"The ultimate goal of teaching students Beijing opera is not to produce professional performers but to foster their interest in traditional operas."

--Peng Bao

    Newman Huo

TO the question: Should primary and junior school students learn Beijing opera on campus, Huang Xiaowen, a Junior One student at Donghu Middle School in Luohu District, answered with a firm “yes.”

Growing up in the countryside in Jieyang in Guangdong Province, Huang moved to Shenzhen with her family in 2002 and enrolled at Donghu Middle School last year.

Huang, 16, finds she has been more confident since joining the Beijing Opera Club (BOC) in the middle school last September.

“I used to be a very shy girl, but now I can carry myself with more ease and confidence when I talk to strangers,” Huang said in an interview last Friday.

She said she had seen Beijing opera only occasionally on TV, and could not understand it at all. That was before taking special training at the BOC three times a week over the last semester.

“Besides regular training in school, I also practiced at home, which was encouraged particularly by my mother,” she said.

After about six months’ training, she has learned some basic Beijing opera skills, and is able to play the role of the concubine in a simplified version of the famous historic play “Farewell My Concubine.” So far, she has appeared in three public performances in communities in Luohu District.

Zheng Xiaojia, 15, a Junior Two student in Donghu Middle School, also believes students who are interested in Beijing opera, should learn the traditional opera if they are provided with the right instructor and practice venue, like the BOC her school has.

She didn’t hesitate to join the BOC when the club recruited new members last March.

“Even before joining the club, I was very interested in Beijing opera because I had practiced dance for four years in a primary school in Luohu District,” she said.

Huang and Zheng are among more than 300 young Beijing opera lovers the BOC has trained since its establishment in 2002.

According to Peng Biao, principal of Donghu Middle School, the BOC was born of a prize-winning Beijing opera lesson the school’s music teacher Hu Yingping presented at a provincial-level music teaching competition in Shunde, Guangdong Province in 2001.

Hu chose Beijing opera as the focus of her presentation, in which the facial makeup and singing immediately grabbed the attention of students in the classroom.

When the 45-minute lesson was finished, students surrounded Hu, asking questions about Beijing opera and didn’t want her to leave. Their curiosity about the traditional opera impressed Hu.

Her lesson was finally awarded a special prize in the competition. When Hu brought her trophy back to Shenzhen, she prepared a report for the principal on how her new students in Shunde were interested in Beijing opera.

Believing his school could make a breakthrough in art education by teaching Beijing opera to secondary students, Principal Peng decided to invite a State first-class actress He Qingxian to become a Beijing opera instructor at the school.

“When the BOC was established in 2002, only three students applied to join the club at the beginning, because pop music from Hong Kong and Taiwan still dominated our students’ spare time,” Peng said.

To attract more students to the club, He held a series of lectures and performances on campus, which enabled students to learn more about the charm and beauty of traditional opera. Gradually, an increasing number of middle school students became fascinated with Beijing opera.

The BOC at Donghu Middle School has won numerous prizes at various levels in art festivals and competitions.

In June 2005, the BOC was invited by the Communications Coordination Committee for the United Nations to go to New York City in the United States to perform for the 60th anniversary of the United Nations.

In September 2006, a group of 18 students from the BOC performed at the closing ceremony of the annual meeting of the International Board on Books for Young People in Macao. Their performance was highly praised by more than 400 guests from 60 countries.

In July 2007, the BOC was invited to participate in an exchange program between students from Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong.

The success of the BOC in Donghu Middle School has inspired many Shenzhen primary and secondary schools to follow in recent years.

In 2004, education authorities in Bao’an District began to introduce Beijing opera to eight schools, setting up a model for promoting traditional opera among young students.

Peng said he had noticed the controversy that was sparked by the Ministry of Education’s announcement Feb. 21 of a pilot program to teach Beijing opera to students in primary and secondary schools across the country.

A survey conducted by China’s news portal Netease shows nearly 70 percent of voters were against the program.

According to another opinion poll by China’s leading web portal Sina.com, among more than 21,000 respondents, only 27 percent believed setting up the course would help promote traditional Chinese culture, nearly 38 percent thought the course should not be compulsory as students’ choices should be respected, and the remaining 35 percent proposed different local operas be taught in different areas since China has a huge reservoir of local operas.

Peng said many people who were not enthusiastic about introducing Beijing opera to students had misunderstood the Ministry of Education’s original intention and endeavor to promote traditional Chinese culture through the token of Beijing opera.

“The ultimate goal of teaching students Beijing opera is not to produce professional performers but to foster their interest in traditional operas,” Peng said.

“The BOC opens a door to our young students, giving them a chance to develop an interest in traditional Chinese culture,” he said.