FAIRIES WORSHIPPING AT THE MOON PAVILION

Surprisingly, the only response to my recent blogposting about Cantonese Opera (posed as a rational and civilised alternative to karaoke) was a glib sneer that it would all be better as death-metal.
Okay. I'll accept that as a valid point.
Insane and off-kilter, but valid.
As well as a warning.

Do not sing Cantonese Opera to an audience composed of Australians. Or Jews. Or Waspy types. Or intellectuals of a bourgeois bent. Or gay men. Or Dutch people. Or pipesmokers and cigar aficionados.

[NOTE: those people were listed because that, more or less, is my demographic on Facebook, to whom I "advertised" that essay.]

If you must sing Cantonese Opera to any of those types, make sure that they are all middle-aged or elderly Cantonese speakers as well.


From the foregoing you might assume that this blogger is an old coot, with arthritis and sometimes a bad temper expressed in vilest Maccanese slang, perhaps remarkably similar physically and mentally to 'Uncle', who hung out in a karaoke lounge until it was time to drive the drunken bar-owner home, who had four wives -- one each in Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur; he supported them all, and would fly one over for a San Francisco vacation every few months -- or even a beautiful young man like Leslie Cheung of blessed memory, a talented actor and singer whose artistic legacy will endure.

But you would be wrong.

Early middle aged. Rather likable. Trim. A pipe smoker. Well-read.
Not at all eccentric. Sociable, and sort of literate.
Waspy, though of part-Dutch ancestry.
And I cannot sing.


But I do like Cantonese Opera.


So there.



One of my particular favourites is Two Fairies Worshipping At The Moon Pavilion (雙仙拜月亭), of which I have seen three different performances (years ago!), as well as the excellent movie version made in 1959 by the Eastern Film Co. (東方影片公司) in Hong Kong.
I'm just mentioning that in passing.


Death metal, huh!
Forsooth!



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