NOTES ON CHIUCHOW OPERA
83
to find out the reason for the continual postponement of the marriage. He is characterised as a clown, and the fat wet-nurse appears also as a go-between, a funny character in many Chinese operas. This scene gives ample opportunity to display the vocabulary of comic jokes, movements and mime typical of the Chiuchow opera. He wears gay red costumes, and carries a fan which he handles like a juggler. In this scene the two are describing their long climb by walking in various ways in a circle, pausing to admire the scenery.
The wet-nurse asks the learned Hsin-tsai for the names and explanations of things seen along the way. "And this mountain?"
"It is called Han Mountain."
"And this river?"
"It is called Han River."
**
"And that ancestor temple over there?" "It is the Han Memorial Temple."
"Why is everything here called Han?"
"Because the great scholar Han Yü was sent from the Capital to Chiuchow and gave his name to all these."*
"Oh, you and your father are like the great Han Yü."
"Oh you really think so? Why?"
"Because Han Yü grabbed all the mountains, the river and the ancestor hall, and so on, and now you and your father grab the people's land."
The wet-nurse carries an umbrella and a red pao-fu# or a cloth-roll containing provisions for the journey, slung over the shoulder which is the traditional requisite to indicate travelling. On the Chinese stage luggage is never carried to indicate arrival, departure or travel, but a bamboo-umbrella or a red pao-fu, or both, are used instead.
The Hsiu-tsai is complaining about the Su family who are constantly postponing his marriage with their daughter, and is wondering what strange reason there may be behind it. They come to a gate erected by the emperor's order to honour a woman who has demonstrated her chastity under hard conditions. The Hsiu-tsai
*For a notice of Han Yü (768-824) see Harbert A. Giles A Chinese Biographical Dictionary, London and Shanghai, 1898, pp. 254-256.