My story with Qinqiang Opera

[Yemen] Saddam Abdullah Mohammed Ali, Chang’an University

A fantastic dream of mine about Qinqiang Opera took root, sprouted and grew in the ancient city of Xi’an, Shaanxi Province.

When I first listened to Qinqiang Opera, I was attracted by its unique performance. When I arrived in Xi’an, I hung out near the Big Wild Goose Pagoda from time to time, where many people were “shouting” an opera loudly with costumes and actions which I had never seen before. However, their enthusiasm and earnestness attracted me. So, I tried to learn the singing from them, but I couldn’t sing a complete line.

The second time I met Qinqiang Opera, I was shocked by its unique charm. Once, the university organized an activity to watch a music performance, in which all the gags were great. However, I was impressed the most by Qinqiang. On the stage, the costumes and makeups revealed the story background and characters of all the people in the story. Exaggerated performance of acting staff appeared fierce with the sound effect. The twists and turns of the story are even more exciting. From then on, I began to listen to more Qinqiang Opera and imitate actors to sing just for entertainment.

In January 2020, I finally got my opportunity when Chang’an University was organizing an activity to learn to sing Qinqiang Opera. So, I signed up. My classmates and I visited a local Qinqiang Opera troupe. Most of acting staff were elderly people. They were very hospitable and willing to teach us. The first episode we learned was Three Drops of Blood, which was the representative work of Qinqiang Opera . The teacher first explained the story background and sent us some videos.

Then, we watched the elder acting staff’s performance, and their performance was as wonderful as performing in an international theater. At the same time, we carefully observed how they use vocal cords to articulate. By the teacher’s guidance, we tried to sing together with them. It was really difficult to sing according to their way of singing. After a few practice sessions, the teacher taught us one by one. The teacher asked me to sing alone, so that he could spot my mistakes and correct them. The Qinqiang Opera study lasted for about a month intermittently. I admit that it was a difficult period of time, but full of fun and good memories.

I think the difficulty of learning Qinqiang Opera is its unique singing method, which requires strong breath control ability. Vocal sound in Qinqiang Opera is different from the pronunciation in daily talking, and some dialects are also used. Of course, for beginners, it is even more difficult to learn body movements in Qinqiang Opera performance. However, as the saying goes “Everything is difficult at the beginning,” we overcame all the difficulties and made a great progress after a month’s practice with the teachers’ professional teaching and patience.

It’s finally time to perform on stage, and this is the first time I stand on such a large stage to perform Qinqiang Opera. Facing a lot of audience, I was extremely thrilled and excited. The performance was very successful, even much better than I expected.

As foreigners to perform Chinese art, we won admiration and waves of applause from the audience. In addition, our performance was also broadcast on CCTV. After that, I also participated in many activities to perform Qinqiang Opera, such as traveling the ancient and modern Silk Road along China’s longest expressway, The 5th Silk Road International Cultural Festival of Chang’an University, and Shaanxi “Belt and Road” International Student Cultural Carnival.

Indeed, Qinqiang Opera is a unique art, an art full of positive energy, and it continues to inspire me to sing. In addition, I had an in-depth touch on the charm of traditional Chinese culture via singing Qinqiang Opera and wearing fu, a traditional clothing of Han Chinese people. During the Han Dynasty, all these activities deepened my understanding on the art of Qinqiang Opera performance and China’s historical culture. I believe that through our efforts, these unique and wonderful arts and culture will be known by more people.

The story is from "My Beautiful Encounter with China" Essay Competition organized by the Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchanges (CSCSE).