When I die and go to the Yellow Springs,
When I die and go to the Yellow Springs,
I will not close my eyes in peace,
I will not close my eyes in peace.
Fu Luobu: Ai-ya, Ili, Mother says she did not break her vows of abstinence, and my family has supported a sūtra hall for nine generations; where did these bones come from?
Ili: It is obvious.
Mme Liu (chants):
[To herself] My son’s suspicions will be difficult to deflect,
And the old cur’s words even harder to forbid.
[To Luobu and Ili] If your old mother broke her vows . . .
Fu Luobu and Ili: Ai-ya, Mother, O Mother!
Madame Liu kneels down to swear an oath.
Mme Liu: . . . Let me suffer in Hell again and again!
The five demon-bailiffs shackle Madame Liu’s hun soul and exit. Luobu and Ili exit. . . . Madame Liu trembles, removes her shackles, exits. The five demon-bailiffs enter.
Second demon-bailiff: The bitch has taken off!
First demon-bailiff: Pursue her closely and take care of her! . . .
(Chants)
If she feels warm,
I will use the fires of the south to make her hotter;
And if she feels chilly,
I will use the waters of the north to make her colder,
To kill her and send her to King Yama, send her to King Yama.
Madame Liu enters. The five demon-bailiffs cross the stage and shackle her. Madame Liu collapses. Luobu enters, lifts her up. Ili enters.
Fu Luobu and Ili (sing to melody “Yi jiang feng”):
She has fallen down,
Bright blood flows from nose, mouth, ears, and eyes.
It terrifies me.
Her eyes and mouth are awry,
Teeth clenched and silent,
Hands and feet as cold as iron.
When calamity comes you cannot fend it off.
My bowels are being torn apart,
I cry out but make no sound, make no sound.
Ai-ya, dear mother, wake up!
Mme Liu (sings the previous melody):
I have hurt myself.
Fu Luobu: Mother!
Mme Liu: Demons! Demons!
Fu Luobu: Ai-ya, Mother—I am your son, Luobu.
Mme Liu: You are Luobu? Oh, I am so sorry!
(Sings)
Sorry that at the start
I did not heed, did not heed my darling boy’s words.
Ai-ya, Luobu my son!
Just now when I was overcome with dizziness and fell down,
I saw your father.
He came astride a crane, riding a cloud.
He said, “Respected wife!
When your dear husband was nearing his end,
I exhorted you time and again with my deathbed injunctions.
I told you to take care of Luobu and Ili,
To eat vegetarian foods, to read the sūtras and recite the Buddha’s name.
Why did you send your son off to do business
And break your vows behind his back?
Why did you beat the Lamplighter Buddha
And curse the Primordial Heaven-honored One?
The Master of Fate notified Heaven,
And Heaven sent down an order
Commanding King Yama to investigate.
He despatched the Five Demons
To seize you.
Respected wife!
Heaven, dark and deep, cannot be deceived;
The spirits know your intentions before you are conscious of them.
Good and evil are always requited in the end,
The only thing uncertain is when it will occur.
The things that happen in the netherworld arise from your own actions;
The statutes of the netherworld are hard to evade.
Husband and wife are like birds in the same grove;
When the Great Limit is reached each flies away, each flies away.
O my wife!
I can take care of myself but I cannot take care of you;
I can take care of myself but I cannot take care of you.”
Just then I was overcome by dizziness and collapsed.
I wanted to say a few words to your father,
But just then you two awakened me,
And so I wasn’t able to say clearly more than a few words.
Son!
Pitiful I am, once husband and wife,
As if in a dream, now truly abandoned.
The pain in my heart like being stabbed with a knife, stabbed with a knife.
The five demon-bailiffs beat the object representing Madame Liu’s soul around the stage.
Mme Liu: Ai-yo, ai-yo, ai-yo!
Fu Luobu and Ili: Dear mother, be careful!
Mme Liu (sings):
The dark wind begins to moan,
The hungry ghosts cluster round,
Taking, taking your mother to Hell.
Fu Luobu: Mother!
Mme Liu: Luobu, who is that?
Fu Luobu: That’s dear Ili.
Mme Liu: Tell him to come here.
Fu Luobu: Ili, Mother is calling you.
Ili: Madame, I am here.
Mme Liu (sings):
Ai-ya, my Ili!
Ever since you left the knee of your stepmother
I never beat you or abused you.
Today because of a small matter
I hit you and cursed you again and again.
My son, never never remember it.
O son,
My son, quickly arrange for my journey—
I expect that I will soon, soon go to the world below.
Fu Luobu and Ili (sing):
The winds and clouds of Heaven cannot be fathomed,
Both blessings and calamities can come between morning and evening.
We urge you, Mother, slowly, slowly go back to the house.
Mme Liu: Demons! Demons!
Ili: Madame, please take care!
Mme Liu: Son!
Fu Luobu: Mother!
Madame Liu looks back twice and exits, followed by Luobu and Ili.
