regional genres such as chuanju and yuju (Henan
opera), hence its title of ‘Ancestor of Hundred Theatres.’ Conceivably,
Mulianxi’s popularity stems partly from its valorization of filial piety, a
fundamental .
Intercultural appropriations during the Sui and Tang, unparalleled in
later dynasties, were part and parcel of the widespread embracing of non-­
Chinese culture in general. An important reason for this, as theatre histo-
rians point out, was the Sui and Tang emperors’ ancestral hybridity. Since
they were descendants of the Han people and ethnic minorities, particu-
larly those from the Western Regions, hybridity was officially embraced
and encouraged (Ye and Zhang 2004, 66). The centuries after the fall of
10 W. FENG

the Tang dynasty were marked by constant wars between rulers in differ-
ent areas of China. During these times the cultural landscape differed sig-
nificantly between the North and the South, since minority groups began
to rule first northern China and later its entirety, which initiated the devel-
oping Chinese theatre to intracultural hybridity. The artistic difference
from the North and the South also became established due to state bor-
ders. And that was when xiqu, in various forms (notably nanxi and Yuan
zaju), reached maturity. Until the Qing dynasty (1616–1911), xiqu devel-
oped steadily, with incessant interchange with neighbouring cultures.
Buddhist songs, stories, gestures, and philosophies continued to enter
xiqu and integrated themselves into Chinese customs and folk rituals,12
but during these times momentous inter/intracultural activities in theatre
declined, bringing the significant pre-modern interculturalism to a close.
In retrospect, cultural, historical, diplomatic, geographic, religious, and
political conditions in those centuries determined and diversified modes of
inter/intracultural appropriation or interweaving, to borrow from Erika
Fischer-Lichte’s terminology. Notably, for foreign theatrical elements to
become well established in the Chinese civilization, it took centuries for
negotiation through the tremendous joint effort of migrants and local art-
ists, whose ultimate objective, more often than not, was to generate better
forms of entertainment. While the Chinese people, as conscious subjects
of appropriation, played an active role in localizing and assimilating for-
eign cultures, cultural hegemony typical of (post)colonial discourse was
largely absent. Yet it would also be hasty to claim that xiqu had no identifi-
able character of its own due to contact with the foreign in every constitu-
ent part, because what remained relatively stable even during those
encounters were the aesthetic principles underpinned by traditional
Confucian and Taoist thought. This might explain why Liao Ben, writing
about the significance of the foreign to the development of Chinese the-
atre, argues that ‘the influence of theatrical arts in Western Regions on
Chinese theatre was only manifest in terms of certain content and inspira-
tions of performing means’ (Liao 2007, 101). In this sense, foreign influ-
ences might not have fundamentally changed the course of xiqu’s
development, and its aesthetic principles in particular, yet they were indis-
pensable catalysts and significant ingredients.
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

The Intercultural History of xiqu: In Search

of Modernity

These various crucial factors of pre-modern interculturalism—agents,

conditions, modes of appropriation, subjective positions, sources of influ-
ence, objectives, and processes—would alter in the second wave of foreign
influence on Chinese theatre at the end of the nineteenth century, when
China encountered the powerful European nations. Since 1840, Chinese
culture was permanently changed because of the avalanche of Euro-­
American ideas and practices. Modern Chinese history began with the loss
of the First Opium War (1839–1842) against Britain, followed by a series
of military defeats to Japan, the USA, and European imperialist powers.13
With these defeats impressing the necessity for modernity upon the
Chinese nation, the Western Other (sometimes by way of Japan that was
Westernized earlier) haunted the construction of national identity; many
Chinese people perceived that following the example of the West was the
only recourse for delivering modernity to China. Writing about the recent
post-national developments in Europe, Gerard Delanty offers a cogent
definition of modernity that is particularly apropos here:

The idea of modernity concerns the interpretation of the present time in

light of historical reinterpretation. It refers too to the confluence of the
cultural, social, and political currents in modern society. The term signals a
tension within modern society between its various dynamics and suggests a
process by which society constantly renews itself. (Delanty 2007, 3068)

The central thesis of the eighteenth-century Western modernity was a

renewal of the self that was co-influenced by the present and the past, with
past ideas reinterpreted while maintaining their legacy. In the case of
China, only when it lost its military dominance over foreign nations did it
seriously ponder the value of its centuries of historical heritage for reinter-
pretation from the present. The journey to modernity was, however, tor-
tuous. According to Zhang Fa et al., the pursuit of Chinese modernity
consisted of five phases: (1) the search for technology in the late Qing
dynasty when China had encountered constant fiascos in defensive mili-
tary conflicts; (2) the search for government system reform at the turn of
the twentieth century when improved technology had proved inadequate
in strengthening national power; (3) the search for science during the
New Culture Movement in the 1910s and 1920s when previous political
12 W. FENG

reforms had failed; (4) the search for sovereignty, from the time of Japan’s
invasion of China in 1931 to the end of Mao Zedong’s regime in 1976;
and (5) the search for Chinese culture during the 1980s and 1990s as a
corrective to its vitiation during the Cultural Revolution. All of those peri-
ods unanimously erected the Western Other as a mirror image to con-
demn, surpass, imitate, defeat, and please. The quest for modernity since
the 1990s, nevertheless, ‘attempts to transcend “Otherization”’ (Fa
Zhang et al. 2005, 53). This transcendence subscribes to Charles Taylor’s
idea of ‘multiple modernities’ that rejects the singular modernity concep-
tualized by the West and thus turns inward for self-modernization. Since
‘a successful transition involves a people finding resources in their tradi-
tional culture which, modified and transposed, will enable them to take on
the new practices’ (Taylor 1999, 162), the struggle for Chinese modernity
has been entangled with how to address the impact of traditional culture.
For intellectuals from the very beginning of modern Chinese history,
the pursuit of a revolutionizing modernity was tethered to the project of
enlightening the masses. According to Li Hsiao-t’i, for hundreds of years
theatre and religion were the chief means of configuring Chinese people’s
minds. However, with religion under attack in early modern China when
science held more sway, theatre was chosen as the vehicle to educate the
largely illiterate populace (H. Li 2001, 164–65). Ever since, theatre and
enlightenment by either intellectuals or the state ran hand in hand in mod-
ern China, which often overstressed the pragmatic (ab)use of theatre as
agit-prop; as Li Hsiao-t’i restates in his recent book, ‘social criticism and
political mobilization featured increasingly prominently in the twentieth
century. From the 1930s until the 1970s, politics became the single most
important constituent of Chinese operas’ (H. Li 2019, 3). Enlightenment,
however, was not the ultimate objective—national salvation was.
Theatre reform, as a part of the overall agenda of seeking after moder-
nity beginning from the late nineteenth century was promoted by both
the top and the bottom to reconfigure Chineseness and ultimately salvage
China from foreign invasion, and the intercultural dimension has ever
since entered the picture of xiqu reform. Across China there were several
efforts with varying and sometimes contradictory grounds, proposals, atti-
tudes, and practices regarding tradition. According to Zhang Fuhai who
studies theatre reform from 1902 to 1919, proponents of such reforms fell
into four major groups: the reformists, the conservatives, the s, and the
innovationists (Fuhai Zhang 2015, 370). The reformists and the conser-
vatives embraced xiqu’s form, but the former also proposed to update
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

xiqu’s subject matter and thematic concern for contemporary agendas.

The abolitionists attacked xiqu’s form and content from an evolutionary
perspective, tolling a death bell for xiqu; the innovationists, many of whom
were also abolitionists, advocated building a progressive and ideal theatre
to replace the old xiqu. All these reformers appropriated something from
the Western Other for inspiration and justification, albeit differently. For
the reformists, progressive ideas in modern Western drama were what
Chinese theatre desperately needed; for the abolitionists and the innova-
tionists, Western realistic theatre, either its real-to-life staging or its inter-
vention in immediate reality, was a paradigm for Chinese theatre to engage
in everyday life and social contingencies. For the conservatives, on the
other hand, Western modernist theatre’s attack on photographic realism
was echoed by Chinese theatre’s stylization. Of all those groups, the
reformists and the abolitionists dominated. Theatre reform in different
guises spread all over China, making an exhaustive coverage impossible in
such a short introduction as this; instead, I will focus only on several sig-
nificant cases to elaborate on the role that Western theatre had in Chinese
theatre reform.
Unlike the early reformists who only supported modernizing theatre’s
subject matter through translation or new compositions, the later reform-
ists preached to modernize its form as well. One strategy suggested replac-
ing songs with speeches for more effective delivery and debate about
public issues, a method employed by contemporary Japanese theatre
(H. Li 2001, 184). This proposal soon became a reality. Xinju14 (new
drama), otherwise known as wenmingxi (civilized drama), was the embryo
of early encounter between Chinese theatre and Western naturalistic the-
atre at the turn of the twentieth century. Its name emphasized its novelty
relative to the ‘old’ xiqu. Yet xinju was by no means a totality, because
there had been numerous kinds of attempt to create a more real-to-life
and socially engaging type of theatre in early twentieth-century China. An
event with a far-reaching influence on the development of modern Chinese
theatre took place, curiously, in Japan. In 1906 Li Shutong (1880–1942)
and Zeng Xiaogu (1873–1937), two Chinese students in Japan, founded
Chunliu She (the Spring Willow Society) in Tokyo to stage Lin Shu’s
(1852–1924) adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, namely, Heinu Yutian Lu
(Black Slaves Appeal to Heaven, 1907). The style was basically naturalistic
(a proscenium stage with lights and settings, vernacular speeches, contem-
porary costume) and without the influence of the popular jingju, because
founding members of the Spring Willow Society, such as Lu Jingruo
14 W. FENG

