[
    {
        "id": 206138,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1970",
        "page_number": 218,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n211\n\nto a local princess. Fifteen years later he hears that his mother and several members of his family are guarding the Chinese border very close to where he is. When the play starts, he is longing to see his own people again, and his wife, the princess, makes him admit the reason for his sadness to her and also his identity. She agrees to help him to get out of the barbarian camp on condition that he comes back the next day. The most dramatic moment of the play is the brief encounter between Ssu Lang and his mother and his first Chinese wife. However, he keeps his word and returns.\n\nThe second play is a farce. The philosopher Chuang Tzu tests his wife. He pretends to be dead and reappears under the form of a young handsome scholar. He seduces his wife and even persuades her to break open the coffin in which her husband lies to remove his heart to make a medicine for him. However, when the wife opens the coffin, the philosopher reappears and confounds her. She commits suicide from shame.\n\nBesides the translations, the book also includes a general introduction to Chinese opera, some photographs of scenes from the two plays, detailed explanations of extracts from Ssu Lang visits his mother (the latter have been recorded on tape and are available from the publisher), a glossary of Chinese theatre terms and an index.\n\nBy choosing these two plays, the author has presented nearly all the different kinds of Chinese opera characters (only the painted faces are not represented). Both plays are very well known and often played; for example here in Hong Kong, by the Chun Chau Peking Opera School in Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park. Ssu Lang visits his mother was, moreover, played two months ago in the City Hall by a group of amateurs; and famous airs from this opera are as well known to the Chinese as are the famous airs of Verdi to Italians. The background explanation is an excellent summing-up of what must be known in order to enjoy a Chinese opera; and if one wants to know more, one can read the Chinese Classical Theatre by the same author. This earlier book speaks in generalities, but here A. C. Scott gives two precise examples and shows how the principles of Chinese operas work in a given play.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206903,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1973",
        "page_number": 180,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "174\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nof a mask, they painted the features of the masks right on the face. The mask cannot change its expression, it lacks the spirit of the eyes and is lifeless, it hinders the speech and even more the singing, as is the case in the stagnant Japanese Noh-play. Mr. Scott does not give any background at all, but names the 15th century as the beginning of painted faces and gives them as the origin of the Japanese Kabuki make-up. He also says that their design is according to the Chinese rules of physiognomy.\n\nThe subject of painted faces is very extensive: a book published in Tai-wan a few years ago contains a thousand varieties of painted faces*.\n\nTurning to other aspects, the Peking Opera stage is empty except for a table and 2 chairs. If a chair is placed on a table, it means a mountain, and can be used to indicate, for example, a general addressing his army. Rain, wind and storms are indicated by black or blue flags of thin silk, which are carried over the stage. Carrying a horsewhip means that this person is riding, a military order is indicated by a small triangular flag, 2 square flags with a wheel-design indicate a carriage and so on.\n\nBoth authors describe in more or less detail the system of the Peking Opera schools. It is surprising how few people know that we have such a school here in Hong Kong. 40 children are trained in this school, some as young as 6 years old. They get up early to train their voices, then comes the teacher for acrobatics, then opera parts are rehearsed. In the afternoon, they study general subjects, and in the evening they go to the Lai Chi Kok amusement park to give their daily performance.\n\nIf you want to take the chance, which is so easily available, to see this intriguing type of opera, you should also spend a few hours with Elizabeth Halson's short guide. This book really does fill the newcomer's need for a comprehensive, well-ordered, introduction enabling him to enjoy and appreciate what he sees in the opera; though not yet what he hears, like Chinese enthusiasts who go to the opera in order to hear it.\n\nHong Kong, 1973.\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nChang Pe-chin: Chinese Opera and Painted Face, Taiwan, Mei Ya Publications, Inc. 1969.\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r",
        "rank": 0
    }
]