China ge zai xi @ Cheng Huang Temple

Jennifer say:




Cheng Huang Temple near Geylang police station is back to its nearly 3 months of opera by troups from China and singapore.

The April performance is from China Xiaman troup. I had seen two performances so far. Today and last saturday. In fact when The xiamen troup came in 2006, i had also seen their performance.



Last sat performance was a rather boring story:

I am not sure of the opera title.

But the story goes like this:

Zhou was drinking wine in a brothel when he saw X bullying Jing, a poor girl whom was tricked to enter the brothel to work by singing when her parents died. He helped to fight off X. X was the son of the minister so he had often used his dad's reputation to bully the villagers.


Various girls performing a dance esp for X

Jing was forced to perform even though she was sick


Jing was very grateful for Zhou help. While Zhou went off, he dropped his jade that later Jing vowed to return to him dressed as a guy.

Zhou was placed under arrest for fighing X. As a result, he ran away and meet xiulan. Xiulan saved him by placing him in her dad graveyard area to hide. Xiulan was the daugher of a officer. she was actually bethored to Zhou at a young age. When her dad died, her stepmother took her to marry another guy. When xiulan stepmum knew that Xiulan was hiding Zhou, she informed the officers to come to arrest Zhou. Xiulan stopped the troops while zhou escaped.

Wen and her uncle, aunt and her cousin tried to escape from the coming robbers. As a result, wen was seperated from her relatives and captured by the robbers whom wanted to take her as wife. The robbers took Wen to a temple. At the temple, zhou came in. When he heard Wen cries, he killed the robber head and saved Wen.

Wen asked zhou to take her to her house that is many mountains away. At a deserted temple, wen tried to hint zhou that she loved him but zhou had no heart for her love proposal. Finally wen reached her house. Her uncle tried to arrange for marriage for zhou and wen but zhou refused the proposal. When wen heard of that, she hang herself.

The story end by wen ghost went to find Zhou. In the end, neither xiulan or Jing entered the plot again that i think is really stupid.

Today story: (27 /4/08) - Feng Huang Guan

Lee Yue Er was the daughter of a minster but she was vain from young and her only wish was to be married to a son of a senior officer, wearing a feng huang guan. Her father had proposed marriage to the Seng family. However, misfortune fall on the Seng whom was famed for corruption. As a result, father Lee and Mother Lee forced Seng qing (the son whom was supposed to marry missy Lee) to write a letter to wihdraw the marriage.

The Vain Yue Er and her equally vain money faced mother plotting to withdraw the marriage between Lee and Seng
When the corrupted Zhang arrived at the Lee family threating to capture the whole family, Father lee dennied that they had anything to do with the Seng as they had withdraw the marriage on june. In fact, The old Lee had changed the date from august to June.

Seng qing escaped from the officers whom were sent to capture him. While on the run, he entered a fishing house and meet a woman named Lee Chun niang. Chun niang hide him in the house and lied to the coming troups that Seng qing was her husband. When Chun niang father questioned why he was being chased by the army, Seng qing lied that his name was wong wenjing and he was a poor scholar. Seng qing and chun niang relationship grow better as half a years passed by. One day, Chun niang father proposed marriage to Seng on his daugher behalf. However, seng rejected the proposal. When Chun niang cried, seng qing finally revealed his true identify. Chun niang still love Seng qing despite knowing that seng was a escaped criminal.Both Chun niang and Seng vowed to remain true to each other. Seng then learn that his beloved had a real name called 'Lee Yue er'.

Seng qing went to take part in the imperial exam and got the top rank. When the emperor wanted to asked him to marry the princess, seng refused and mentioned that he will only married lee yue er. The corruped senior Lee heard of this and mistaken the lee yue er to be his daugher. Meanwhile the lee family learnt that Seng family had restored their past statues and the elder seng was now the prime minster.

When the sedans past by the evil lee family and did not stopped, the old lee stopped seng qing and asked him why he did not went to his house. Seng qing then revealed that he was going to marry the fisherman daugher with the same name.

The old Lee refused to accept this and a trial was set up.
The first trial was judged by a nine rank officer whom asked the missy lee to have the huang guan while The poor lee to have seng. the trial did not come to a end as a result.

The second trial was judged by a corrupted officer. His final verdict was to let Seng marry both woman with the missy lee as the first wife. The trial failed as a order by the PM (seng father) asked the officer to investiage the withdraw marriage case.

The third trial was judged by a good and fair officer, Wen. before the trial, Wen investiaged and found that there was indeed a withdrawal letter wrote by seng. At the trial, Wen pretended that the fault was all on Seng, the poor yue er or chun niang and her father.He then asked missy lee if she want to marry seng with that missy lee answered with a firm yes. Wen also captured Seng and wanted to withdraw the scholar name from him. When missy lee heard that, she wanted to withdraw her earlier agreeemtn to marry Seng. She then revealed that actually the marriage was withdraw last year in August. The spolit lee took the letter from her dad. Finally, the truth was revealed and seng and the poor lee married.


At the trial, the truth was finally revealed when the wen officer set a trap