(1885–1915), studied shinpa with Japanese practitioners (Xu 1957,

14–15). Some of these founding members continued to be engaged in
theatre after returning to China. This event was thus deemed by many
historians and practitioners as the birth of huaju (spoken drama).15 In
1907, Wang Zhongsheng (1880–1911) transplanted Black Slaves Appeal
to Heaven to Shanghai at a Western-style Lyceum Theatre (see Chap. 4).
With no idea of how to perform in a realistic style, the actors had to imi-
tate jingju performers, accompanied by jingju music. The performance
was a disaster, but the staging in the Lyceum Theatre stimulated other
theatre reformers to reconstruct the stage or use décor (Xu 1957, 18–20).
Such hybrid xinju performances, despite constant failure, persisted and
developed ever since. Because many early practitioners were reformists or
revolutionaries, they exploited the agitative potential of xinju and pointed
directly to concurrent social and political agendas: individual freedom,
women’s liberation, capitalist revolution, political reform, and so on. This
eye-catching and novel form, fuelled by a national zeal for social and polit-
ical reform, found such immediate popularity as to cause anxiety to the
traditional xiqu practitioners.
After seeing xinju in Shanghai in 1913, Mei Lanfang (1894–1961),
then a young rising jingju star, created several popular shizhuang xinxi16
(new plays with contemporary costumes) to address contemporary sub-
jects with a new performing style.17 He soon found, however, that
shizhuang xinxi’s preference of plot and speeches ‘rendered useless’ the
dancing skills the actors acquired through their years of training since
childhood (Mei and Xu 1987, 280).18 Despite its short lifespan for various
reasons,19 xinju nevertheless influenced the form of other theatrical genres,
including yueju and pingju opera. Additionally, in the 1920s when some
practitioners gradually substituted xiqu’s performing styles for realistic
acting, the more mature spoken drama came into being, decades later
bringing with it tremendous changes to xiqu. In terms of political signifi-
cance, early xinju’s ‘successful mixture of arts on one hand, and social, and
political revolution on the other, created a model for subsequent combi-
nation of politics and arts’ (Fa Zhang 2002, 100).
Xinju bespoke the impact of Western theatre not only on xiqu practices
but also on the intellectuals and the proponents of the New Culture
Movement in the early twentieth century. Initiated by Hu Shih (Hu Shi,
1891–1962), Chen Duxiu (1879–1942), Lu Xun (1881–1936), and
other intellectuals that were disillusioned by traditional Chinese culture
and influenced by Western knowledge, the New Culture Movement was a
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

crusade against tradition and Confucianism, espousing instead science and

democracy, especially after the moves to restore the traditional order that
followed the progressive Revolution of 1911. In keeping with its simplistic
dichotomy, the ‘modern’ West was idealized, whereas ‘old’ Chinese tradi-
tion demonized. Foreign threats to China’s survival since the First Opium
War alerted radically progressive intellectuals to the idea that nothing but
quanpan xihua (wholesale Westernization)20 could save the nation from
demise. As a key player in the public sphere, theatre once again entered
this cultural debate orchestrated by leading scholars, writers, and profes-
sors, often on the forum of Xinqingnian (New Youth) (1915–1922), and
became a major mouthpiece of the New Culture Movement. Western real-
istic theatre, effective in political propaganda because of its affinity to
social reality, was avowedly upheld as the exemplary theatrical form to
enlighten people, while xiqu, which seemed estranged from the immediate
concern for reality, was to be either abolished or reformed21 according to
realistic theatre’s political objective and artistic paradigm. Although few of
those intellectuals were frequent theatregoers, their arbitrary arguments,
driven by a fanatic idealization of Western civilization and facilitated by the
huge cultural capital they had accumulated and the print media they were
associated with, left a negative impact on subsequent reforms. A few more
experienced theatre scholars such as Yu Shangyuan (1897–1970) and
Song Chunfang (1892–1938) contested such stance by, on the one hand,
writing about how realistic theatre was critiqued in Europe by such prac-
titioners as Max Reinhardt and Edward Gordon Craig, while, on the
other, introducing types of modernist theatre such as Expressionism and
Futurism. Their opposition, however, was neglected (M. Tian 2008,
147–51; Song 2016, 207–23). Similarly, Romantic plays (such as Goethe’s
Faust [1808] and Victor Hugo’s Hernani [1830]) and Symbolist plays
(Ibsen’s Lady from the Sea [1889], Maurice Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird
[1908]), though translated into Chinese (Song 2016,176–206), seemed
to have had more impact on the spoken drama compositions than on the
conception of xiqu.
Against the many and often contradictory discourses about traditional
Chinese theatre, Mei Lanfang, already ‘foremost actor of China’ (Leung
1929) in the 1920s, became a chief attraction for Western visitors (R. Qi
1985, 7). Amid hostility from some Westernized intellectuals and favour
from other Westerners, Mei Lanfang had a shaky belief in the traditional
theatre. Under such circumstances, he and his troupe toured the USA
(1930) (M. Tian 2012, 57–102; Goldstein 1999, 409–16) and the USSR
16 W. FENG

(1935) (Risum 2010)22 to survey Western theatre and to assess the value
of traditional Chinese theatre for the world.23 To the surprise of the intel-
lectuals who appealed for wholesale Westernization, xiqu (at least jingju
and kunju that Mei Lanfang presented) did win widespread acclaim in the
USA and the USSR, although what Mei Lanfang presented to American
and Soviet audiences with the crucial help of Peng-Chun Chang
(1892–1957), a theatre scholar and practitioner well informed of Western
theatre (Yeh 2007), was strategically adapted to local theatre-going cus-
toms and ideology. Thus seen, the success of Mei Lanfang’s tours again
revealed how Chinese theatre’s identity and self-refashioning was entan-
gled with the gaze of the Western Other.
Xinju, the New Culture Movement, and Mei Lanfang all displayed dif-
ferent aspects of theatre reform in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-­
century China that would occasion far-reaching impact on xiqu. Xinju
demonstrated the efficacy of modern Western drama and naturalistic the-
atre with their popular real-to-life staging style; the New Culture
Movement reinforced the intelligentsia’s belief in radically reforming and
harnessing xiqu for cultural and political agendas; experiences of Mei
Lanfang exposed both the contemporary xiqu practitioners’ sincere efforts
to modernize tradition as well as their anxiety for losing artistic subjectiv-
ity and agency against aggressive abolitionists. All these practices left
important legacy to subsequent theatre reform in the early twentieth cen-
tury. Firstly, the motivation of reform came from not within but from the
influences of the internalized Western Other that was selectively appropri-
ated and generalized for individual objectives. As Chen Xiaomei aptly
theorizes, ‘the Western Other is construed by a Chinese imagination, not
for the purpose of dominating the West, but in order to discipline, and
ultimately to dominate, the Chinese self at home’ (X. Chen 1995, 5).
Secondly, despite modernity’s multiple challenges, politics and aesthetics
were intertwined throughout, as can be seen in the prevailing practice,
borne out of the pragmatic necessity of enlightenment, of prioritizing
content—including characterization, plot, thematic concerns, ideology,
and so on—over dramatic form. Thirdly, the debate on how or whether to
reform or even abolish xiqu à la Western realistic theatre impacted many
facets of xiqu performances: playwriting, acting, scenography, stage-­
audience relationship all started to change, as the following chapters will
further explore. The agenda of reform continued and spread, and finally
evolved into a new phase in the 1950s.
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

With the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, theatre

reform became a part of state action (R. Li 2010, 123–37),24 although the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had already formulated its policy for the
arts as early as 1942: ‘literature and arts are subordinate to politics’
(McDougall and Mao 1980, 376). Some plays were banned or amended
because of ‘barbaric, terrifying, obscene content or emphasis on enslave-
ment, debasing the Chinese people and anti-patriotism,’ while the new
plays, also called xiandaixi (modern-life plays),25 with their elements of
‘health, progress, and beauty’ (Government Administration Council of the
Central People’s Government 1951)26 being encouraged. Unlike the pre-
vious intellectuals keen to abolish xiqu, the CCP guided the ‘new literature
and art workers’ (xin wenyi gongzuozhe)—a group of educated writers, art-
ists, and theorists deeply influenced by the May Fourth Movement—and
xiqu artists to strategically modify and manipulate xiqu to propagate social-
ist realism imported from the Soviet Union (X. Zhou 2017).27
Part of the CCP’s political project of socialist realism initiated in 1953,
the Stanislavsky system was ‘sanctioned as the legitimate yardstick for lit-
erature and the arts, whereas formalism was condemned as anathema’
(M. Tian 2008, 160).28 Principles of naturalistic theatre were thus imposed
on xiqu: the director as a concept was introduced and started to dominate
theatre productions29; flowing and fast-changing scenes were replaced by
stable acts; bare stages became naturalistic,30 ‘which undermined a play’s
flexibility of space and time’ (G. Zhang 1994, 363); and even naturalistic
acting was sometimes adopted in place of xiqu’s conventional acting.31
For example, socialist realism’s requirement of progressive or anti-­
feudalistic themes gave prominence to the once subordinate playwright;
correspondingly, the enduring practice of writing and designing plays spe-
cifically for certain performing artists to fully showcase their acting skills32
came to an end. This de-emphasis of the acting artists and the schools
(liupai) they established consequently paved the way for the Stanislavsky
system so that ‘[e]ven those specialized in xiqu were engulfed in the surge
of Stanislavsky fervour’ (M. Tian 2008, 160). Traditionally, xiqu actors
did not have to identify with characters to find the proper movement, as
the Stanislavsky system proposes, because they had learnt abundant prede-
termined performing chengshi (conventions) from actor-training institu-
tions or acting schools (Y. Chen 1959, 72), which promulgated not only
the conventional performing forms or ready-to-perform vocabularies but
also the rules and laws those were distilled from (Z. Tian 2010, 63). This
is not to argue that empathy or emotional identification is not part of
18 W. FENG

traditional acting; on the contrary, as I argue in Chap. 5, empathy is indis-

pensable. The argument here is that unique conventions of acting schools
could often overwhelm empathy.33 With the central role of actors and
acting schools superseded by modified or new plays that prioritized con-
tent over form, characters were no longer tailor-made for xiqu stars, ren-
dering unsuitable the conventions of the schools of individual artists.
Consequently, in order to enact somewhat strange characters, actors had
to lean on ‘empathizing with characters for external movements’ (A. Wang
2002, 64), which naturally lead to the Stanislavsky system.
During the Cultural Revolution, the marriage of theatre (xiqu and spo-
ken drama) and political propaganda culminated in the formation of gem-
ing yangbanxi (revolutionary model plays).34 In the beginning almost all
regional genres (as opposed to jingju, which was popular across China)
were prohibited, giving place only to eight model plays (six jingju plays
and two ballets). Around 1970, regional genres were permitted to adapt
model plays or to create new ones by imitation. The characteristic of such
plays, as Fan Xing succinctly summarizes, is that ‘on stage, ideological and
political messages must be realized through the most rigorously formu-
lated artistic choices and carried out by exceptional performances and
entertaining techniques and devices’ (Fan 2018, 3). Artistic innovation
(such as the creation of new conventions) or border-crossing hybridity
(such as the introduction of Western musical instruments and systems of
composition) initiated further transformation of almost every aspect of
xiqu. On the one hand, xiqu became even closer to naturalistic theatre,
often in violation of xiqu’s fundamental performing aesthetics (see Chap.
4). On the other, since model plays were collectively created by ‘uniting
the efforts and knowledge of the best practitioners of the time’ (Fan 2018,
3) with generous state support and replicated for years across China for
national audiences of theatre and cinema, their artistic traits, preferences,
and methods left a tangible legacy to contemporary theatre, be it detri-
mental or beneficial.
However, despite model plays’ ‘maturity of expression techniques and
overall painstaking efforts in creation’ (J. Fu 1995, ii), their quest for artis-
tic and political modernity became distorted. In placing model plays in
relation to modernity and localization, the two keywords for the develop-
ment and investigation of the twentieth-century Chinese theatre, Fu Jin
asserts that:
 1 INTRODUCTION 19

