NOTES ON CHIUCHOW OPERA
87
to go against her parents, or go so far as to run away with her secret love? It would be unthinkable and outrageous. Because, just as today, the Yang-pan or Revolutionary Peking Opera has to propagate a certain moral and ethics, with any other human behaviour being excluded from the stage, so the Peking opera, which used to be under official support and supervision, could not deviate from the officially supported Confucian ideals.
The southern coastal areas of China were not "enlightened" by the Confucian civilization of the Yellow River plains until the Tang Dynasty, when the minister Han Yü, an eminent scholar, was sent into exile to Chiuchow because he tried to prevent the spread of Buddhism in China. He worked hard to instill Confucian values into the local population, and to set up a Confucian social and administrative system. Han Yu must have made a great impression on this area because his name appears frequently, not least in the name of the river which attracted the settlers to build Chiuchow on its banks, which is called after him, Han River.
NOTES ON CHIUCHOW OPERA
87
to go against her parents, or go so far as to run away with her secret love? It would be unthinkable and outrageous. Because, just as today, the Yang- pan or Revolutionary Peking Opera has to propagate a certain moral and ethics, with any other human behaviour being excluded from the stage, so the Peking opera, which used to be under official support and supervision, could not deviate from the officially supported Confucian ideals.
The southern coastal areas of China were not "enlightened" by the Con- fucian civilization of the Yellow River plains until the Tang Dynasty, when the minister Han Yü, an eminent scholar, was sent into exile to Chiuchow because he tried to prevent the spread of Buddhism in China. He worked hard to instill Confucian values into the local population, and to set up a Confucian social and administrative system. Han Yu must have made a great impression on this area because his name appears frequently, not least in the name of the river which attracted the settlers to build Chiuchow on its banks, which is called after him, Han River.
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