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Peking Opera expert Chen Xiaoyan performs for the class of about 20 people at MY Chinese Study in Beijing's Sanlitun neighborhood. [Photo:CRIENGLISH.com]

Peking Opera graces the itinerary of many tourists in Beijing, but the art's details and meanings remain a mystery for a lot of natives and visitors.

Luckily, Chinese language and culture organizations around the city are running workshops and classes to help decode Chinese culture for interested parties. Many of these classes require an admission fee, but a few companies run free events. MY Chinese Study, based in Sanlitun, held a workshop last weekend for a mixed Chinese-foreign audience to introduce some of Peking Opera's basic principles.

Two Peking Opera veterans led the workshop, aided by a translator from the MY Chinese Study office. Zhang Zhang, a 62-year-old man, started practicing Peking Opera at age 11, while the Chen Xiaoyan was much younger, but noted she's been practicing since childhood.

With the full attention of about 20 visitors, the Zhang explained the art's history. Performance troupes from Anhui and Hubei came to Beijing during the late 1700s and early 1800s to perform for the emperor, and their style became popular among performers. By 1845, Peking Opera was fully formed as a unique approach to opera inspired by these traveling troupes.

Peking opera relies on a close-knit team of actors and a cast of type-set characters. The sheng is the main male actor, who can be a sensible older man, a young man with the screeches of adolescence in his voice, or a martial arts master. Other roles include the dan, or female, the jing, or male with a painted face, and the chou, which is a male clown.

Stage scenes are simplistic in Peking operas, with meaning emphasized over accuracy. Many audience members would fail to understand why a male role carrying a baton with tassels is dancing as if he's about to turn off balance; Zhang says according to Peking Opera traditions, the baton represents his horse, and the male role may be having issues controlling that horse.

Chen, unique as a female performer who plays traditionally male roles, stole the show in the end by taking the audience from start to finish in creating a Peking Opera appearance. First, she applied her makeup to depict a Song dynasty government official, then donned her costume: a long robe decorated with metallic dragons. "Dragons were reserved for members of the royal family," she explained.

Wearing platform boots, a long robe, an official's hat and with her face painted and a lengthy beard hanging off a wire that hung over her ears, she performed a brief song, completing the transformation from ordinary girl to Peking Opera male lead.

"We hope to provide a platform for foreign friends who want to know more about Chinese culture," Wang Wanling, Marketing Specialist at MY Chinese Study says. "If you want to learn Chinese, it helps to also understand Chinese culture, it will make learning Mandarin easier.

MY Chinese Study has been in business for about a year, offering group and one-on-one Chinese language classes. In addition to language classes, they regularly hold free cultural events on topics including lucky Chinese names, Chinese painting and calligraphy, kungfu, and kite-flying. Their next event, on August 20th, will teach attendees how to get the best bargains through Chinese online shopping sites. "Each event has different costs, but so far, we've decided to offer them for free," Wang explains. "Helping people understand China better is essential to encouraging people to learn Chinese.

So while the free events are clearly a marketing campaign for My Chinese Study, there's no pressure to sign up for a class after the event; many participants simply expressed their appreciation and left the building. "After talking with expats in Beijing, we found that, especially when they first arrive, they want to find somewhere they can meet people and learn a little bit about China," Wang says.

Learning all the facets of Chinese culture may take a lifetime, but there are an increasing number of outlets for newcomers and veterans to gain a basic understanding of popular topics. MY Chinese Study focuses on expat-targeted websites and to foreign companies and embassies, as do many other companies such as the China Culture Center and The Hutong. With so many opportunities being offered in Beijing, there's little excuse to leave the mysteries of Chinese culture in the dark.

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