Seen from the perspective of modernity, although the mainstream ideology

in the Cultural Revolution seemed constituted by enlightening discourse, its
essential functions, i.e., fostering personality cult, suppressing individuality
and freedom of speech were far from enlightenment, hence the unprece-
dented restriction of artistic independence and value. Seen from the per-
spective of localization, despite that arts borrowed tremendously from local
artistic resources, they had no essential identification with local artistic tradi-
tion. … The fundamental concern was … how to transform traditional arts
to serve ideological propaganda. (J. Fu 2005, 39)

Because of the these plays’ blatantly ideologized and often fabricated or

distorted content, and especially because of their unfaithful exaggeration
of the necessity of class struggle and revolution, scholars subsequently
dismissed model plays as pseudo-realism that diverged from realism’s
emphasis on ‘ordinary details that accurately reflect the way people of the
time actually live’ (Innes 2000, 4). As soon as political atmosphere changed
with the end of the Cultural Revolution, xiqu took on a new look. While
the foreign influences persisted, their source was different.
In 1977 after the Cultural Revolution, xiqu artists ventured to re-stage
classical plays; following an unparalleled surge in the late 1970s, xiqu audi-
ences shrank sizably. From 1980 to 1990, the number of theatre troupes
decreased from 3,523 to 2,788, and performances from 11,123,000 to
491,000 (J. Fu 2002, 169). For one thing, the ever-present political and
cultural mindset determined that many so-called backward and feudalistic
traditional plays were not permitted, regardless of their artistic value; for
another, audiences soon got tired of banal plays performed by profession-
ally incompetent artists and became distracted by new forms of entertain-
ment such as TV and film. In addition to technological developments, the
late 1970s witnessed the influx of Western literature and philosophy. The
pursuit of cultural modernity rejected both the politically loaded model
plays and the simple yet artistically refined traditional plays. While the first
wave of attacks against xiqu during the New Culture Movement was
largely an academic debate that left the audiences unmoved, the second
wave was a matter of life and death in that traditional theatre could no
longer appeal to audiences, notably the young people.
In search of innovative methods and other ways to invigorate the form
to make it more appealing to the contemporary audiences, the practitio-
ners once again looked toward the West for inspiration and stimulus.
Jingju can serve as an illustrative example of this process. Writing in 1990,
20 W. FENG

Elizabeth Wichmann observes three approaches of the jingju reform in

the 1980s: (1) improving the professional skills of practitioners, writing
new plays, and educating audiences; (2) ‘incorporating popular innova-
tions in the staging, costuming and makeup, music, acting, and dance of
both old and new plays’; and (3) ‘creating new plays [with] … intellec-
tual/philosophical content presented via more avant-garde performance
techniques, somewhat in the manner of twentieth century nonrealistic
Western theatre’ (Wichmann 1990, 148). Under Western influence, many
new plays were created with distinctly new characteristics: experimenta-
tion with avant-garde techniques and subversive ideas (such as in chuanju
Pan Jinlian, 1985), characters with complicated personalities (such as in
jingju Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu, 1988), and adaptations of Western canonical
works to xiqu.35 The two Shakespeare festivals held in China in 1986 and
1994, for example, fuelled such adaptations of Shakespearean plays.
The 1990s featured increasing governmental intervention in the form
of emerging national theatre awards, which prioritized grand or innovative
scenography over playwriting (Dong and Hu 2008, 288). This turn, seen
positively, helped enrich xiqu’s scenography by appropriating from
Western modernist and postmodernist theatre. The new millennium has
seen an unprecedented impact of globalization on China, reaching new
heights with improved economy, transportation, and China’s surging
need to spread its culture and gain cultural capital through recognition
from the foreign Other. With new markets in international festivals and
global tours becoming desirable for theatre troupes, an increasing number
of them actively seek to participate in intercultural adaptations in search of
new audiences, inspiration, cultural dissemination, and diplomatic neces-
sity. All of these complicate the issue of intercultural practices. It is this
period and its complexities that constitute the focus of this book, but
before moving on to addressing that topic in detail, a slightly different
history of xiqu in Taiwan needs to be told.
Because of its size and isolation, Taiwan can boast only a small number
of xiqu genres, including both the local gezixi (Taiwanese opera) and the
forms disseminated from the mainland.36 As it is not this book’s focus to
discuss their histories, the following section only concentrates on the
most intercultural theatre genre, jingju, which, according to theatre his-
torian Lin Ho-yi, is ‘a pilot of xiqu modernization’ (Lin 2015, 285).
Together with the retreat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang
or KMT) in 1949, many mainland xiqu (predominantly jingju) actors
migrated to Taiwan to entertain the army. For decades, KMT’s hostile
 1 INTRODUCTION 21

relations with the Communist regime and an eagerness to claim its iden-
tity as the orthodox preserver of Chinese culture led to the careful pres-
ervation of jingju as ‘National Theatre.’ In the meantime, xiqu reform on
the mainland was in full swing during the period of Cultural Restoration
that valorized cultural authenticity. Since the 1970s, Taiwan has under-
gone tremendous social, economic, and political changes: the economic
liberalization and internationalization (1984), the lifting of martial law
(1987), and the consequent influx of Western ideas made conservatively
preserved traditional theatre out of touch with the changing modern soci-
ety, especially when the masses, young people in particular, started to
embrace Western values and ideas (A. Wang 2008, 529). To save xiqu
from its predicament, several attempts were made to modernize the form.
In 1979, jingju actor Kuo Hsiao-chuang founded her own theatre com-
pany Ya Yin Hsiao Chi (Elegant Voice, 1979–1993),37 introducing the
concepts of director, stage design, and Western playwriting to reinvigo-
rate jingju for young audiences. In 1986, Wu Hsing-kuo, primarily also a
jingju actor, together with his wife Lin Hsiu-wei founded Contemporary
Legend Theatre (1986–) with the aim of ‘transforming jingju’ by assimi-
lating elements from modern dance, film, opera, pop music, and spoken
drama (Wu 2006, 54). Chief among their achievements were adaptations
of Western classics, such as Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, and Faust, among others. Like its mainland counterpart,
foreign influences on Taiwanese xiqu came from (avant-garde) spoken
drama. Intercultural appropriation became commonplace, as Jasmine
Yu-hsing Chen writes in terms of actor training: ‘what is perhaps most
distinctive about Taiwanese jingju is each actor’s persistence in finding
creative ways of performance combining traditional training with new,
multicultural methods’ and ‘they were motivated to continually expand
their acting skills and identities and could think beyond rigid traditions’
(J. Y. Chen 2019, 82). This trend was undoubtedly championed by
Elegant Voice and Contemporary Legend Theatre, which made such a
decisive contribution to modernizing xiqu in Taiwan that the theatre
scholar and playwright Wang An-ch’i concludes, ‘Taiwanese audiences’
perception of xiqu started to change, stage design became a necessary
part, dramaturgy changed accordingly, and actors’ performance was con-
trolled by the director’ (A. Wang 2002, 535). Other regional xiqu, such
as yuju and gezixi, were also involved in this changing tide.
Xiqu in mainland China and Taiwan has faced common problems since
the late 1970s: how to modernize the tradition and how to balance xiqu’s
22 W. FENG

historical legacy and the diverse modern artistic forms. ‘The challenge
today seems to be not so much a question of how to make theater an effec-
tive political and social instrument,’ reflect Mackerras and Wichmann in
1983, ‘but how to keep it artistically and commercially viable so that it can
continue to contribute dynamically to the development of China’s ancient
culture’ (Mackerras and Wichmann 1983, 6). This observation applies just
as well to the current situation. Moreover, in relation to this state of affairs
in the new millennium, Wang An-ch’i observes that ‘behind the contra-
dicting yet complementary relation between tradition and modernity is in
fact the question of where China should situate itself in the contemporary
world’ (A. Wang 2002, 534–35). There is, however, a difference between
the mainland and Taiwan. Xiqu on the mainland was never at the margin,
yet in Taiwan since the 1990s, the Democratic Progressive Party govern-
ment has sidelined—except for the local gezixi—all traditional theatre and
jingju in particular. In addition, from the point of view of the mainland
xiqu practitioners, Taiwanese xiqu practice continued without the over-
sight from any true xiqu masters, all of whom remained on the mainland,
and, therefore, was not worth paying attention to. Such marginalization
might be a blessing in disguise, however, since while the practitioners in
the mainland have a huge burden of tradition and censorship that some-
times impedes innovation, their Taiwanese counterparts have only limited
governmental funds on the one hand but fewer artistic restrictions on the
other and can thus innovate more boldly and freely. As a result, intercul-
tural theatre in both locations exhibits dissimilar characteristics, which are
further complicated by exchanges of touring groups that cross-pollinated
the xiqu practices on both sides of the Strait.
The modern history of intercultural xiqu displays first and foremost an
undertone of cultural and state politics devoted to refashioning traditional
xiqu into a modernized artistic tool responsive to social realities. The
kaleidoscopic genres of Euro-American theatre from the nineteenth cen-
tury onward, with their equally varied artistic and political outlooks, were
selectively appropriated by Chinese intellectuals, politicians, and artists for
educational, discursive, and artistic objectives, all tethered to a perception
of modernity. Xiqu as an art form, often denied agency and authority,
struggled amid an unbalanced power matrix of cultural and political
power, of individual and institutional power; this matrix imposed or sug-
gested an array of foreign ideas for reform. Taken together with diverse
modes of reception and appropriation, xiqu has anticipated a theatrical
landscape of plurality and contradiction.
 1 INTRODUCTION 23

