The Teochew Store Blog / Swatow
Teochew Documentary: Teochew Opera 潮劇紀錄片
A documentary retelling the 400-year history of the Teochew Opera - the finest representation of Teochew performing arts. This production is worthwhile watching not only because of its subject, but also because it is the fruit of the personal efforts of a young Teochew, Tan Tek Meng 陳迪鳴 to keep alive a tradition close to the heart of himself and his people.
This is Life in Shantou - Life is hard, but better than the past
It was the Christmas Eve in 2010, Xuyin Wu was absorbed in a play about the birth of Jesus at a church in Shantou, performed by a group of children.
“Life went completely different when I was a child,” she said, keeping her eyes glued to the children.
58-year-old Wu lives alone on the allowance from the government, which is 225 yuan ($35) per month. Her one-room apartment costs about 80 yuan monthly. It is tidy with four whitewashed walls, a washroom, a bed, and some cooking utensils.
“It is the best house I have ever lived in my life,” she said with a big smile, kept rubbing the middle finger of her right hand.
This is Life in Shantou - Their New Year Wish is Paying Off Debt
No storefront, but only a handcart, two gas cylinders, eight wooden tables and some plastic chairs. That’s all they have to earn a living.
The owner of all these “treasures” is an old couple, 60-year-old Chen Shilong, and his 56-year-old wife Zheng Zhu. They sell rice noodles at a road intersection, opposite the Zhongshan Park in Jinping District in Shantou.
The couple came to Shantou with their children 20 years ago from the countryside of Jieyang...
This is Life in Shantou - 84-Year-Old Brings Music to Village Children
With a hand slickly pressing the strings and the other drawing the bow, 84-year-old Li Xuewen was playing erhu, humming a tone to himself.
Li was a teacher and then a principal at schools in Jieyang, a city neighboring Shantou, for several decades.After retiring in 1985,he began to teach himself play several music instrument including, and gave children in his village music lessons for free.
In 2004 , with the support of Seniors’ Association in Li’s village, he set up a local music training session, teaching the children basic music knowledge and how to play music instruments.
This is Life in Shantou - Changing with Times, Shaping His Life Path
A special series of articles about ordinary people living in Swatow, written by students from Shantou University (STU) Cheung Kong School of Journalism
by Lv Shanshan
Bustling with traffic and pedestrians, Little Park, an older district of Shantou, was busy as usual on a recent winter day. “Drawing, Photography, Video”—A red signboard stood on the first floor of Wang Yulong’s shop. Starting as a self-taught painter, then a sent-down youth, a photographer and a business owner, Wang’s life path had been closely linked with China’s rapid changes....
40 Teochew Bedtime Stories
Stories, who doesn't enjoy hearing them? Especially bedtime stories when we were kids (or perhaps even till now)... How about some stories out of Teochew - the very same ones told to our great grandparents when they were little? Here's one:
THE MISTAKE OF THE APES
A thriftless man, who had a scolding wife, resorted to the woods to hang himself; but after he had tied the noose his courage failed, and he went home. His wife, on seeing him, said he had been gone so long that she had begun to hope he would never come back. This so wounded his feelings that he declared his intention of ending his life, and again betook himself to the forest. There he passed from tree to tree and deferred the act from hour to hour, till he entered a strange gorge, and sat down in the attitude of a musing Buddha under a branch on which he decided to fix his rope.
Being exhausted by fasting and fatigue, he fell into a deep sleep, and was presently discovered by a wandering ape, who reported to his tribe that he had found their ancestor. A council of the elders was then called around the sleeping man, and after due inspection they unanimously decided that he was indeed their ancestor, and should be their king. So they carried him to their stronghold in a wooded glen, enthroned him in an arbor, and surrounded him with offerings of fruits and nuts. When he awoke he found his wants so provided for and his servants so deferential that he thought he might greatly enjoy life among the apes. They continued to bring as tribute to him the best of their gleanings in the neighborhood and all the treasures they collected in their excursions to distant regions. He saw where they had stowed the valuable articles accumulated during past years, and at his leisure he examined and assorted them.
One day when the apes were away he took all their portable wealth and made his way out of the forest and back to his own door. His wife, seeing him more shabby than ever, poured reproaches upon him, but he silenced her by putting a piece of gold in her hand. Having enough to live comfortably upon for many years, the woman became companionable. She soon told her intimate friend that her husband went away to kill himself and came back rich, and this friend urged her own husband to do likewise. He in turn importuned his lucky neighbor to disclose to him the method by which he got his fortune. Having promised secrecy and a share of the plunder, he was intrusted with the story of election to headship among the apes, and was given direction how to reach their retreat. He then set off, followed the same route, sat in the same attitude under the same tree, and awaited the arrival of the scout who should call the tribe to carry their returned chief into their fastnesses.
The apes had meantime deliberated, and had concluded that a being who had deserted them, taking with him their goods, was neither their sire nor sovereign. So when a young ape foraging for provisions saw this second man under the tree he returned home and notified the tribe, whereupon the apes, moved to indignation and anger, surrounded him in force and tore him in pieces.
-oOo-
You love it? So did I. Well there's another 39 more Teochew folktales collected from Swatow by American missionary AM Fielde in the 1880s in Chinese Nights' Entertainment: Forty Stories told by Almond-Eyed Folk Actors in the Romance of The Strayed Arrow.
Happy reading. =)
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