Taiwan Today

To a Westerner, his first encounter with the music that accompanies the Chinese opera is likely to be an exasperating experience. His musical upbringing may re­volt at the shrieking falsetto of the actors and the actresses. The mad smashing of the gongs and cymbals during a battle scene, the sound of what may seem to him like hard wood beating the measure, and the sharp notes of the little serpent-skin fiddle that sometimes dominates the other noises; all these irritate him to no end.

But after sitting through the first performance, he be­gins to understand it a little. Though he still has not quite adapted himself to it, he finds that the rhythm of this strange orchestra of eight to ten pieces synchronizes perfectly with the action on stage. It punctuates the movements, supports the singing, and even accents the expression or the gestures of the players. He soon realizes that it is absolutely indis­pensable to the Chinese thea­ter. The music as he hears it is surprisingly appropriate to this form of action, and without it the action would lack the basis which is es­sential in order to give life to its fantastic and highly stylized expression.

By and by as he goes back for more visits with the Chinese theater, he may even be­gin to like the music. He finds that it is, after all, no more unusual than what some jazz number or rock-'n-roll would sound to a Chinese. Taste is cultivated from experience, and one's experience depends to a large degree upon na­tional heritage. He learns that only decades ago, spec­tators sat around three sides in a Chinese theater, con­versed freely with friends and families on the same table, drank tea and sometimes ate sumptuous meals while the show went on. And he smiles at the thought how the orchestra must have tried to drown out all other noises to attract attention.

As it is today, the musicians have already toned down their playing as much as practicable without weak­ening the effect of the action. And instead of sitting on one side of the stage in plain view of the audience, they now hide behind a screen usually to the right. The instruments, however, remain the same as they were hundreds of years ago.

There is no bandmaster in the Chinese theater. The little orchestra of percussion, wind and stringed instruments is led by the single-skin drum and the wooden clapper, similar to the castanets, that beat the rhythm. But the player of hu-ch'in, the two-stringed serpent-skin fid­dle, is the most important of the musicians because it is he who accompanies the singing.

Each piece of instrument has its particular purpose and occasion of use, and they do not all sound off at the same time as the uninitiated would tend to believe. The small single-skin drum mentioned above, aided by the wooden clapper, underlines the effects and keeps the music from dragging. The larger two-sided drum, set on a stand, beats the rhythm in battles and dances. Among the brass instruments, the cymbals and the gong mark the steps of the warriors and officials, and the little gong, giving a crisp clang, announces the en­trance of the leading lady.

The yun-lo consists of ten small gongs suspended in a wooden framework. With a wooden striker to produce the sounds, it accompanies other instruments during ceremonial scenes.

Those primarily to make music are the string instru­ments. The erh-hu, also a two-stringed fiddle but with a lower pitch than hu-ch'in, accompanies the latter as the viola supplements the violin. The three-stringed san-hsien, played with a bone spectrum, emits a mellower and somewhat melancholy tone. The yueh-ch'in, literally meaning the "moon-guitar," and the p'i p'a. reputedly handed down since the first century, both have four strings and are reserved for accompaniment to more lyrical singing.

The wind section is prob­ably the closest to Western pieces. The hsiao is very similar to the sweet-voiced flageolet, while ti-tze can be described as an eight-hole transverse flute, made of bamboo instead of metals. The sheng, very rarely used now, has more than seventeen bamboo pipes standing upward from a hollowed wooden base attached with a blowpipe. But the so-na, with a brass mouthpiece, is the loudest of all and sounds something like the Scotch bagpipe. On its player falls the duty of accompanying weddings, funerals and ban­quets.

Symbolic Gestures & Acting

One special feature of the Chinese opera is its pe­culiar conventions of gestures and acting. Actors and ac­tresses on the Chinese stage usually perform in a way al­most totally foreign to West­erners. For instance, an actor never really weeps on the stage. To convey his sorrow, he simply raises his sleeve to his face in a gesture to wipe out the presumed tears.

