Ping tan time
(Ping Tan Opera at the Lingering Garden: Suzhou, China)
There is nothing quite like the sound of Chinese opera being performed in an ancient Suzhou garden, though it is perhaps an acquired taste. Independently of each other, both my mum and aunt remarked that it sounded very similar to cats, possibly cats that were under some duress. We followed the source of the sound and arrived at a hall in which a display of local Chinese opera, Ping Tan was being held.
The ladies were made up so we could hardly see their real features, and of course, none of us could understand the small snatches of storyline, probably more apparent to the abundant amount of local tourists. I generally find that these gardens attract 98% Chinese tourists and the rest is made up from other parts of the world. Anyway, this pair looked as if they could reasonably been sisters, but we may have been deceived by heavy make up. Both of them wore expressions of wry amusement throughout, plus I also felt that they were staring at us, just like the hordes of locals. The singing between musical interludes is conducted without instruments and sounds as if it has been slowed down electronically. They might have been singing in dialect something like; “Look over there at the three white idiots, they don’t know what is going on”.
The performance was a great distraction and we enjoyed it thoroughly. I will have to admit that we escaped after ten minutes or so, there is only so much Ping Tan opera one needs to be subjected to.
Wow, you all are lucky to have a chance of watching this performance in the garden.
I wanted so much to see the real thing that I persuaded Ying’s dad to buy thickets when a pair of Ping-tan performers came to Singapore recently.
Enjoy your tour.