Chuan Ju

The night of the Panda morning, Brian, Patrick, Strav, and Steve had a quick dinner before a minivan picked us up at our school and drove us to the Sichuan Opera. Now the Sichuan Opera we saw turns out to me not the traditional opera, but more of a vaudeville show with many different acts.

Many of the acts were done in traditional Sichuan costume, I believe. We began with a fight between the heroes of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms," and their enemy, Lu Bu. Brightly colored costumes and intricate choreography kept me from taking pictures, but man, was it great. There were some songs and dances, a comedic/acrobatic skit featuring a strong woman and her soft-eared (read whipped) husband. Another great act was two women juggling with their feet. awesome. Yeah, those are tables.

The penultimate act was what everyone comes for, the mysterious face changing. Seven or eight dancers came on stage with cloth masks on. They dance around, and every so often, there will be cymbal crash, and his or her mask will change in the blink of an eye. I think I figured out how they got the masks off (I'm not telling), but I can't figure out how they were able to put the masks back on as they did at the end of the act. Talk about entertaining.

After the show was over, the cast all came back on to thunderous applause, and we left the operahouse, boarded a van, and rode back to Xipu. Needless to say we were bushed, and after a few oreos, we went to bed.