The history of intercultural xiqu has a strong resonance with other

intercultural theories and practices around the world. Overall, it exempli-
fies Erika Fischer-Lichte’s conception of interweaving performance cul-
tures, where postcolonial discourse plays a minor role in the unending
process which constantly generates ‘new differences and diversities’
(Fischer-Lichte 2008, 108). It also attests to Rustom Bharucha’s consis-
tent emphasis on material conditions and power struggle, an emphasis that
functions as a necessary reminder of socio-political contexts in all intercul-
tural practices. But there are also cases, particularly in recent history, that
elude theorizations by existing scholars in intercultural theatre. This mis-
match demands a further development or adjustment of theory. Since it is
almost senseless to generalize Chinese or Western ‘culture’ for so many
diverse and complicated intercultural productions, one has to treat each
production independently by attending to individual artists and particu-
larly to their agency in the creative process. To analyse the process, it is
also necessary to differentiate between productions on the grounds of
their principles and approaches to appropriating and interweaving raw
materials. Analysis must be accompanied by evaluation, not only of aes-
thetics but more importantly of intercultural ethics; that is, the judgement
about what is right and wrong from a certain perspective.

Methodologies: Dialogism, Appropriation,

and Agents

The idea of dialogue often haunts intercultural exchange as a metaphor,

but few have made strenuous attempt to elaborate on and utilize its critical
efficacy. This book treats dialogue as a fundamental ethic and criterion to
evaluate intercultural practices, with crucial inspiration from Bakhtin’s dia-
logism. Taking dialogue as a pivotal concept in his oeuvre, the Russian
theorist argues that since all texts exist in a given time and space, the
changing of their context (which under some circumstances equates to a
reader’s personal experience and viewpoint) changes their meaning; that
is, ‘all meaning is relative in the sense that it comes about only as a result
of the relation between two [physical, political, or ideological] bodies
occupying simultaneous but different space’ (Holquist 2002, 19).
However, dialogism applies not only to texts; in its broadest sense, dia-
logue ‘reaches beyond the text as such to embrace the social world as a
whole’ (Gardiner 1992, 31).
24 W. FENG

Given the instability of meaning, a dialogue is never finalized as long as

texts or culture keep encountering different (con)texts. A genuine dia-
logue demands readers’ creative engagement with the alien text or culture
to contemplate its complexity, ambiguity, and unfamiliarity, and thus the
dialogue ‘educates each side about itself and about the other, and it not
only discovers but activates potentials’ (Morson and Emerson 1990, 55).
To conduct an ethical and productive dialogue, understanding is vital,
which, according to Bakhtin, means a ‘correlation with other texts and
reinterpretation, in a new context (in my own context, in a contemporary
context, and in a future one)’ (Bakhtin 1986, 161). Since the meaning of
the source culture depends on its adaptor/interlocutor, it is open to inter-
pretation and adaptation within the frame of the adaptor’s context. In
order to be effectively engaged in the dialogue, one must be informed as
much as possible about the interlocutor. Writing about the best way to
encounter a foreign culture, therefore, Bakhtin claims that ‘the possibility
of seeing the world through its eyes, is a necessary part of the process of
understanding it’ (Bakhtin 1986, 7) and then elaborates about this further:

Only through such an inner dialogic orientation can my discourse find itself
in intimate contact with someone else’s discourse, and yet at the same time
not fuse with it, not swallow it up, not dissolve in itself the other’s power to
mean; that is, only thus can it retain fully its independence as a discourse.
(Bakhtin 1984, 64)

Here Bakhtin maintains the importance of distancing independence and

respect for the self and the other. In other words, the target text or culture
should hold to its own subjectivity for creative understanding, rather than
‘renounc[ing] itself, its own place in time, its own culture’ (Bakhtin 1986,
7). This stance parallels the one that Catherine Diamond argues regarding
intercultural theatre, stressing that the complexity of the source text
should be adequately addressed, ‘allow[ing] for a true confrontation with
difference’ (Diamond 1999, 145). The target text, then, should actively
challenge and negotiate with the source text from its own independent
perspective, ‘ready to grapple with its idiosyncrasies and ha[ving] compel-
ling artistic reasons for wanting to present the play’ (Diamond 1999,
145). An ideal dialogue is one in which the source culture enriches both
interlocutors, rather than consisting of one-sided domination.
There is increasing interest in applying Bakhtin’s theory to intercultural
theatre, although such application is far from fully developed. Jacqueline
 1 INTRODUCTION 25

Lo and Helen Gilbert’s model of intercultural theatre (Lo and Gilbert

2002, 43–46) is perceivably influenced by dialogism, although they refer
to the word ‘dialogic’ only twice and without mentioning Bakhtin. Alexa
Huang and Elizabeth Rivlin have highlighted reciprocal dialogism as a
necessary approach when appropriating Shakespeare (A. Huang and Rivlin
2014, 4–10); Dennis Cutchins also relates Bakhtin’s terminology to trans-
lation and adaptation studies (Cutchins 2014). Despite this lack of sus-
tained engagement, there are in fact many more useful and detailed
theories in Bakhtin’s works applicable to the study of intercultural theatre.
In particular, he brings up many degrees of dialogue, which are readily
applicable to intercultural activities. In Speech Genres and Other Late Essays,
he lists many rudimentary forms of dialogue:

Confidence in another’s word, reverential reception (the authoritative

word), apprenticeship, the search for and mandatory nature of deep mean-
ing, agreement, its infinite gradations and shadings (but not its logical limi-
tations and not purely referential reservations), the layering of meaning
upon meaning, voice upon voice, strengthening through merging (but not
identification), the combination of many voices (a corridor of voices) that
augments understanding, departure beyond the limits of the understood,
and so forth. (Bakhtin 1986, 121)

Ranging from those minimally (reverence) dialogic to those maximally

(merging and combination of voices) so, these forms mark different loca-
tions along Lo and Gilbert’s continuum as well as delineate different
modes of interweaving.
The dialogic encounter with other theatre cultures facilitates a deeper
self-understanding because of the realization of suppressed potentials.
This is the basic idea of Antony Tatlow’s intercultural theory, which insists
that a culture’s social unconscious might be brought to light by another
culture; there is always, he posits, an unconscious need for an alternative
cultural mode: ‘The impulse from another culture is sought and absorbed,
because it enables an otherwise difficult, if not impossible, engagement
with what has been repressed at home’ (Tatlow 2001, 3–4). In addition to
this fundamental motivation, intercultural practices also expose the practi-
tioners to other elements lacking in the culture. For Eugenio Barba, for
example, that lack might be the actor training methods; for Chinese xiqu
reformers, it is naturalistic performing styles, access to a richer variety of
plays, and different ideologies. Often scholars dub all these practices
26 W. FENG

‘intercultural theatre,’ with little contemplation of what is travelling

between cultures except a generalized designation of content or form.
Detailed categorization can be made regarding what is appropriated or
used for dialogue in intercultural theatre so as to specify and ponder on
controversies and debates, consequences and ethics surrounding intercul-
tural practices. Philosopher James O. Young’s categorization of cultural
appropriation in arts lends itself well to intercultural theatre, because all
intercultural practices feature appropriation, including adaptation of dra-
matic texts, assimilation of theatrical forms, and, on many occasions, the
representation of foreign culture.
Young classifies cultural appropriation according to whether its object
is artistic content or artefacts, further subdividing the former into style
appropriation, motif appropriation, and subject appropriation. In style
appropriation, ‘artists produce works with stylistic elements in common
with the works of another culture’ (Young 2008, 6). But style here does
not simply mean the form of an artistic work but also its content. Such a
type of appropriation acknowledges its origin from another culture and
takes the approach of representing or reproducing the original, although
often not in its entirety. Repetition and commonality are central to style
appropriation. Motif appropriation differs from style appropriation in its
originality and agency in handling appropriated elements, because ‘artists
are influenced by the art of a culture other than their own without creating
works in the same style’ (Young 2008, 6). Subject appropriation involves
appropriating ‘a subject matter, namely another culture or some of its
members’ (Young 2008, 7). Subject appropriation is not strictly appro-
priation, because nothing is exactly translated from one culture to another.
It is nevertheless significant, pervasive, and controversial in intercultural
theatre, particularly in the case of The Mahabharata. Correspondingly,
each type of appropriation can be evaluated with different criteria. For
example, style appropriation and subject appropriation that are tethered to
representing another culture have to bear close scrutiny in the light of
dialogical ethics, while motif appropriation would be given more room for
innovation and tolerance if unexpected things happen.
But we can never ignore that intercultural practices are conducted by
individual agents. Fischer-Lichte’s interweaving paradigm falls short of
addressing the issue of actual human beings who cause controversies. In a
single production, the work of the director, the playwright, and the actor
create harmony and coherence on one hand and friction and conflict on
the other. All of these agents, like agents in a textual dialogue, play a
 1 INTRODUCTION 27

