by Xinhua writer Gu Zhenqiu
LONDON, June 11 (Xinhua) -- "Any volunteer to try the Beijing Opera costumes?" Upon this question, a bespectacled British gentleman raised his hand, saying, "Let me have a try."
As advised, David Fuschi, took off his sweater pullover to reveal his black shirt, with two pens in his left breast pocket. With that, a complicated process started to put on different layers of the Beijing Opera costume.
The whole process took about half an hour. With colorful headwear, war armor and a long sword, Fuschi was dressed up into an ancient Chinese general -- Xiang Yu, the self-styled "Hegemon-King of Western Chu" who battled for the unification of China with Liu Bang, the eventual founder of the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220).
As a result, the long black artificial beard covered Fuschi's real white one -- an ancient Chinese general with a foreign face and also very much eye-catching, with glasses.
The woman who helped Fuschi into the opera consume was Qiu Zenghui, a veteran Jinghu player and director of the UK Chinese Opera Association, who was giving a lecture on the ABCs of the Beijing Opera at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).
Many British people came from outside London to attend the lecture, jointly organized by her association and QMUL's Confucius Institute.
"I don't know much Chinese, I only knew a few words and a few sentences," a shy Fuschi said. "I like Beijing Opera, and I like the way it presented. It was fun."
"It is a good thing to know about its rules," he said. "It is very important that you put your heart into it." While helping Fuschi put on the costume, Qiu explained the name and use of each piece in the process.
In the Peking Opera, Qiu said, the costumes are as important as the characters themselves because each piece tells a story.
Sewn in workshops behind the theater streets, every piece is intricately made with great consideration to design and color, and these gorgeous pieces of art can cost thousands of pounds, she said, referring to different colorful costumes on display.
Qiu, who graduated from National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts, founded the opera association in 2015 in London as a non-profit organization which charges no membership fees to promote the art of Beijing Opera in London.
She started to learn to play Jinghu at six. Jinghu is a Chinese bowed string instrument used primarily in Beijing Opera. It is the smallest and highest pitched instrument in the huqin family.
"I want to make Beijing Opera better understood to the British people here, and also offer a platform for Beijing Opera lovers," Qiu said, adding that at the end of each lecture, during she played and sang, her fans will come to the stage to sing Beijing Opera themselves.