After Madame Liu dies, her coffin is placed on stage. The five demon-bailiffs enter, accompanied by the Pathfinder who is to lead them to Hell. The Pathfinder is played by the actor who has the role of Madame Liu. He wears a special mask and robe, under which are the makeup and costume of Madame Liu’s ghost. The six of them carry the coffin off the stage and drag it to a secluded spot “an arrow’s shot” away. There the five demons begin beating on the coffin lid with sticks to summon Madame Liu’s soul, and at the same time the Pathfinder ducks down behind the coffin, quickly takes off his mask and robe, and then jumps up in the terrifying guise of Madame Liu’s ghost. The ghost sees the five demon-bailiffs and runs wildly back up onto the stage to hide. The demons run after her, capture her backstage, and, to the shouts of the audience, drag her down to Hell.
[Mulian zhuan, pp. 242–259, supplemented by Mulianxi xueshu zuotanhui lunwenxuan, pp. 19–41—DJ]
Village Opera
Not all village opera was as grand and imposing as Mulian, of course. A typical temple festival, held on the occasion of a local god’s birthday, featured a wide variety of local operas on secular themes. There were history plays that by Qing times ranged across the dynasties from antiquity to the Ming, domestic dramas, romantic comedies, and even topical farces. Although thousands of scripts of local operas still exist, those that have been published have almost invariably been revised during the editorial process and hence have lost some of their authentically popular character. Such tampering began no later than the Ming, when new and more “respectable” dialogue was provided for the dramatic masterpieces of the Yuan, and it was still being practiced in the 1950s, when “Opera Inspection Teams” sent out by the provincial Cultural Affairs Bureaus (Wenhua ting) collected and examined scripts of local operas in preparation for the publication of approved versions and the suppression of the rest.
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There are, however, a few exceptions, and the following is one of them. It is one of forty-eight transcripts that were created when members of the Ding County Social Survey, led by Sidney Gamble, recorded the recitations (not the actual performances) of experienced village actors in Ding County, Hebei, in 1929. There were no scripts, since the performers were illiterate. The opera belongs to a genre called yangge, which was popular (with many local variations) throughout the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, and Shaanxi in north China.
The yangge were the most popular form of entertainment in the villages of Ding County and were performed at temple fairs, New Year’s and other festivals, and any other time that theatricals were called for. The actors—all men and mostly farmers—performed in and around their home villages. The plays were passed on orally from generation to generation, and thus they are true folk literature. Unlike some other forms of opera, the yangge were easy for the villagers to understand, both because they were in the local dialect and because information important to the plot was repeated over and over.
As one would expect given the fact that the repertoire did not undergo literati editing or government censorship, the Ding County yangge provide invaluable evidence of popular attitudes and values, at least in early twentieth-century Hebei. Nearly half deal with filial piety, marital fidelity, and other aspects of family relations. There are farces and romances as well, but no historical plays, and hence the themes of loyalty and political righteousness are quite absent.
GUO JU BURIES HIS SON
One of the most striking yangge from the point of view of the inculcation of values is Guo Ju Buries His Son, based on a brief story from a famous Confucian tract called The Twenty-four Exemplars of Filial Piety (Ershisi xiao). (Selections from this widely circulated text, including the story about Guo Ju, appear later in this chapter; see pp. 138–41). The yangge takes the familiar didactic tale, with its brutal refusal to recognize the tragic dilemma in which Guo Ju and his wife are caught, and turns it into a devastating critique of the arrogance of wealth and a deeply moving expression of the irreconcilable conflict between the demands of filial piety and parental love, thus teaching a much more complex lesson. It is given here without abridgement.
Guo Ju enters.
Guo (speaks): Mother’s illness is constantly on my mind. I am Guo Ju. Mother is very ill. I will go to her brother’s house to borrow some rice to keep us going.
Guo (sings):
Guo Ju sits in the front room, thinking about Mother’s illness.
Mother is bedridden; she would like a bowlful of rice, but there is none to give her.
From her sickbed Mother tells me to go to her brother’s house and borrow some.
I bow and take my leave. I tell my wife to pay attention:
If our mother gets cold, build up the fire for her;
If our mother is thirsty, make some tea for her.
Look—here is our rice bag; I am going to Uncle’s to borrow some rice.
Outside I look around; the street is filled with the well-to-do.
I could take my bag into the main street to borrow rice, but the people there help the rich, not the poor.
I’ll use the small lanes, not the main street;
By crooked paths and devious ways I go through the hutongs.8
Walking through the village and looking around, I see a temple south of the road.
The statues have only reed mats over their heads; it’s open to the
sky where the ridgepole has collapsed.
I see that all the walls have collapsed in ruins, and little boys are taking the bricks away.
Showing nothing of what I am feeling, I arrive before my uncle’s big gate.
I stand there and call out for him to open the gate—then call again.