There are almost hun­dreds of rules like this on how to act in the Chinese opera. Some of the gestures are pre­ferred because the ordinary way of expressing human sen­timents is thought not vivid enough for dramatic presentation. Other rules are creat­ed to make up the absence of stage properties. By cer­tain set conventions, the audience is actually told what the performers are supposed to be doing in the absence of stage settings.

The Chinese stage is truly empty, and no doors nor windows are ever erected on the stage. So, bringing two hands together at arm's length will denote closing an imaginary door. A gay maid may shut out her harassing young master simply by this gesture. To open a door, the actor moves apart his already closed hands. He crosses an imaginary threshold by a light hop. When he walks before the bright footlights with both hands stretching out and feel­ing about, he is groping in darkness.

Performers convey their sentiments partly by their facial expression, but largely by the gestures of their hands and the movements of their long sleeves. An authority on this subject enumerates 107 different techniques of hand movements to represent dif­ferent emotions. Here are a few examples:

A dejected man will shake his head and throw about his hands to show his deep woe.

The actor holds his long sleeves in front of his eyes about two inches from his face and bends his head slightly. This symbolizes weeping.

The hands are raised chest high, with the palms down, and then turned flicking the sleeves outward. This gesture indicates happiness.

To give vent to his an­ger, the actor will fall back as though stunned, flinging the sleeves forward below waist level.

When aided by the simplest stage properties, Chinese operatic performers can pro­duce an even wider variety of actions otherwise hard to represent. Many of the Chi­nese plays depict ancient bat­tles fought by China's cavalry. But no horses need be led to the limelight. Instead, the warrior will enter the stage waving a tasseled stick and the audience instantly knows he is riding on horse­back. The tasseled stick may be used as a whip, and there­fore denotes the horse. When the rider throws the whip down or hands it to an aide, he is dismounting. A char­acter walking between a pair of yellow flags is supposedly riding in a carriage. The wheels embroidered on the flags indicate a vehicle. Pad­dling a few strokes in the air, one is supposed to be sailing down a stream. No boat is actually used. Of course the stream is non-existent either. The actors, riding in an imaginary boat and armed with nothing but a paddle, will gesticulate as if they were actually sailing over surging waves.

Many of the sentiments are expressed on the stage by subtle gestures of the hands, particularly by female characters. To indicate shyness, the actress will have her thumb and middle fingers touching in a curve while the index finger points upwards, and hide her face behind the sleeves. She curtsies by putting her hands one over the other on the left side of her body a little below their waist and moves them gently while slightly bending her body. She never kisses nor embraces her young man however ardently in love she may be. A married couple may express their love by holding out their arms and touching each other's hands which are concealed in their long sleeves. An unmarried woman resorts to her deft finger gestures and coquettish glances to convey her love.

The gait in which a char­acter walks on stage is also a special technique. A noble lady walks with grace and dignity, while a flirtatious woman sways gaily about. Fighters stalk in haughty steps, and scholars walk in a so­ber manner. Clowns scurry about the stage in a ridicu­lous manner. The thick-soled shoes of officials and generals add to their dignified carriage.

Battles on the Chinese stage are fought in a strange way. Veteran theatergoers will detect at a glance the losers of the war. Usually the warrior destined to an ignominious defeat will ap­pear particularly brave before the fight unfolds. He enters the stage looking full of confid­ence. He will charge first and gain the upper hand in the initial rounds. Then the tide will turn, and the opponent will hit back. When he loses the battle he usually rolls over the stage, throwing away his weapons and even headdress, before taking to his heels.

Some warriors on the Chinese stage have long, twin pheasant plumes adorning their headdresses and how and when to swing these plumes calls for special techniques. To symbolize anger, the performer swings his head round and round so that the feathers sweep round in a wide circle. When the head is bent till the feathers flick the ground, and are then quickly Rung back over the head again, the movement symbolizes either surprise or that the actor is thinking.

Peculiar ways of acting like these are symbolic, and typical of Chinese stagecraft and sense of humor. The stage conventions of Chinese opera, odd as they may ap­pear to Westerners, actually serve as an effective means of dramatic representation in the absence of elaborate stage settings and properties.