central role, as Bakhtin maintains: ‘Behind this contact is a contact of per-

sonalities and not of things (at the extreme)’ (Bakhtin 1986, 162). If the
speaking subjects are erased, ‘then the deep-seated (infinite) contextual
meaning disappears’ (Bakhtin 1986, 162).38 To elaborate on agency,
Tobin Nellhaus’s idea in Theatre, Communication, Critical Realism
(2010) is helpful. He maintains that ‘agents are not “pure origins” of
action: they necessarily act under conditions and imperatives not of their
choosing, and their choosing may have unintended consequences’
(Nellhaus 2010, 48). As individuals and organized groups, agents ‘have
material, sociological, and meaningful aspects’ (Nellhaus 2010, 150).
Material conditions consist of habit and disposition if agents are individu-
als, and organizations and institutions if the agent is a group. Material
resources influence agents’ ‘dispositions to act in certain ways and gener-
ate certain effects’ (Nellhaus 2010, 44). The modes of behaviours and
attitudes during intercultural appropriation are partly predicted by agents’
material conditions. The sociological aspect determines agents’ motiva-
tion to do things, because agents’ foremost social attributes are their ‘posi-
tions and powers within various social relationships, and the interests such
positions establish’ (Nellhaus 2010, 150). Once in a position, agents strive
for various interests and benefits, and their motivation and intention might
contradict the expectations of and possibly offend others. Meaningful
conditions concern the significance of agents’ behaviours in their own
rationale often connected with their identities and self-images, which
might be problematic for others. Brook, for instance, calls himself a uni-
versalist, which rationale Bharucha rejects. To sum up, the material aspect
decides in what manner an agent acts, the sociological aspect decides to
what end an agent acts, and the meaningful aspect decides how an agent
gives significance to its act in order to rationalize or explain it. The agents
are central to (inter)cultural activities and thus liable for problems
within them.
Informed by existing intercultural theories, Bakhtin, Young, and
Nellhaus, this book’s approach can be seen as a comparative performance
analysis within a political and historical context. That is, by referring to
Nellhaus’s concept of agents, this book intends to examine why, how, and
to what extent xiqu’s major components get involved in intercultural dia-
logues within specific productions. During this analysis, a dialogue
between the Chinese and Western traditions about theories of literature
and arts will shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of both.
28 W. FENG

Scope and Focus

This book extends scholarship in contemporary intercultural xiqu by cen-
tralizing aesthetics. Most critics of intercultural xiqu so far have focused on
historical survey and general case studies or a combination of both. Li
Ruru, Tian Min, Alexa Huang, Daphne Lei, Chen Xiaomei, Chen Fang,
Chu Fang-huei, Siyuan Liu, Jiang Ji, Catherine Diamond, and Qi Shouhua
(R. Li 2003, 2010; M. Tian 2008; A. C. Y. Huang 2009; Lei 2011;
X. Chen 1995; Fang Chen 2012; Liu 2013; Diamond 2000; S. Qi 2018;
Jiang 2015; Chu 2012; Tuan 2018), among others, have all contributed
either extensive or focused chapters in their monographs about the history
and practices of various forms of intercultural xiqu. There are also numer-
ous less systematic articles addressing a specific topic or an adaptation,
some of which have informed and inspired this book. The majority of
scholars are by far more interested in expounding cultural and political
agendas embedded in intercultural practices from the early twentieth cen-
tury by working with critical theories and cultural studies, not only because
these issues are salient but also because the aesthetics of xiqu is a subject
few scholars are well informed about.
Knowles’s observation that a play’s material conditions include ‘both
theatrical and cultural’ aspects (Knowles 2004, 10) is illuminating here.
The departure from aesthetics or theatricality to investigate broader
issues in intercultural xiqu could often contest discoveries from other
perspectives, especially when artists’ efforts are by and large elided by
critics who tend to generalize performances within pre-ordained socio-
political theoretical scheme without bothering to delve into details.
Such an aesthetics-­oriented approach has been adopted and developed
by Catherine Diamond, Chen Fang, and Li Ruru. The work of Chen
Fang, a xiqu scholar and adaptor, can serve as a particularly apt example
here. In her monograph (Fang Chen 2012), she evaluates Shakespeare
adaptations largely from an aesthetic and comparative approach. Based
on close reading of textual and performance translations, her studies
have convincingly problematized generalizing observations in her
peers’ researches heavily informed by cultural studies theories. Unlike
other scholars, Chen, Diamond, and Li all have a background (theoreti-
cally and practically) in xiqu, which enables them to approach perfor-
mances from the perspective of an insider capable of detecting aesthetic
subtleties. Their researches part ways with most of the recent works on
contemporary intercultural xiqu studies to enter a realm less explored.
 1 INTRODUCTION 29

By focusing on the theatrical, they expose what studies on cultural poli-

tics might inadequately account for or miss entirely in their interpreta-
tions of a production’s central meaning. Taking the research
methodologies of these three scholars as a strong foundation, this book
builds upon them further.
A major hypothesis for this book is that theatre reflects society.
Therefore, the investigation of how xiqu finds its own identity within
modernity reflects the situation in China. Since this book is informed by
previous studies on theatrical interculturalism at home and abroad, it
intends to contribute to two related fields: contemporary (intercultural)
xiqu and world interculturalism. To be specific, this book’s major contri-
butions are, first, to extend existing studies of xiqu’s aesthetic transforma-
tion by intercultural theatre; second, to contest certain homogenizing
conclusions derived from uncritical implementation of cultural studies
theories with close analysis of performances; third, to uncover the underly-
ing intercultural political mechanisms in the transformation of aesthetics
in contemporary xiqu; and fourth, to shed light on both xiqu and Western
theatre through comparative studies.
Chapter 2 examines the issue of playwriting in three versions of King
Lear: Li’er Wang (King Li’er, sixianxi [sixian opera], 1994), Qiwang
Meng (King Qi’s Dream, jingju, 1995), and Li’er Zai Ci to investigate
how Shakespeare’s text are reframed and how the performance is envi-
sioned by playwrights. Chapter 3 assesses the changes in acting style to
cope with non-traditional styles and themes with the example of
Contemporary Legend Theatre’s jingju adaptation of Waiting for Godot
(2005). Chapter 4 deals with the creative reuse of scenography in chuanju
Makebai Furen (Lady Macbeth, 2003) which attempts to infuse Western
Expressionism into chuanju’s conventions. Chapter 5 discusses the issue
of repositioning audiences by resorting to Brechtian estrangement and
metatheatricality in Western theatre.
Taken as a whole, the book’s argument is that through a dialogical—
although sometimes insufficient—encounter with Western theatre, xiqu is
compelled to transform its aesthetics, which results in either productive
and probably lasting new aesthetic paradigms, problematic narcissism, or
uncritical imposition of Western aesthetics. The fundamental issue involved
in this is an emphasis on self-subjectivity based on thorough and thought-
ful appreciation of both Chinese and Western traditions. Starting from this
premise, the Chinese can find an appropriate place between tradition and
modernity, China and the world.
30 W. FENG

Notes
1. Strictly speaking, ‘Chinese’ means the Han nationality, which accounts for
more than 90 per cent of the population in China. This is also a flexible
political term throughout history because some non-Chinese groups (e.g.
the Tibetan, the Mongols, and the Uygur) in history were integrated as
parts of China. The concept of ‘Chinese,’ therefore, is more a political
notion than an ethnic one. In this book, as far as cultural tradition is con-
cerned, ‘Chinese’ generally means the Han nationality, including those in
mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or even in the diaspora. If neces-
sary, I will differentiate the Taiwanese from the mainland Chinese when
national politics is involved.
2. Several factors accounted for its absence. Among them, the early repression
of mythology in the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) and the Confucian
school’s continuing practice of demystification resulted in the lack of nar-
rative epics, as did Chinese literature’s emphasis on emotional expression
rather than storytelling (G. Zhang et al. 1989, 8–9).
3. Xiyu was a historical term referring to regions west of China’s Yumen
Guan (Yumen Pass) and Yang Guan (Yang Pass), both military fortresses.
Its precise meaning varied throughout history and at different times
included India, Central Asia, and even Europe.
4. In its narrow sense—starting from its capital Luoyang of the Western Han
dynasty to the Mediterranean—this trade route connected East, Middle,
West Asia, and Europe and played a tremendously important role in cul-
tural and commercial exchanges across Eurasia.
5. She was referred to as Suzup by the Uyghurs, Suzhipo in Chinese sources,
and Sujiva in Sanskrit (Rachel Harris 2009, 147).
6. According to Ch’en Li-li, zhugongdiao was ‘written for oral perfor-
mances, … [and] the verse sections were sung and the prose passages nar-
rated’ (Ch’en 1972, 126–27).
7. In its narrow sense, it means the first court music of the ten; in its broad
sense, it refers to all court music in general.
8. Western Liang music was in fact a hybrid of Chinese and Kuchean music.
9. Kang’s book has many detailed analyses of Buddhism’s influence on the
various minor aspects of xiqu, such as performing space, role types, singing
style, narrative strategies, textual writing, movements, stories, and
philosophy.
10. In Yuan zaju, four series of songs within the same mode determined that a
play should have four parts/acts: introduction, continuation, transition,
and synthesis. The tension of the dramatic structure reversely determined
the tone and mood of the songs. Nanxi was not restrained by such a music
structure, and thus it was more flexible in singing style and length of play.
 1 INTRODUCTION 31

