ANCIENT ART OF KUNQU

If you've studied Chinese culture at all, you've probably heard of Beijing Opera. (You know what I'm talking about! That thing where the actors paint their faces, put on extremely elaborate headdresses, and sing in REALLY high-pitched voices. Feel free to Google, Bing, or Baidu it, it's pretty interesting).  

Beijing Opera

Beijing Opera is a few hundred years old, making it kind of like a drop in the river that is Chinese history. However, its parent art, Kunqu, is older still. (Brief history at: http://www.kunqusociety.org/kunqu/history/)

Kunqu actress Hu Zhifeng

Kunqu actor Yu Zhenfei


Kunqu is native to Jiangsu Province, where I'm living right now. 

From Wikipedia: Jiangsu Province
 The name comes from jiang, (city of Jiangning), and su, (city of Suzhou)

Last week, we had a culture class on Kunqu, taught by a professional actress.

She let me try on a piece of her headdress! 

It's shaped like a phoenix, which is kind of a traditional feminine symbol (the way dragons are masculine). 

Funny story: I was at a restaurant with my host family, and my host sister told me that the building we were in was roughly 250 years old. I laughed, and told her that all of America was roughly 250 years old. Situations like these are pretty common when one is in a country with one of the longest recorded histories!