Face Painting

A unique feature of the Chinese opera is the face painting. With the exception of female characters and scholars, almost all other per­formers appear on the stage with painted faces, which are actually a variation of masks.

The face painting varies from a daub of white over the nose of a clown, to a multi­colored affair on the face of a tough character. This tradition of facial painting, handed down throughout the centu­ries, possibly originates from primitive, ancient dances of witches who appeared in ghostly masks.

In the Chinese opera, the painted-face performer is call­ed "Ching", who figures as the major supporting actor. In some plays, he may play the leading male part. Usual­ly, the "Ching" is a muscular man well versed in acrobatic skills. Tough generals and ruthless gangsters are often played by the painted-face men.

A scarlet-red face indicates high integrity and dignity. Deified warriors, like General Kuan Yu, usually have their faces painted red. Black faces denote a tough but honest character. A treacherous and yet powerful personage has a totally white-powdered face. Other face paintings are a combination of all colors, chiefly white, black, red and blue.

A face painted with a few simple strokes indicates a good character, while that of complicated and grotesque patterns shows a villain. The purpose of facial painting is to let the audience know at a glance the character of the performer, whether he is a bully, a treacherous schemer, or an upright fellow. That is, the colors reveal the character.

Face painting can be grouped under several cate­gories. One is the "old warrior" face, featuring a com­pletely white patch above the eye-brows, in contrast with a dark color, either red, purple or black, on the full lower part. This type usually bespeaks blunt courage. An­other type is conventionally known as the "three tiles" dividing up the face into three blocks. This is usually a white-powdered face with three splashes of black colors on the two eyes and the mouth. Such a character could very well be treacher­ous. A third type is the "per­fect face", either totally black or entirely red, standing for loyalty and integrity. Still another type, which denotes bad characters, is the "broken face", which appears in a maddening mix-up of all col­ors arranged in irregular pat­terns.

Symbolism is a keynote in the design of the painted face. A monkey king can be recognized at first sight as his face is a complete replica of a monkey. A crab monster walks to the stage with a crab drawn over his face. On the face of a dragon monarch is painted a white dragon head against a black background. The long trunk and two curved ivory tusks of an elephant are cast out in paints on the face of an elephant monster. Most fantastic of all is perhaps the ghost of a "nine-head bird", whose face is marked by nine pairs of painted eyes indicat­ing its nine heads. Other mythological characters are distinguished either by an extra eye on the forehead, or a spear, coin, or some such designs painted on their faces according to legends.

Most of the painted faces look much larger and more imposing than they really are. Formerly, actors shaved off part of their hair above the forehead and daubed paints on the shaven part to make their faces bigger. A simpler and less disfiguring way has now been devised. The actor simply wraps a strip of white cloth over his forehead, and then lavishes paints on it to create the impression of a bigger face.

Charming ladies and scholarly gentlemen are spar­ed from the greasy paints brushed on the faces of others. Indeed the ladies would be very repulsive, and the scholars ungentlemen-like if their faces were made a mess of colors. A kind of special make-up is designed to beautify the ladies and the gen­tlemen.

The make-up of a female character consists of a veil of cosmetics completely covering the face. This thick make-up was first introduced in by-gone days when men impersonated female charac­ters on the Chinese operatic stage. Now actresses are play­ing a more prominent role in the Chinese opera, but the old ladies on the stage are still played by men.

At his make-up desk, the female impersonator first powders his face with white cosmetics. His eyebrows are drawn thin, long but dark. Rose-colored rouge is freely applied to the cheeks. Eyelash­es are darkened and lipstick is lavishly applied. He then puts on a jewelry-studded wig over his own hair and as a finishing touch pastes on tresses of false hair under the temples to make the face look narrower and more womanly. Then, clad in fitting apparels, he walks gracefully on to the stage looking every inch a typical ancient Chinese beau­ty. An actress playing the part of a young lady, of course, follows the same procedure in her make-up.

Leading young men of scholarly type, usually the heroes of love stories, appear in essentially the same type of make-up as the ladies, but in lighter shades. This is typical of the Chinese opera. The handsome young man on the stage is sometimes impersonated by an actress whose voice is unfit for a female character.

