Watching Ge Zai Xi @ CNY - 7 & 8 Feb 2008

Jennifer say:

I had finally settled down to do my blogging about the two great preformance of Ge Zai Xi( 歌仔戏) By the China Tong An(同安） Opera Troup.

Compared to the taiwan Opera, China customs are not so beautiful but nevertheless, their performance are very awesome.

On the 7 Feb, The title of the opera that i watched is "Cheng Jiao Ji Qiao Jie Liang Yuan". Here is a list of showing the opera titles of the China Troup preformances.

The story:

Chow Tong is a prince of the Song Dynasty. He was not the real son of the Song emperor but was loved by the emperor to be like his own son. During the war between Song and Liao, Chow was sent to be the general in command for the war. On his way to the battle field, he met a boy whom he realised was his long found brother. The two brothers were overjoyed to be united. However, due to the upcoming war, Chow had to leave his young brother whom was also deterimined to fight the Liaos.

Despite his wit, Chow Younger brother was killed by the Liao Princess

The young brother was killed during his fight with the Liao Princess. Chow was davastered when he knew this. He took his troops to fight the Liao Princess and her troops. Chow was badly defended. The Liao Princess fall in love with Chow with first sight. She refused to kill Chow. She hinted to Chow that she liked him. Chow anger with the princess for the death of his brother, refused to accept his enemy love.

Unkown to Chow and the princess, Song Dynasty PM, Cheng Jiao Ji was hiding behind a rock behind them. Cheng Jiao Ji was also the uncle of Chow.

When he heard the heated agruement between Chow and the princess, he appeared. After Cheng spoke to the princess, he learnt that the princess love Chow. The princess asked Cheng to be her matchmaker to ask Chow to marry her. Cheng agreed but Chow refused the marriage. Cheng however lied to the princess that Chow will marry her.

On the day of the marriage, Chow was forced by his father, the Song emperor to marry the Liao Princess. In order to manage peace and prevent any war between Liao and Song, the Song emperor made a decree to force his son to marry the princess.

In their first night, Chow refused to lift the veil of his new bride. The Liao princess was devastered when she learnt that Chow still blamed her for his brother death. The liao princess and Chow quarelled. Upset and shame that she has only herself to blame for this failed marriage, the princess found that she can no longer return to Liao or she would disgrace her own parents, the princess killed herself with Chow sword.

The song emperor was very angry when he learnt of the princess death. He made a decree that Chow would never marry a second woman and must go to Liao to apologize to the liao king. Chow went to Liao out of no choice.

Meanwhile, Cheng Jiao Ji met his old friend, Senior minister, Shi. When Cheng knew that Shi had a daughter that was single, he decided to ask his friend to allow his daughter to marry Chow. The problem with Shi only daughter was her daugher, Jinhua had a serious mental problem. Cheng was able to make the song emperor change his decree to accept Chow to marry Jinhua. Chow did not know that Jinhua was mad when Cheng wife act on Shi behalf as makemaker went to find chow.

On the day of Jinhua and Chow marriage, Chow was shocked when his new wife muttered rubbish to him as he tried to lift the veil. He thought she was mad from the preparation of the marriage. The emperor, the emperess and Cheng decided to play some fun out of the new couple by entering the room. When Cheng found that Chow had not yet lifted the veil of the new bride, he asked Chow to do so.

Unkown to all of them, The liao princess spirit took control of Jinhua body and changed Jinhua face. (**PS: I am not too sure about this part as there was no explanation of which spirt entered Jinhua body). Chow was very happy to find that his new wife was such a beauty.

8 Feb: 女英传

Gua was a price of the Song Dynasty. He had a daughter named Guo Lan Ying and a second wife. Lanying birth mother died long ago and as a result, her stepmum was always torturing her. One day, Guo received news that he had to lead troops to fight the border enemies. Lanying was left alone in the house when her cousin, Hu wei came to find her. Hu wei was a bully whom came to find lanying after hearing from his aunt(Lanying stepmum) that Lanying was in the garden.

Lanying was very miserable when Her father left the house

When Hu tried to take advantage of Lanying, lanying trained in matial arts hit him and warned him to leave the guo house immediately. Hu told his aunt. Worried that Lanying would tell her dad about this, The evil stepmum decided to murder lanying.

The stepmum cooked Lanying a bowl of poisoned noodles. However, Lanying was at that time too sick to eat. The stepmum told lanying two maids, Chun tao and Mei to ensure that lanying would eat her noodles. Meanwhile, Hu whom did not want to give up, visited Lanying and entered her room. Her two maids stopped Hu from disturbing Lanying. Hu was angry to be refused to see Lanying. When he saw the poisoned nooddles, he ate them and died.

When the stepmum learnt that hu had died, she decided to let lanying be the scrapgoats. She accused lanying of murdering hu and went to report to the authories. Lanying worried that she would be tortured and forced to accept the blame, decided to take her two maids to flee to the borders to find her dad. The three of them managed to escape the Guo family with two horses.

Meanwhile, Lanying fiance, Guan Feng appeared at guo house. Lanying father and guan father had arranged the marriage on their children behalf so neither of them had seem each other faces before. The stepmum worried that Guan feng would leanrt the truth, decided to murder guan as well. Luckily for guan, the guo maids learnt of the stepmum evil plot. The maids took their misstress clothes to guan and asked him to dress as a woman to escape. Guan escaped but was captured by the enemies in the borders. When lanying reached the border, she found that her dad was wrongly accused by his enemy( a song minister whom was jealous of guo success in the war) was jailed.

The actress whom act as Lanying was different when she was dressed as male. I liked the xiao seng whom act as Lanying in the general wear.

Lanying and her two maids, Tao and Mei decided to dress as men. All of them went to help the song fight in the borders. Lanying was promoted as general in command while Tao and mei were promoted as general. They defended the enemies and all the proisoners, including guan were lead back to the Song area.Guan was still dressed as a woman.

Guan was led to the Song tents. At the tent when Lan asked him what was his name, Guan replied that he was Guo lanying. Guan was also shocked to learn that Lanying name was called Guan feng. Guan then decided to reveal to Lan that he was a male and upon providing the marriage letter, Lan learnt that the man was her husband and was overjoyed. Both united.

Lan then went to the Song emperor and asked the emperor to forgive her. The song emperor on seeing how successful the battle was won, forgive Lan and granted her to be the Qi Ying Princess - that was to be the swore sister of the emperor. The evil minister whom wronged Guo was taken and killed. The emperor also granted marriages for Chu and Tao to two scholars while Guan and Lan were also married on the same day.