Casey Crowley, a drama student at Tisch School of the Arts, studied Chinese Opera Training at the Shanghai Theatre Academy during the Fall 2007. Below is a look back at Casey's time in Shanghai with mentions of her trips throughout China and Tibet.
People hear the word "opera" and they automatically think of Western Style operas with Western singing. Chinese Opera could hardly be more different. There are two main types of Chinese Opera. Those that favor singing and those that favor the martial arts. Since the singing style of Chinese Opera is a. in chinese, b. difficult for the Western ear to get used to, and c. extremely difficult for an English speaker to learn (especially when your teachers don't speak English), we focused on the martial arts. Warm Ups consisted of high kicks into the air and special Chinese Opera "walks." We all came out of that class more flexible (and by more flexible, I mean we were putting our legs up in the splits against a wall) than when we went in. We learned the basic movements of different characters and then progressed to certain choreography for those characters. The class was separated by gender with the boys and girls learning different choreography. We did, however, get a chance to perform a routine together where the girls danced with two long knives and the boys had spears. The relationship between student and teacher also progressed dramatically from September (where our teacher, Linda Lao Shi, would shout "yan jing, shining eyes") to Decmeber (when we were all capable of carrying on conversations in Chinese. It is very clear to me that to become a master of Chinese Opera requires years and years of training (this was always especially evident when little 9-year olds would outperform us and there were boys next door practicing back hand-springs so fast they were staying in place), but the introduction to Chinese Opera has definitely sparked an interest in Chinese dance that may one day take me back to Shanghai.
The most challenging part about being in Shanghai, the language barrier aside, was accepting Chinese customs. The Chinese have very little concept of "standing in line." This generally leads to mass stampede, overloaded elevators, and waiting a long time to actually get what you need without being trampled. Despite what any tour book says, chopsticks are used for meals, and nearly all meals include white rice. It is very difficult if not impossible to be a vegetarian in China. If you are one, you might actually want to reconsider either going or your take on meat. They eat all sorts of meats, and I was "privileged" to try tongue, duck, dog (we think), chicken heart, cow tendon, and even bull penis (in a soup). All of the more common meats are also around: chicken, beef, pork, fish. I love meat, so it wasn't a problem for me.
Bathrooms also often present a problem in China. Always, ALWAYS, carry some sort of tissue on your person due to the fact that toilets often lack toilet paper. Many toilets are simply holes in the ground, so I became very familiar very fast with the Chinese style sitting (standing squat). Avoid public bathrooms whenever possible. When not possible, prepare yourself for what could be a very gruesome scene.
The Shanghai Theatre Academy is a neat place. It's just neat. The grounds are beautiful, and we often got tickets to see international performance (nearly always for free). My favorite was a group of Italian dancers, but I also enjoyed a production of The 3 Sisters in Russian (with Chinese subtitles) that was 4 hours long. Chinese Culture class was always fascinating because the guest speakers brought in were incredible people: people who had direct experience in the Cultural Revolution, famous dancers, economic and literature experts, and ever a calligraphy artist. I learned more about China in that class for 3 hours once a week than I think I could have ever learned in the USA.
Chinese class is a monster of it's own. Chinese class is on the same level as Chinese Opera class when it comes to what I did in China. We were up every morning at 8:30am to study chinese (with non English speaking teachers) until 11:40am. It was extremely difficult at first. None of us had ever spoken a word of Chinese. We couldn't understand the characters being written on the board, and things had to be translated from Chinese to Japanese to Korean to English before we understood them. That being said, Chinese class turned out to be probably one of the best experiences both in China and anywhere else. We took class with other foreign students. We became friends with them and often went out to dinner or to clubs with them. Our teachers never seemed to mind that we tended to be the class clowns; often being adventurous and trying to say things in Chinese with large unhelpful pantomiming motions. After the first couple of classes we each had a few sayings that we clung on to for dear life. Scott would simply respond "wo xi huan chang ge" to any question (I like to sing. Most of the 1st week was about likes and dislikes). Ben was always "tiao wu" (he likes to dance), Meghan was "ping guo" (She likes apples) and I was "pao bu" (I like to run). Scott and his "love" for singing once found him performing "A Whole New World" with Mary in front of the class.