The old man type wears a long beard, usually concealing his mouth and the lower part of his face. This follows the Chinese tradition of olden days when men were not supposed to shave. Young men on the stage are beard­less.

The grotesque face paint­ing of the men and the exag­gerated make-up of the female characters represent part of the beauty and pageantry of the Chinese theatrical shows. They add color and pep to the performance. In the Western world, perhaps only the masks used in Greek piays constitute a remote parallel to the Chinese face painting.

Make-up is an art inseparable from the Chinese opera. Actors and actresses usually wield their own make­-up brushes. Some characters need but light touches, while others call for strong colors. One wrong stroke, and the harmony of make-up will be spoiled. It takes a dexterous hand to mix all the greasy paints, or thick cosmetics, and present the Chinese make-up in its vivid, impressive style.

The Resplendent Costumes

Costumes on the Chinese stage are seldom matched anywhere in the world in color and pageantry. Generally speaking, they represent what the Chinese people wore in the Ming Dynasty (1363 to 1644 A.D.) before the Manchu conquerors came to rule China. Even in plays telling stories about the Manchu Dynasty, it is considered good taste to have them cast in Ming dress.

The costumes are symbolic rather than realistic. Rich or poor, the characters appear in silk garments, and the same garbs are good for all seasons the year round.

For the male characters, the long, loose robes with large sleeves are the standard outfit. Monarchs always ap­pear in yellow silk gowns embroidered with dragons, the royal symbol. Scarlet and other fancy colors are freely adopted in the gentle­men's wardrobe. The robe of a high official is usually decorated with colored designs in gold, red, green, etc. Gallant young men are distin­guished by brightly colored attires. Lesser officials wear blue or dark robes. Beggars also wear silk, the only difference being that their gowns are patched. Old men with long, white beards of tell prefer black gowns.

Characters of less impor­tance in the play, such as servants and peddlers, usual­ly wear short, plain-colored jackets, since only characters of the higher classes are entitled to long robes.

With no exception, male characters appear in some form of headdress. The monarch wears a wingless one decorated with a cluster of silk tufts and silvery jewelry. The headgear of a prime minister has it long wing on each side. Officials wear black gauze hats with two wings. The shape of the wing may indicate the character of the official. Oblong wings symbolize high integrity. Dia­mond-shaped wings denote a dubious character. Circular wings indicate an official who loves bribes better than any­thing else. A scholar's hat is usually black and of a plain style. Even a beggar appears with a headdress. Anyone who enters the stage without a covering for his head is presumably in great danger, possibly he has been beaten up. Ghosts also wear hats, usually in the form of a tablet.

Young ladies move grace­fully in beautifully designed blouses and skirts. Women of higher classes wear long skirts concealing their feet. Over the skirts they have jackets down to the knees, with long and large sleeves which completely hide their hands: Virtuous ladies are usually clad in simple attires of sober color, but gay women like to dazzle the audience with brilliant silks. Unmar­ried girls wear tight-fitting waist coats over a pair of trousers. Old women are dressed in a simple and plain style and, those unacquainted with Chinese opera, may very well mistake them for old men. One unmistakable sign is an old woman would wear no beard, while it is the trade mark of an old man.

Female characters also wear some form of headdress. A noble lady, such as a royal concubine, will have a jew­eled headpiece, while a young girl loves to stud her hair with shining trinkets. A Manchu princess will have a towering headdress. A bride wears a jewelry-bedecked headdress with a piece of red satin covering up her whole face. The bridegroom is the only one privileged to remove her red veil on the wedding night. For an old woman, the headdress is simply a piece of plain cloth wrapping up her hair.

No western style shoes ever appear on the Chinese stage. Officials and generals wear black boots with white soles from two to three inches thick. This thick sole is made of countless layers of paper stitched together so that despite its thickness, it still retains some flexibility. To walk in a pair of such shoes calls for special practice. Characters walking in thick-soled shoes, appear much taller and more imposing than they actually are.