Uncle (sings):
I am just having a cup of wine in my inner chamber when suddenly I hear someone at the gate.9
I put down the cup to see who has come.
I step outside my front hall and arrive at my gate.
Opening the gate I look up and see none other than my little nephew Guo Ju.
We can’t stand talking outside the gate, come with me to the front hall.
Having spoken, I enter the gate. . . .
Guo (sings):
. . . Followed by Guo Ju, your little nephew.
Uncle (sings):
Sit here in the front hall.
Guo (sings):
He avoids me as he bows.
Having bowed, I take my seat.
May I ask whether you are well, Uncle, and Aunt also?
Uncle (sings):
I answer, “Fine, fine, fine”; and is my old sister well?
Guo (sings):
If you hadn’t asked, it would have been all right, but now that you have asked the tears pour down.
My mother is bedridden; she would like a bowl of rice, but there is none to give her.
I wanted to make rice for her, but there is not even half a pint of rice in the house.
I wanted to ask for a loan from someone who lives on the main street, but most of them will help the rich, not the poor.
If you have rice, lend me a few pecks so I can take them home and be a filial son.
If Mother recovers, I will never forget your generosity, Uncle.
What Guo Ju has said with a pure heart about borrowing rice . . .
Uncle (sings):
What you have said I greatly dislike.
Three years ago you borrowed several pecks of rice from me, and you have yet to repay half a pint.
You are asking again without having repaid what you owe—where will I find the rice to give you?
The rice I have will feed my geese, ducks, pigs, and dogs, who at least guard the house and announce the dawn.
The more I speak, the more I think and the angrier I get; the dark fire of rage burns in my heart.
I pick up my walking stick and with hatred, hatred beat you to death, you dog!
[Beats Guo Ju.]
Guo (sings):
Hear me, Uncle, with your hateful heart. This child has not eaten for three meals, how can I fend off your great club?
I am humiliated, you savage, and I have a few things to say to you!
I wouldn’t have minded your refusing to lend us the rice; but you ought not to have punished me so cruelly.
On hands and knees I anxiously scramble up from the ground.
I will leave having borrowed no rice, with nothing to offer Mother at home.
Saying this I turn my face to tell you something else, Uncle:
Remember when we were rich and you were poor, and you borrowed gold and silver from Guo Ju?
Now when you are rich and I am poor, you don’t treat me as a human being at all.
You have rice for your geese, ducks, pigs, and dogs; is my mother nothing to you?
Today the two of us will strike hands on my oath that never in my life will I come to your gate again.
Guo Ju, afraid of more blows, has to retreat . . .
Uncle (sings):
. . . With a blow at every step I force him out of the gate.
Guo Ju has been forced out of the gate; turning my back, I push the gate closed.
You and I will travel separate roads until we die; I will not open my gate to you even if you are dying.
Guo (weeping): I tell you, Uncle, you savage—this child has not eaten for three meals and could [not] fend off the blows of your club. Uncle, you savage!
(Sings)
I am humiliated, you savage, and I have a few things to say to you!
I have not eaten for three meals, how could I have fended off your great club?
I could die by smashing my head on your gate, but what would happen to Mother then?
How hard, how hard, hard even to die, how hard it is for Guo Ju to die.
Guo Ju weeps in the main street.
Chen Zhong (sings):
I’m Chen Zhong; I’ve been to market and now am going home.
The people at home told me to go to market, and I’ve bought all sorts of things.
I’ve bought two nose-bags for the donkeys and two halters too.
As I enter the village, I see Guo Ju in the middle of the street.
Guo Ju, if you’re not going to your uncle’s house, why have you come to the main street?
Guo (sings):
You don’t know, brother Chen Zhong, so let me tell you the whole story from beginning to end.
My bedridden old mother wanted a bowl of rice, but there was none to be had at home.
She told me to borrow rice from her brother.
I wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t loaned us the rice, but he beat me with his stick.
I ran away and left my rice bag behind.
Brother Chen Zhong, when you go there, get the bag for me.
This is the truth I’ve told you, and nothing false.
Chen Zhong (sings):
I’ve twelve coins left after going to market, take them home so you can be a filial son.
I hand the coins over . . .
Guo (sings):
. . . And I take them in my hand.
Just think, there was a time when my family were wealthy gentry; now twelve coins seem wonderful.
Chen Zhong, turn around so I can prostrate myself on the ground before you.
I am paying obeisance to you for no other reason than that you have saved Mother’s life.
We two will be sworn brothers, brothers in life and death.
When your mother dies I shall wear mourning, and when my mother dies you will accompany the coffin.
I arise from the ground after kowtowing; we will each return to our own home. [Chen Zhong exits.]
Guo Ju does not leave after speaking, for he suddenly hears the cry of the shaobing [baked sesame bun] peddler.
You there, shaobing man, how much for one? If we talk price first we won’t fight later.
Shaobing peddler (sings):
One of my buns costs six coins, two of them will cost you twelve.
Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Page 17