Kate Stevens is My Friend

CHINOPERL Papers No. 27 (2007)©2007 by the Association for Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. KATE STEVENS IS MY FRIEND Susan Blader (Dartmouth College) Kate Stevens is my friend. The time we spent together in China was a turning point for me. It was a magical time. My most deeply cherished memories are from those many months spent happily tagging along with Kate and Professor Wang Jingshou. We were quite the odd trio: Kate, who had been studying storytelling for thirty years; Professor Wang, who was born to it; and I, the uncarved block. To be guided by these two incomparably delightful and knowledgeable people into the real world of storytelling was a stroke of the most unexpected but desperately needed good fortune. I had arrived in Beijing in October of 1981 with the goal of finding a teller of Sanxia wuyi. Ironically, however, my designated host at Peking University (Beijing daxue or Beida, for short), Professor Wang, just happened to be in the United States. I was completely on my own. Making what I thought were valiant attempts to get things moving, I discovered, alas, that I was no match for the bureaucracy. It was not until January, when Professor Wang returned, and Kate followed, that doors opened, permissions were granted, and things moved along at a breathtaking pace—for China, of course. CHINOPERL Papers No. 27 8 Kate knew everything about the stories. She had, decades earlier, in Taiwan, studied and performed Beijing drum song. On a previous trip to Beijing in 1975, she had already met Bao Chengjie and Cai Yuanli, ethnomusicologists who happened to be husband and wife. These two paragons of loyalty and dedication were close friends of Sun Shujun, Master Beijing drum singer. Now, in 1982, Kate was to begin her study of Sun Shujun’s performance art, a study that not accidentally evolved into the traditional, lifelong, master-disciple relationship. Although my ignorance was apparent to all, as Kate’s “Younger Sister in Study,” I was accepted into this small group of artists and experts, kind and generous people. Kate and I stayed in the newly opened Shaoyuan Hall of Peking University, a guesthouse for foreign scholars. It was there, in the early days of 1982, that Beida offered us a room in which to videotape performances by some of the most outstanding storytellers in Beijing. Miraculously, I had been allowed to bring to Beijing eight large cartons of the cumbersome video equipment of the day, but the task of taping terrified me. Kate bravely took on the job of videographer. She did this again, in Tianjin, where she arranged an evening of performances—by artists and pieces she chose—in a large storytelling theater that we had bought out for the evening. The result was our first collection of videotaped performances of acclaimed Northern storytellers, many of whom are no longer with us. At Professor Wang’s suggestion some years ago, we presented a copy of this valuable collection to the Ministry of Culture. It was not until March of 1982 that Kate, Professor Wang, and I traveled to Suzhou for the “Southern Storytelling Festival.” Professor Wang, ever-vigilant on our behalf, learned that Jin Shengbo, Master Suzhou pinghua [straight narrative] artist, was to perform a piece from Sanxia wuyi, the novel whose origins in the oral tradition I was in China to investigate. Never one to dilly-dally, he immediately arranged an interview for me with Mr. Jin. We had barely begun our conversation when I realized that Jin Shengbo was the answer to all the questions I had and to those I had not yet imagined. Kate, Professor Wang, and I had a glorious time in Suzhou. But, for me, that visit signaled the beginning of a new direction in my research. Experiencing first-hand the performance of an acknowledged master Blader, Kate Stevens Is My Friend 9 of pinghua, whose masterpiece was the very narrative I sought to understand, was the realization of my dream. That the narrative was performed in Suzhou dialect—and was virtually incomprehensible to me—mattered not at all. It was a mere technicality. It would be overcome! Beida, again, did the unprecedented: no...