The gentry usually have the same type of boots as the officials', but the lower class people wear ordinary Chinese shoes of a plain style. Characters of acrobatic type wear light and soft shoes, because they have to jump and fight.

Ladies usually wear soft embroidered shoes. For a Manchu princess there is a special kind of shoes having an extra wooden heel, about one third the length of the foot, sticking out from the middle part of the sole. This kind of shoes, just like the high heel shoes now in vogue, gives the lady a wriggling gait when she walks.

There is yet another type of footgear designed particularly for female war­riors. This footgear is called "tsai chiao". It is actually a false foot attached to the toes of the performer so that she appears to be walking daintily like a lady with bound feet. Chinese women of olden days had their feet tightly bound in childhood to prevent them from growing. Although the practice of foot­-binding has long been abolished, the Chinese audience still loves to see female characters walk in this fashion, and looks upon the skill as a high accomplishment. With a pair of false wooden feet bound on her toes, an ordinary actress would hardly be able to stand up and maintain her balance, let alone perform any acrobatic stunts. Only those who have had long years of strenuous training can master the art of walking and fighting on the stage tiptoe.

Armors and Beards

Of all the spectacular pageants on the Chinese operatic stage the most brilliant are perhaps the armors worn by the warriors. Styled after the steel mail and leather harness which protected ancient Chi­nese generals, the armors are made of florid silks.

Each coat of mail on the stage consists of several pieces of ornate silk, embroidered with golden designs in imitation of real steel armors. The breast plate is less important as it is often hidden behind the long beard of the aged fighter. Likewise is the back plate, which is not prominent­ly displayed before the audience.

The most flamboyant part of the Chinese armor is the piece hanging from the warrior's waist down to his feet. On this piece is embroidered the heraldic device of the fighter. It usually has a tiger's head cast out against the background of a golden mail. Over the shoulders are two smaller pieces which protect the forearms. The thighs and legs are covered by two cuisses embroidered in the same elaborate style.

All colors may be used for the silk battle dress­ - scarlet, blue, yellow, white, black, green, purple, etc., de­pending on the age, type and face of the warriors. Young, beardless warriors usually wear white armors decorated with pink or other light color designs. Old warriors with long white beards prefer armors of yellow or brown col­ors. General Kuan Yu, a deified ancient warrior, al­ways appears in a suit of green armor with golden decorations. Painted-face war­riors wear armors that match their face painting. Usually they choose armors of black background to go along with their black faces. Armors worn by women are often red, pink, or silvery white. Opponents fighting on the stage usually wear armors of different colors to avoid confusion.

The headdress of an ar­mored warrior is a towering piece, decorated with shining jewelry. It is supposed to be a steel helmet. Generals from foreign lands stud two long pheasant plumes on their headdresses to indicate their alien status. Marshals are distinguished by four flags of the same color and design as their armor, fastened to their backs. The flag is the symbol of authority in a Chi­nese military camp.

Warriors fitted out in armors always wear black battle boots with thick, white soles. But lady fighters either walk in their false tiny shoes called "Tsai Chiao", or wear slipper type embroidered shoes.

There is another type of combat outfit for men sea­soned in Chinese pugilism. It is a boxer suit consisting of two pieces only, the jacket and the trousers, usually of the same color and design. Swordsmen, gangsters all wear this garb. The headdress to match this suit is a soft bonnet, sometimes decorated with plumes and silvery balls. Fighters of this type may wear either thick-soled shoes or soft shoes.

All male characters on the stage, except the hand­some beau type, wear false beards. There are altogether eighteen kinds of beard for different roles. The full beard, completely covering the lower part of the face and hanging down to the waist, symbolizes old age. The three-whisker beard is for a man of letters. General Kuan Yu, the god of fighters, has a long five-whisker beard stretching down his waist. The mustache is reserved for clowns. The beard is usually either white or black. But there are other strange colors. A rough, ill-tempered guy may have a red beard. General Sun Chuan of historical fame is distin­guished by his purple beard. Another type is a mixture of Mack and red beards. Some beards even shoot upward, particularly the tufts of hair beside the ears. This denotes a rough character.