11. Scholars disagree over whether bianwen was the earliest narrative form in
China. Music historian Yang Yinliu (1899–1984) brings up many proofs to
demonstrate that storytelling had already been formed long before 221
BCE, so it is hard to judge whether bianwen was influenced by these exist-
ing storytelling traditions or vice versa (Yang 1981, 204). It is certain,
however, that bianwen’s form and content did play an important role in
the formation of narrative theatre.
12. Kang argues that there were three phases of Buddhism’s influence on xiqu.
The first phase ranged from the Han to the Tang dynasty, when baixi and
Buddhist rituals drove the formation of pre-xiqu performing forms such as
puppet theatre; the second phase was marked by secular sermons from the
mid-Tang to the Yuan dynasty, which led to the maturity of xiqu; the third
phase took place in the Ming and Qing dynasties when Buddhist preaching
and visual arts further influenced xiqu’s music and performing skills (Kang
2004, 8–9).
13. Including the Second Opium War (1856–1860) against Britain and France,
the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), the Siege of the International
Legations against the Eight-Nation Alliance (Japan, Russia, Britain, France,
the United States, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary) (1900), and
many other large and small confrontations.
14. It was in fact the Chinese counterpart of Japanese shinpa, an early product
of the Japan-West encounter in theatre. Chinese xinju was directly influ-
enced by this form. It was largely a hybrid, but the degree of hybridity
between plays varied. This book chooses ‘xinju,’ instead of ‘wenmingxi,’ to
designate this genre because historically ‘xinju’ was far more frequently
used than ‘wenmingxi,’ although for decades Chinese academic discourse
preferred ‘wenmingxi’ (J. Fu 2015b, 142–46). A search in the databases of
Republican books, newspapers, and journals, such as Shun Pao, Chinese
Historical Documents, and Quanguo baokan suoyin (National Index of
Periodicals and Newspapers), returns dozens of times greater number of
results for ‘xinxi’ than for ‘wenmingxi’; other variations of ‘wenmingxi’
such as ‘wenming xinju’ or ‘wenming xinxi’ had even fewer mentions.
In the history of xinju, despite shared practitioners, naturalistic ten-
dency, and even revolutionary and realistic subject matters, there were dif-
ferent artistic and social attitudes. Roughly speaking, early xinju paid more
attention to dramatic writing and acting because some earlier practitioners
learned heavily from modern Japanese theatre when studying in Japan
(Seto 2015, 136) or when travelling Japanese theatre troupes were per-
forming in Shanghai (Xu 1957, 22–23). Commercialization was never a
concern as important as revolution and social reformation. However, since
1914, as xinju became profitable, Shanghai witnessed an increase of xinju
groups and investors, many seeking after commercial profits by plagiarism
32 W. FENG

and mass ­production. This led to the charges of ‘diluted play and perfor-
mance qualities,’ ‘scripts mixed with scenarios and improvisation, speech
mixed with singing, female impersonation mixed with performance by
actresses’ (Liu 2013, 8), and worse still, the use of erotic, superstitious, and
other such content to attract audiences. Revolutionary and social concerns
as well as artistic pursuits were pushed to the margin. Against such com-
mercialization, superficiality, and vulgarity, the label ‘wenmingxi’ even
became a catchword to mock any bad performance (Ouyang 1990, 180).
In this book, ‘early xinju’ will be used to specify the early stages of xinju
that were more refined in artistic style and more progressive in content,
particularly referring to the works by the Spring Willow Society. For more
details of the whole trajectory and representative theatre troupes, see Tian
Benxiang’s book (B. Tian 2016, 1–73).
15. Recently, there have been debates over what exactly was the event that
marked the birth of modern Chinese theatre (Liu 2013, 9; J. Fu 2015b).
16. In contemporary discourse, unlike xinju that was stylistically closer to nat-
uralistic theatre, ‘xinxi’ (new plays) largely referred to modernized—in
either style or subject matter, or both—xiqu pieces. Such shizhuang xinxi
was not Mei’s invention because such plays existed several decades earlier
(Xu 1957, 6).
17. In his recollection, ‘Niehai Bolan (Waves of the Sea of Sin, 1914) exposed
the darkness of prostitution and its oppression of prostitutes; Huan
Haichao (Tides in the Officialdom, 1915) revealed the wickedness in offi-
cialdom; Deng Xia Gu (Lady Deng Xia, 1915) told the story of women’s
struggle in feudal society over marital issues; and Yi Lü Ma (A Strand of
Hemp, 1916) indicated that thoughtless marriage would inevitably end in
tragedy’ (Mei and Xu 1987, 268).
18. For details of shizhuang xinxi’s production and reception, see also Tian
Min’s work (M. Tian 2008, 144–47).
19. Politically, the failure of the Revolution of 1911 caused the warlords to ban
xinju because of its associations with that attempt. Moreover, it was unable
to solve the aesthetic contradiction between naturalistic and traditional
Chinese performing styles or to establish a unique performing style. It was
thus forsaken by xiqu practitioners while the spoken drama practitioners
significantly modified it. Commercially, once deprived of the revolutionary
content, it went too far to cater to the taste of the masses to the detriment
of its artistic pursuits.
20. The term bespoke the general attitude towards traditional culture since the
late nineteenth century. Hu Shih, a primary proponent of this idea, explains
in a speech titled ‘The Cultural Conflict in China’ in 1929 that his empha-
sis was more on attitude than on practice:
 1 INTRODUCTION 33

If the effort is in the direction of a wholehearted modernization, the

inherent conservative force of a civilization will inevitably offer its resis-
tance and the result will be a kind of selective assimilation. But if the
advanced leaders should begin with selective assimilation, the natural
result would be conservative resistance and no modernization would be
possible. (S. Hu 2004, 10)
In other words, knowing that wholesale Westernization would not and
could not eventuate, Hu Shih strategically went to the extreme in order to
combat the pervasive conservative forces in cultural reform, especially
when conservatism peaked around 1935 and intellectuals debated again
over the idea of wholesale Westernization. Therefore, it is misleading to
understand wholesale Westernization literally. For an introduction to the
debate, see Zhang Taiyuan’s article (T. Zhang 2010).
21. Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967), for example, was in favour of abolishing xiqu
by claiming that ‘concerning construction [after discarding xiqu], the only
alternative is to promote European new plays’ (Z. Zhou 1918, 527). But
Hu Shih, Fu Ssu-nien (Fu Sinian, 1896–1950), and Ouyang Yuqian
(1889–1962) had their own proposals of reform (S. Hu 1918; S. Fu 1918;
Ouyang 1918).
22. Janne Risum offers probably the most provocative, vigorous, and reliable
studies of Mei Lanfang’s Soviet tour.
23. There are other responses from the xiqu circle regarding how to reform.
Hu Xingliang sums up four aspects of their ideas: (1) xiqu should reflect
contemporary reality; (2) audiences’ emotions should be channelled for
education, and entertainment should be secondary; (3) new plays should
be written and traditional plays rewritten; and (4) Chinese and Western
traditions should be fully utilized (X. Hu 1997, 49–50).
24. The CCP’s xiqu reform, launched in 1951, intended to reform the theatre,
the professionals, and the institutional system. Artists were educated with
Communist ideology, ‘inappropriate’ plays were rewritten, and certain
‘negative’ ways of theatre management in the old system were also
abolished.
25. Contemporary xiqu plays since 1949 fall into three categories: traditional
plays, newly written historical plays, and modern-life plays. Traditional
plays are adaptations of classical plays that emphasize continuity with tradi-
tion; newly written historical plays deal with historical stories by making
use of modern aesthetic and ideological concerns; modern-life plays ‘start
from daily reality, and interpret life with flexible utilization of traditional
art, contemporary life, cultural, artistic, and aesthetic concepts’ (Yin 2009,
5). Such a categorization opens space for reformists and traditionalists,
experimentation and inheritance, modernity and tradition. Some scholars
also include adaptations of Western plays in the third category.
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libraries of Arabic literature, to compile local histories and poems,
and, in a measure, to become centres for the propagation of
intellectual thought.
That is the condition in which Leo Africanus found them in the
sixteenth century, when he first revealed their existence to an
incredulous and largely unlettered Western world; in which the
pioneer explorers of the nineteenth century found them; in which the
political agents of Great Britain found them ten years ago when
destiny drove her to establish her supremacy in the country. That is
the condition in which they are to-day in this difficult transition stage
when the mechanical engines of modern progress, the feverish
economic activity of the Western world, the invading rattle of another
civilization made up of widely differing ideals, modes of thought, and
aims, assailed them.
Will the irresistible might wielded by the new forces be wisely
exercised in the future? Will those who, in the ultimate resort, direct
it, abide by the experience and the advice of the small but splendid
band of men whose herculean and whole-hearted labours have
inscribed on the roll of British history an achievement, not of
conquest, but of constructive statesmanship of just and sober
guidance nowhere exceeded in our management of tropical
dependencies? Will they be brought to understand all that is
excellent and of good repute in this indigenous civilization; to realize
the necessity of preserving its structural foundations, of honouring its
organic institutions, of protecting and strengthening its spiritual
agencies? Will they have the patience to move slowly; the sympathy
to appreciate the period of strain and stress which these
revolutionary influences must bring with them; the perception to
recognize what elements of greatness and of far-reaching promise
this indigenous civilization contains? Or will they, pushed by other
counsellors, incline to go too fast both politically and economically,
impatiently brushing aside immemorial ceremonies and customs, or
permitting them to be assaulted by selfish interests on the one hand
and short-sighted zeal on the other? Will they forget, amid the
clamorous calls of “progress” and “enlightenment” that their own
proclaimed high purpose (nobly accomplished by their
representatives) of staying the ravages of internal warfare and
healing open wounds will be shamed in the result if, through their
instrumentality, the seeds of deeper, deadlier ills are sown which
would eat away this fine material, destroy the lofty courtesies, the
culture and the healthy industrial life of this land, converting its
peoples into a troubled, shiftless mass, hirelings, bereft of economic
independence and having lost all sense of national vitality? Thoughts
such as these must needs crowd upon the traveller through these
vast spaces and populous centres as he watches the iron horse
pursue its irrevocable advance towards the great Hausa cities of the
plains, as he hears the increasing calls from the newly opened tin
mines for labour, from the Lancashire cotton-spinner for cotton and
markets; as he takes cognisance of the suggestions already being
made to break the spirit of the new and admirable land-law, and of
the efforts to introduce a militant Christian propaganda; as he listens
in certain quarters to the loose talk about the “shibboleths” and
“absurdities” of indigenous forms and ceremonies, the
cumbrousness of native laws and etiquette.
 CHAPTER IV
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE LONG-DISTANCE TRADER

