Cantonese Opera Performer Visits Chinese Classes

This winter, Chinese language students met a retired professional Cantonese opera performer who was visiting Orange.

 

Mr. Hua Li, from Foshan in southern China, answered students’ questions in Chinese about his life and work, and then taught the boys foundational movements of the “sheng” role in Chinese opera, that of a young man with martial arts skills.

 

The boys first learned how to make “The Tiger’s Mouth,” a way of holding one’s hand that is part of the beginning stance of most Chinese opera movements. Mr. Li then then taught the boys the importance of maintaining a straight line through their head, torso, and abdomen no matter what they were doing. He said that whether you are performing on stage or entering the interview room of a potential job, maintaining this ‘central axis’ no matter how you move demonstrates strength, power, and discipline. Mr. Li went through several complicated stage movements while maintaining a straight central axis… and then moonwalked while saying in English, “Michael Jackson!”

 

After learning Chinese opera movements, the boys were better able to appreciate how difficult skills look easy when a professional performs them. Some of the movements demonstrated and taught can be seen in the last third of this video:

 

 

Mr. Li began studying Cantonese Opera at the age of 10 and practiced for nearly ten years before being allowed to perform on stage. After years of performing around China and the world, Mr. Li left the stage to help fund and build the new Foshan Cantonese Opera Theater, produce online influencers’ channels, sell prefabricated tiny homes, trade in cryptocurrency, and many other lines of business. The boys were impressed by Mr. Li’s tireless ability to hustle.

This was Mr. Li’s first visit to the United States, and he told Chinese instructor Patrick McAloon that he was deeply impressed by Woodberry Forest’s students and campus. Mr. Li’s visit was a result of an introduction made by Dr. McAloon’s sister-in-law, Jieping Gao, a retired middle school English teacher in Shenzhen, China.