Stage Props & Weapons

The Chinese stage is dis­tinguished by its emptiness and scantiness of properties. Unlike the Western stage, it has neither elaborate furnish­ings nor anything to suggest interior decoration. It is cur­tainless and truly empty. It is the duty of the performers to explain whether the stage stands for an emperor's harem, a damsel's boudoir, or a bat­tlefield.

A big, silk tapestry serves as the boundary between the front stage and the back stage. The tapestry is indeed a form­idable boundary, and behind this flimsy silk, the actors and actresses live in a world full of taboos and superstitions.

Performers usually enter the front stage through the left-side door, over which there are two Chinese characters "Chu Chiang", mean­ing "the general comes out". The exit is on the right-side, marked by two other Chinese characters "Ju Hsiang", which means "the premier goes in."

In a play involving no fighting, the actor usually steps to the footlights and sits down on a chair. Thus installed, he recites a few lines of verse, giving a brief self-introduction. There may be a table and another chair for his spouse. If the show de­picts a military battle, the actors just walk to a completely empty stage and get ready for fighting.

On the Chinese stage, the table and chairs serve many purposes. For a judge, the table denotes his court. For a waiter, it is his restaurant counter. A chair placed on the table is a monarch's throne. When actors climb over the table, they are mounting a hill. Generals usually do so to view the enemy camp from a vantage point. Several tables piled up will symbolize a high building, from which a robber may jump down. The chair is equally versatile. Put on its side, it indicates a mound. Four chairs set in a line and covered with a cloth make a bed.

Aside from the tables and chairs, only a few other articles are employed on the stage. One of them is a piece of silk fastened onto two bamboo sticks to symbolize a city wall. A collapsible panel board painted with rocks and trees is a mountain. When four foot­-soldiers parade on the stage each carrying a flag, you have a field army. Floods and windstorms are brought before the audience by small flags painted with fish on surging waves, or with clouds. An oar stands for a boat.

In the hands of perfor­mers are many strange arti­cles. A high ranking official always holds an ivory tablet. A yellow silk scroll is a royal edict before which everybody on the stage is to kowtow. The judge's writ is a small wooden board painted with a tiger head. Actors spend no bank bills on the stage; they use silver ingots. When a ball wrapped with a red cloth is thrown on the stage, a man has been behead­ed. Mythological characters occasionally wear masks.

A variety of queer weap­ons are used on the stage for military shows. The com­monest of all weapons is the big sword with a long or a short handle, for fighting on horseback or on foot. A special, sacred sword, called the "Blue Dragon and Crescent Moon," is specially used by General Kuan Yu, the deified warrior. Then there are the Chinese lance and spear of various forms befitting different characters. The battle axe may have a short or a long han­dle. Falchions, shovels or even mattocks can also be­come battlefield weapons. Pestles of diverse shapes are commonly used.

For close combat, rapiers and swords suit the Chinese warriors well. Some fighters fix hooks on their rapiers. A big, round hammer, shaped like a basketball, is a com­mon weapon. Clubs, halberds, tridents all have their places in Chinese pugilism and are often used on the stage. Jave­lins, bows and arrows are freely used, though in a symbolic way only.

Like other properties on the stage, the weapons are symbolic rather than realistic. Mostly, they are made of wood. Only the most season­ed fighters dare use steel weapons which have, however, blunt edges. Sharpened weap­ons are banned. With these formidable looking wooden weapons, the fighters would plunge into a duel, but their weapons rarely clash and no­body gets actually hurt.

For some particular char­acters, there are special weap­ons. General Kuan Yu would never use anything except his "Blue Dragon and Crescent Moon Sword." His brother General Chang Fei fights with a big lance eighteen feet long, as legends go. Monks usually use cres­cent-shape axes as their weap­ons. Famed brigand Tou Erh-tun is known for his twill sword fixed with a sharpened hook on the handle. One special weapon, used by the character playing the part of Prince Li Ts'un-hsiao, is an Oscar shape steel man hold­ing a Chinese pen.