A broad, sandy road, piercing a belt of shea trees, gnarled and

twisted, their bark figured like the markings of a crocodile’s back,
from which peculiarity you can distinguish the true shea from the so-
called “false” shea, or African oak. From the burnt grasses, golden
flowers destitute of leaf companionship peep timidly forth as though
fearful of such uncongenial surroundings. The heat rays quiver over
the thirsty soil, for it is Christmas time and no rain has fallen for nigh
upon four months. On the summit of a blackened sapling, exquisite
in its panoply of azure blue and pinkey-buff, a bird of the size of our
English jay but afflicted with a name so commonplace that to
mention it in connection with so glorious a visitant would be cruel,
perches motionless, its long graceful tail feathers waving ever so
slightly in the still air. The sun beats downward shrewdly, and
combined with the gentle amble of the patient beast beneath you,
induces drowsiness. You find yourself nodding in the saddle until the
loosening grip of thighs jerks the rider once more into sentiency. It is
hot, dreamily, lethargically hot. All the world seems comatose, the
unfolding panorama unreal as if seen through a fog of visionary
reverie. But there is nothing fanciful about the rapidly approaching
cloud of dust ahead, which emits a swelling murmur of confused
sound. It takes shape and substance, and for the next half-hour or
so, drowsiness and heat are alike forgotten in the contemplation of a
strange medley of men and animals. Droves of cattle, among them
the monstrous horned oxen from the borders of Lake Chad,
magnificent beasts, white or black for the most part. Flocks of
Roman-nosed, short-haired, vacant-eyed sheep—white with black
patches. Tiny, active, bright brown goats skipping along in joyful
ignorance of impending fate. Pack-bullocks, loaded with potash,
cloth, hides and dried tobacco leaves, culinary utensils, and all
manner of articles wrapped in skins or in octagon-shaped baskets
made of parchment, tight drawn in a wicker framework, which later—
on the return journey—will be packed with kolas carefully covered
with leaves. A few camels, skinny and patchy, and much out at
elbows so to speak, similarly burdened. The drivers move among
their beasts. Keeping in the rear, with lengthy staves outstretched
over the animal’s back, they control any tendency to straggle across
the road. Tall spare men, for the most part, these drivers, small-
boned, tough and sinewy. Hausas mainly, good-featured, not
unfrequently bearded men, often possessed of strikingly handsome
profiles, with clean-shaven heads and keen cheerful looks. But many
Tuaregs are here also from the far-distant north, even beyond the
Nigerian border; their fierce eyes gleaming above the black veil
drawn across the face, covering the head and falling upon the robe
beneath, once white, now stained and rent by many weeks of travel.
From the shoulders of these hang formidable, cross-handled swords
in red-leather tasselled scabbards. Nor are the Hausas always
innocent of arms, generally a sword. But here is a professional
hunter who has joined the party. You can tell him from his bow held
in the right hand and the quiver of reed-arrows barbed—and, maybe,
poisoned—slung across his back. The legs of the men are bare to
the knees, and much-worn sandals cover their feet. Some carry
loads of merchandise, food and water-gourds; others have their
belongings securely fastened on bullock or donkey. Women, too,
numbers of them, splendid of form and carriage, one or both arms
uplifted, balancing upon the carrying pad (gammo) a towering load of
multitudinous contents neatly held together in a string bag. Their
raiment is the raiment of antiquity, save that it has fewer folds, the
outer gown, commonly blue in colour, reaching to just below the
knees, the bosom not generally exposed, at least in youth, and
where not so intended, gravely covered as the alien rides by; neck,
wrists and ankles frequently garnished with silver ornaments. Many
women bear in addition to the load upon the head, a baby on the
back, its body hidden in the outer robe, its shiny shaven head
emerging above, sometimes resting against the soft and ample
maternal shoulders, sometimes wobbling from side to side in
slumber, at the imminent risk, but for inherited robustness in that
region, of spinal dislocation. Children of all ages, the elders doing
their share in porterage, younger ones held by the hand (nothing can
be more charming than the sight of a youthful Nigerian mother
gladsome of face and form teaching the young idea the mysteries of
head-carriage!). Two tired mites are mounted upon a patient ox, the
father walking behind. A sturdy middle-aged Hausa carries one child
on his shoulders, grasps another by the wrist, supporting his load
with his free hand. A gay, dusty crowd, weary and footsore, no
doubt, tramping twenty miles in a day carrying anything from forty to
one hundred pounds; but, with such consciousness of freedom, such
independence of gait and bearing! The mind flies back to those
staggering lines of broken humanity, flotsam and jetsam of our great
cities, products of our “superior” civilization, dragging themselves
along the Herefordshire lanes in the hop-picking season! What a
contrast! And so the trading caravan, bound for the markets of the
south, for Lokoja or Bida—it may well be, for some of its units,
Ibadan or Lagos—passes onwards, wrapped in its own dust, which,
presently, closes in and hides it from sight.

A NIGERIAN HUNTER STALKING GAME WITH THE HEAD OF THE GROUND

HORNBILL AFFIXED TO HIS FOREHEAD.

(Copyright.) (Photo by Mr. E. Firmin.)

 Throughout the dry season the trade routes are covered with such
caravans and with countless pedestrians in small groups or in twos
or threes—I am told by men who have lived here for years and by
the natives themselves, that while highway robbery is not unknown,
a woman, even unattended (and I saw many such) is invariably safe
from molestation—petty traders and itinerant merchants, some
coming north loaded with kolas, salt and cloth, others going south
with butchers’ provender, potash, cloth, grass, and leather-ware,
etc., witness to the intensive internal commerce which for centuries
upon centuries has rolled up and down the highways of Nigeria.

A TRADING CARAVAN.
 CHAPTER V
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE AGRICULTURIST

Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! The sonorous tones perforate the

mists of sleep, heralding the coming of the dawn. Ashadu Allah, ila-
allahu, ila-allahu! Insistent, reverberating through the still, cold air—
the night and first hours of the day in these latitudes are often very
cold. A pause. Then the unseen voice is again raised, seeming to
gather unto itself a passionate appeal as the words of the prayer flow
more rapidly. Ashadu an Muhammad rasul ilahi! Haya-al essalatu!
Haya al el falahi! Kad Kamet essalatu! Another pause. The myriad
stars still shine in the deep purple panoply of the heavens, but their
brilliancy grows dimmer. The atmosphere seems infused with a
tense expectancy. Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! La illaha, ila-Allahu,
ila-Allahu. Muhammad Rasul ilahi. Salallah aleiheiu, ... Wassalama.
The tones rise triumphant and die away in grave cadence. It thrills
inexpressibly does this salute to the omnipotent Creator ringing out
over every town and village in the Moslem Hausa States. “God the
Greatest! There is no God but the God!” And that closing, “Peace!” It
has in it reality. Surely it is a good thing and not a bad thing that
African man should be reminded as he quits his couch, and as he
returns to it, of an all-presiding, all-pervading, all-comprehending
Deity? His fashion may not be our fashion. What of that? How far are
we here from the narrow cry of the “Moslem peril”! Whom does this
call to God imperil? The people who respond to it and prostrate
themselves in the dust at its appeal? Let us be quite sure that our
own salvation is secured by our own methods, that the masses of
our own people are as vividly conscious of the Omnipotent, as free
and happy in their lives, as these Nigerian folk, ere we venture to
disturb the solemn acknowledgment and petition that peal forth into
the dusk of the Nigerian morn.
FRUIT-SELLERS.
 WATER-CARRIERS.