Chinese class actually had more hours involved than Opera class, but the result was we were nearly all conversational in Chinese. I could never have otherwise picked up as much of the language that I did. It also helped that going out at night with our classmates usually forced us to speak something other than English. Given that we had so many foreign friends, you could often find up to 6 languages being spoken within our group at once (Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Italian). The people that I met from the theater academy, including our Opera and Language teachers, are what I miss most about being back in the states.
Aside from traveling all over the country, I particularly enjoyed the typhoon that hit Shanghai in September. We walked out of Opera class (which was an hour commute away from our dorm) to find not only pouring rain, but flooded streets with several inches of water to walk through. We took a cab ride home that day. The windshield wipers were doing absolutely nothing. You couldn't see more than 8 feet in front of the car. We turned on to Huashan Road (the road that leads to the campus entrance) to more than a foot of water flooding the streets. The cab driver was having fun shouting "whoa whoa," as the car practically floated to the front gate. We were forced to get to the grocery store to buy supplies that night (the storm was supposed to hit fully until the next day). During the next day, opera class was cancelled and we sat in the TV room (somehow named the VIP room, not by us) and watched DVDs all afternoon and evening. We ate bread and cup-of-noodles. It was a great 2 days.
The biggest and most complicated trip of all: Tibet! I have to say that I didn't ever seem to realize how difficult it is to actually get to Tibet. You need travel documents provided by a travel agent. You need a tour guide. You need tours... We were very lucky in that Scott's parents had a friend whose friend was a chinese travel agent. They set everything up for us, and aside from not telling us that we needed to bring our own food on a 2 day train ride, the set up went smoothly. We flew to Xian on the friday evening before the national holiday (Oct 1st-3rd, we got a week off from school.) The next morning we boarded the Qinghai Express, a 2-year old train that takes you over the mountains into Tibet (and also through some of the higher altitudes in the world, the highest being 16,640 some feet.)
This was definitely not some school sponsored trip, where meals are planned and some chaperone is there to make sure you are ok. We were pretty much on our own: world travelers. We spent 2 days on the train in lower class "hard bed" cabins. This means that you reside in one 6 foot by 6 foot space with 6 beds (3 on each side). There are no doors, and pretty much no privacy. We shared our cabin with 3 Chinese strangers. The hallways were always filled with smoke, and the bathrooms... oh the bathrooms. Lets just leave it at they were pretty bad. Because of the altitude we were all taking acetozolamide (an anti-altitude sickness medication). They made you go to the bathroom a lot. That being said, the train ride was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. The views from the windows were insanely gorgeous and we got the opportunity to completely immerse ourselves with people who had no idea about our culture. We were in their territory. And when you stepped off the train, you were in Tibet.
It was relatively hard to breath in Tibet. When we visited the Potala Palace (built in the 5th century for a Chinese princess who married a Tibetan King, later the home of several Dalai Lamas) we were climbing stairs for ages and feeling like we had all run a marathon. People were coming up to us to take pictures with us as though they had never seen a real white person before (which they may not have). We rode Yaks and climbed mountains, but being there for only 2 days meant we couldn't see everything. Tibet, in general, is one of those experiences that you can't forget.
We also visited Beijing with the other foreign students at the Shanghai Theater Academy over Thanksgiving Weekend (simply by coincidence). Beijing in November is absolutely frigid. This was another experience where we took an overnight train ride. This time, however, we were in 1st class cabins with 4 beds to each cabin. This was great, given that we were with all of our friends. We partied together all night on the return trip practicing tongue twisters in each other's languages and making fun of each other. We did all of the things you would expect a tourist to do in Beijing: visit the forbidden city, great wall, ming tombs, old courtyards, Tianamen Square, the CCP Congress Hall, eat famous roast duck (Mary tried eating silk worms, but I stayed as far away from that as possible), shopping. It may sound cheesy, but the Great Wall may very well have been the highlight of my entire trip to China! Its quite a bit steeper than you ever imagine, but the views are incredible and just the sheer size of the wall is worth the 2 hour drive from Beijing. Anyone who visits China NEEDS to see the Great Wall.
