Shi Qingzhao and Her Research on Chinese Performed Narrative Arts

CHINOPERL Papers No. 27 (2007)©2007 by the Association for Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. SHI QINGZHAO AND HER RESEARCH ON CHINESE PERFORMED NARRATIVE ARTS One day in 1975, I got a message from the troupe leader (I was working in the Beijing Narrative Arts Troupe at the time). He requested that I accompany the performer and teacher of Peking drum singing Liang Xiaolou and performer of Peking harp stories Guan Xuezeng, who were to be interviewed by a Canadian scholar at the restaurant in the Palace for the Nationalities in Beijing. He added that she was a key member of the first Chinese-Canadian Friendship Delegation to visit since China had established diplomatic relations with Canada. The Cultural Revolution had not yet come to an end at that time, and the chance to meet foreigners was very rare. Why would a foreigner wish to meet two narrative singers? I took part in the interview out of a kind of curiosity. No sooner had we taken our seats than Shi Qingzhao (Kate Stevens) told us how long she had admired Liang Xiaolou and Guan Xuezeng; that she had a record of the two of them performing together which she had listened to at home any number of times and really loved; and, for that reason, her greatest hope for this visit to China was that she might be able to meet these two teachers. That day’s meeting with them realized a dream that was many years in the making, and she told us she was deeply moved. She went on to tell of her experience studying Chinese at Columbia University, then going to Taiwan to continue her Chinese language study, where by chance she fell in love with Peking drum singing and went on to write her doctoral dissertation entitled Peking Drumsinging at Harvard University. During our conversation she said that she felt it necessary to come to Mainland China to research Chinese performed narrative arts because the roots of these arts were here and not anywhere else. She also expressed her wish to build a long-term collaboration. That a foreigner could be this enamored of Chinese traditional culture and had researched in such depth truly impressed us. When we took leave of each other, she asked, “If some questions come up, might I contact you on my own initiative?” I answered in the affirmative, and thirty years of CHINOPERL Papers No. 27 14 correspondence and friendship between my wife and me and Qingzhao (Kate) started then and there. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, she came to Beijing on several research trips, mainly to “pay respects to the masters and learn their art.” In 1983 she came to study with the master performer of drum singing Sun Shujun at the Troupe for Singing and Telling Troupe (Shuochang yishutuan) of the Central Broadcasting Company and asked the famous player of the sanxian (three-stringed zither) Han Dechang to accompany her while she sang. She studied under difficult conditions, riding her bicycle more than five or six miles every day from her room at Peking University to her teacher’s home on Zhanlan Road (Exhibition Road) to take classes. Without fail, she focused her attention and all her time on her lessons. Even after she slipped and sprained her hand on the drum, she simply fastened the strap around her neck so that she could beat time on the drum as she practiced singing. The direct fruit of her labors was a formal broadcast of her singing an excerpt from “Slopes of Changban,” capturing Sun Shujun’s style on the international channel of the Central People’s Radio. We knew that she had already completed her dissertation on the history of Beijing drum singing, the singing styles and formal characteristics. Why did she still want to pay respects to the masters and learn their art? It wasn’t that she wanted to become a performer but to master the skills of performing Beijing drum song and its basic rules. Once she had mastered the basic rules, she could introduce Beijing drum singing to a North American audience in a more lively fashion. After this, she also started...