And now a faint amber flush appears in the eastern sky. It is the
signal for many sounds. A hum of many human bees, the crowing of
countless roosters, the barking of lean and yellow “pye” dogs, the
braying of the donkey and the neigh of his nobler relative, the
bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle. The scent of burning wood
assails the nostrils with redolent perfume. The white tick-birds, which
have passed the night close-packed on the fronds of the tall fan-
palms, rustle their feathers and prepare, in company with their
scraggy-necked scavenging colleagues the vultures, for the useful if
unedifying business of the day. Nigerian life begins, and what a busy
intensive life it is! From sunrise to sunset, save for a couple of hours
in the heat of the day, every one appears to have his hands full.
Soon all will be at work. The men driving the animals to pasture, or
hoeing in the fields, or busy at the forge, or dye-pit or loom; or
making ready to sally forth to the nearest market with the products of
the local industry. The women cooking the breakfast, or picking or
spinning cotton, or attending to the younger children, or pounding
corn in large and solid wooden mortars, pulping the grain with
pestles—long staves, clubbed at either end—grasped now in one
hand, now in the other, the whole body swinging with the stroke as it
descends, and, perhaps, a baby at the back, swinging with it; or
separating on flat slabs of stone the seed from the cotton lint picked
the previous day. This is a people of agriculturists, for among them
agriculture is at once life’s necessity and its most important
occupation. The sowing and reaping, and the intermediate seasons
bring with them their several tasks. The ground must be cleared and
hoed, and the sowing of the staple crops concluded before the early
rains in May, which will cover the land with a sheet of tender green
shoots of guinea-corn, maize, and millet, and, more rarely, wheat.
When these crops have ripened, the heads of the grain will be cut
off, the bulk of them either marketed or stored—spread out upon the
thatch-roofed houses to dry, sometimes piled up in a huge circle
upon a cleared, dry space—in granaries of clay or thatch, according
to the local idea; others set aside for next year’s seeds. The stalks,
ten to fifteen feet in height, will be carefully gathered and stacked for
fencing purposes. Nothing that nature provides or man produces is
wasted in this country. Nature is, in general, kind. It has blessed man
with a generally fertile and rapidly recuperative soil, provided also
that in the more barren, mountainous regions, where ordinary
processes would be insufficient, millions of earth-worms shall
annually fling their casts of virgin sub-soil upon the sun-baked
surface. And man himself, in perennial contact with Nature, has
learned to read and retain many of her secrets which his civilized
brother has forgotten. One tree grows gourds with neck and all
complete, which need but to be plucked, emptied and dried to make
first-rate water-bottles. A vigorous ground creeper yields enormous
pumpkin-shaped fruit whose contents afford a succulent potage,
while its thick shell scraped and dried furnishes plates, bowls, pots,
and dishes of every size, and put to a hundred uses: ornaments, too,
when man has grafted his art upon its surface with dyes and carved
patterns. A bush yields a substantial pod which when ready to burst
and scatter its seeds is found to contain a fibrous substance which
resembles—and may be identical with, I am not botanist enough to
tell—the loofah of commerce, and is put to the same uses. From the
seeds of the beautiful locust-bean tree (dorowa), whose gorgeous
crimson blooms form so notable a feature of the scenery in the
flowering season, soup is made, while the casing of the bean affords
a singularly enduring varnish. The fruit of the invaluable Kadenia or
shea tree is used for food, for oil, and medicinally. The bees receive
particular attention for their honey and their wax, the latter utilized in
sundry ways from ornamenting Korans down to the manufacture of
candles. As many as a dozen oblong, mud-lined, wicker hives closed
at one end, the other having a small aperture, may sometimes be
seen in a single tree. Before harvest time has dawned and with the
harvesting, the secondary crops come in for attention. Cassava and
cotton, indigo and sugar-cane, sweet potatoes and tobacco, onions
and ground-nuts, beans and pepper, yams and rice, according to the
locality and suitability of the soil. The farmers of a moist district will
concentrate on the sugar-cane—its silvery, tufted, feathery crowns
waving in the breeze are always a delight: of a dry, on ground-nuts:
those enjoying a rich loam on cotton, and so on. While the staple
crops represent the imperious necessity of life—food, the profits from
the secondary crops are expended in the purchase of clothing, salt
and tools, the payment of taxes, the entertainment of friends and
chance acquaintances (a generous hospitality characterizes this
patriarchal society), and the purchase of luxuries, kolas, tobacco,
ornaments for wives and children. It is a revelation to see the cotton-
fields, the plants in raised rows three feet apart, the land having in
many cases been precedently enriched by a catch-crop of beans,
whose withering stems (where not removed for fodder, or hoed in as
manure) are observable between the healthy shrubs, often four or
five feet in height, thickly covered with yellow flowers or snowy bolls
of white, bursting from the split pod. The fields themselves are
protected from incursions of sheep and goats by tall neat fencing of
guinea-corn stalks, or reeds, kept in place by native rope of
uncommon strength. Many cassava fields, the root of this plant
furnishing an invaluable diet, being indeed, one of the staples of the
more southerly regions, are similarly fenced. Equally astonishing are
the irrigated farms which you meet with on the banks of the water-
courses. The plots are marked out with the mathematical precision of
squares on a chess-board, divided by ridges with frequent gaps
permitting of a free influx of water from the central channel, at the
opening of which, fixed in a raised platform, a long pole with a
calabash tied on the end of it, is lowered into the water and its
contents afterwards poured into the trench. Conditions differ of
course according to locality, and the technique and industry
displayed by the farmers of one district vary a good deal from the
next. In the northern part of Zaria and in Kano the science of
agriculture has attained remarkable development. There is little we
can teach the Kano farmer. There is much we can learn from him.
Rotation of crops and green manuring are thoroughly understood,
and I have frequently noticed in the neighbourhood of some village
small heaps of ashes and dry animal manure deposited at intervals
along the crest of cultivated ridges which the rains will presently
wash into the waiting earth. In fact, every scrap of fertilizing
substance is husbanded by this expert and industrious agricultural
people. Instead of wasting money with the deluded notion of
“teaching modern methods” to the Northern Nigerian farmer, we
should be better employed in endeavouring to find an answer to the
puzzling question of how it is that land which for centuries has been
yielding enormous crops of grain, which in the spring is one carpet of
green, and in November one huge cornfield “white unto harvest,” can
continue doing so. What is wanted is an expert agriculturist who will
start out not to teach but to learn; who will study for a period of say
five years the highly complicated and scientific methods of native
agriculture, and base possible improvements and suggestions,
maybe, for labour-saving appliances, upon real knowledge.
Kano is, of course, the most fertile province of the Protectorate,
but this general description of agricultural Nigeria does not only
apply to Kano Province. I saw nothing finer in the way of deep
cultivation (for yams and guinea-corn chiefly) than among the Bauchi
pagans. The pagan Gwarri of the Niger Province have for ages past
grown abundant crops in terraces up their mountainsides whither
they sought refuge from Hausa and Fulani raids. The soil around
Sokoto, where the advancing Sahara trenches upon the fertile belt,
may look arid and incapable of sustaining annual crops, yet every
year it blossoms like a rose. But the result means and needs
inherited lore and sustained and strenuous labour. From the early
rains until harvest time a prolific weed-growth has continuously to be
fought. Insect pests, though not conspicuously numerous in most
years, nevertheless exist, amongst them the locusts, which
sometimes cover the heavens with their flight; the caterpillar, which
eats the corn in its early youth; the blight (daraba), which attacks the
ripening ear. In some districts not so favoured, the soil being of
compact clay with a thin coating of humus, intensive cultivation has
proved exhausting, and it is a study to note how every ounce of
humus is tended with religious care. Very hard work at the right time
is the secret of success for the Nigerian agriculturist. It is little short
of marvellous that with all he has to do he somehow manages to
build our railways and our roads. Indeed, if that phenomenon has in
many respects its satisfactory, it has also its sombre, social side.
One can but hope that the former may outweigh the latter as the
country gradually settles down after the severe demands placed
upon it these last few years.
A GWARRI GIRL.
 A HAUSA TRADING WOMAN.

Truly a wonderful country, and a wonderful people, a people who

with fifty years’ peace will double its numbers, a people whom it is
our paramount duty to secure for ever in the undisturbed occupation
and enjoyment of the land, precluding the up-growth of a middle-man
class of landlord from which the native system is free, and being so
free need never be saddled with.
 CHAPTER VI
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE HERDSMAN AND THE ARTISAN

The word “peasant” as applied to the Fulani is, no doubt, a

misnomer. I employ it merely to distinguish the herdsmen from the
caste of statesmen and governors, evolved in Nigeria by the genius
of Othman Fodio, but, as their recorded history throughout Western
Africa shows, inherent in this mysterious race whose moral
characteristics have persisted through all degrees of admixture with
the negro. The Fulani peasant is but rarely an agriculturist in Nigeria,
but he plays an important, if indirect, part in the agriculture of the
Hausa provinces. Over the face of the land he wanders with his
great herds—which may number upwards of several thousand head
in one herd—of beautiful hump-backed cattle, mostly white, ever
seeking “pastures new.” Speaking under correction, in Borgu only
does his settlement partake of permanency. Elsewhere he is a
wanderer. One month a given district may be full of Fulani camps,
come from where his fellow-man has but the vaguest of notions. The
next, not a single Fulani will be seen within it. But they return, as a
rule, the ensuing year to their old haunts. To the Hausa farmer the
M’Bororoji or “Cow-Fulani” are an invaluable asset, and he enters
into regular contracts with them for turning their cattle on to his fields;
and he buys milk from them. I struck several of their encampments,
at distances hundreds of miles apart. The first, at the crossing of the
Bako, between Badeggi and Bida, was in charge of a patriarch who
might have stepped out of the book of Genesis: a Semite every inch
of him: spare of form, emaciated in feature, with high cheek-bones,
hawk-like nose, flashing, crafty eyes, a long white beard and a
bronzed skin without a trace of black blood.
 A FULANI GIRL.

There is no more interesting sight in Nigeria than a Fulani

encampment. It is usually pitched well away from the beaten track,
albeit within convenient distance of a village. You rub your eyes and
wonder if you can really be in the heart of the Dark Continent, as
these gracefully built, pale copper-coloured men and women—one
may say of some of the young girls with the sun shining on their
velvety skins, almost golden coloured—appear tending their herds
and flocks, or standing and sitting at the entrance to their temporary
shelters. Even the latter differ frequently from the African hut,
resembling in shape the wigwam of the North American Indian. As
for the people themselves, you are aware of an indefinable
sentiment of affinity in dealing with them. They are a white, not a
black race.
I have discussed their origin and West African history elsewhere,[8]
and will only say here that delicacy of form, refinement of contour
and simple dignity of bearing distinguish this strange people, just as
the ruling families possess the delicacy of brain and subtlety of
intellect which impress their British over-lords. A fact worth
recording, perhaps, is that while the Hausa woman spins and the
Hausa man weaves cotton, the Fulani woman does both the
spinning and the weaving.
If the agricultural life of the Northern Nigerian peoples is a full one,
the industrial life, especially in the northern provinces of the
Protectorate, is equally so. It is an extraordinarily self-sufficing
country at present, and the peasant-cultivator and artisan are
interdependent, the latter supplying the domestic wants and making
the requisite implements for the former. The variety of trades may be
estimated from the old Hausa system of taxation. This system the
Fulani adopted, modifying it slightly here and there by enforcing
closer adherence to the Koranic law, and we are modifying it still
further by a gradual process tending to merge multiple imposts under
two or three main heads, with the idea of establishing a more
equitable re-adjustment of burdens and to ensure greater simplicity
in assessment. The Hausa system provided that taxes should be
levied upon basket and mat-makers, makers of plant for cotton-
spinners, bamboo door-makers, carpenters, dyers, blacksmiths and
whitesmiths, as well as upon bee-keepers, hunters, trappers and
butchers. Exemption from taxes was granted to shoe-makers, tailors,
weavers, tanners, potters, and makers of indigo; but market taxes
were imposed upon corn measurers, brokers, sellers of salt,
tobacco, kolas, and ironstone.
The chief agricultural implement is the Hausa hoe, the galma, a
curious but efficient instrument, which simultaneously digs and
breaks up the soil and is said to be of great antiquity, but which is
easier to draw than to describe. There is also in daily use among the
Hausas a smaller, simpler hoe and a grass-cutter, while the pagan
favours a much heavier and more formidable-looking tool. This
pagan hoe somewhat resembles our English spade, but is wielded in
quite different fashion. Iron drills, rough hammers and axes, nails,
horseshoes, stirrup-irons and bits are included among the ordinary
forms of the blacksmith’s art. Iron-stone is common in many parts of
the country and is extensively worked, furnaces being met with in
every district where the use of the metal is locally in vogue. It is to be
hoped that “Civilization” will not seek to stamp out this native industry
as the tin-miners have done their best—and, unless the promise
made to the smelters of Liruei-n-Kano by Sir H. Hesketh Bell is not
speedily carried out, but too successfully—to crush the interesting
tin-smelting industry. The history of native tin smelting in Nigeria
furnishes a remarkable proof of the capacity of the Nigerian native,
but is too long to set forth here in detail. Suffice it to say that for a
hundred years, a certain ruling family with numerous branches, has
succeeded in turning out a singularly pure form of the white metal
whose sale as an article of trade brought prosperity to the
countryside. When I left the tin district, owing to unjust and stupidly
selfish interference with immemorial rights, the native furnaces had
been closed for nine months and poverty was beginning to replace
comparative affluence.
PANNING FOR IRON.