The greenroom & Superstitious

The backstage of a Chinese operatic theater is a small world by itself, with its own customs, taboos and superstitions. To a layman, it looks a kaleidoscope of color and strange sights. Rushing here and there are actors half way through their make-up. There are men with grotesque painted faces still wearing Western dresses. Some actors playing female roles have their faces completely transformed making them look like charming girls, but they still have their own men's clothes on. Ancient kings in bright costumes may be seen standing alongside 20th century commoners.

In one corner of the greenroom are usually arrayed rows of weapons with which the warriors fight on the stage. Wardrobes display­ing all kinds of brilliant, exotic costumes take up another corner. Each performer usu­ally has no more than a small make-up desk and a wooden trunk in which personal effects and costumes are stored. The trunk also serves as a stool Leading actors and actresses are privileged to have private make-up quarters, which is usually a small curtained enclosure.

Worshiped by everybody backstage is a dwarf size, plain looking god, called the "Grand Master". It is a wooden statue occupying a small shrine. Everyday it receives incense offerings. Everybody in the troupe pays homage to this little god the moment he enters the backstage. Legends vary a great deal as to who was this god of Chinese drama. Most the­atrical establishments agree that this god was Emperor Tang Ming Huang, the first patron of operatic performers in Chinese history.

The greenroom of a Chinese theater is sacred ground. No outsiders are permitted to visit the backstage with­out the sanction of the troupe master. Women who are not members of the troupe are completely barred from the greenroom. No jest is allowed backstage, and only the comedians are privileged to make on occasional joke. No handclappings are permitted. Performers are strictly pro­hibited from having any com­munication with the audience, or peeping out from the curtain.

There are fixed rules on make-up too. Nobody is permitted to daub paints on his face until after the clowns have completed their make­-up. Nobody may put on a headdress until after the facial make-up is completed. This applies to the wearing of beards and whiskers too.

No music instruments of the band maybe sounded until after the big Chinese gong takes the lead. Before the gong is sounded, actresses who play women of dubious character are not permitted to step onto backstage. The seat occupied by the gong player is called the "Mouth of Nine Dragons". Nobody else may sit in that seat. The "Blue Dragon and Crescent Moon," a wooden sword used by the actor who plays deified General Kuan Yu, is sacred. When not in use, it must be wrapped up in a piece of cloth, and no one may touch it except the actor himself.

Once inside backstage, people must watch their language. One Chinese word is absolutely tabooed: "san", which means either umbrella, or "disband". The troupe master would not tolerate the very sound of this word lest the troupe should be disband­ed. So, instead of calling an umbrella "san", people back­stage use the term "hua kai", or canopy. No whistling is permitted, because in Chinese a whistle is called "tsui", which may also may mean "collapse". This could be another ill omen.

The man in charge of headdresses must take care not to place the king's crown and a bandit's cap side by side lest there be war when the king meets the bandit. In other words, there may be quarrels and disputes among the troupe members. Attend­ants backstage are particularly sensitive to one seemingly slight matter: they cannot tolerate any actor or actress looking behind their shoulders. They take it as a per­sonal insult because to them, looking back means dissatisfaction with their service. In olden days, a quarrel over this matter could lead to bloodshed.

The backstage of a Chinese theater not only has its traditions; it is even a domain with its own jurisdiction over the troupe members. Violators of the taboos and rules, no matter who and how important they might be, are brought before a temporary court composed of representatives of all components of the troupe. The gong player is the judge, the representatives form the jury, and the cook is the executor. Why the court is thus com­posed is not clear. Of course, the theatrical court deals with misdemeanors only. Major crimes are still refer­red to the ordinary judicial court.

Penalty handed down by the troupe's court varies greatly. For minor offenses, the convict may be told to kneel down before the god of "Grand Master" and burn incense as a confession. Or the offenders may be given corporal punishment in more serious cases. The harshest punishment is an outright dismissal, not only from the troupe, but from the Chinese theatrical world forever. An actor given this punishment will never be able to find any employment in any Chi­nese operatic troupe through­out his life.