Last night a bunch of my classmates and I headed into town to watch a performance of Beijing Opera. I tried and tried to find an English explanation of what we saw, but no luck. It was an opera set in the Song Dynasty about a man falsely accused of murdering the woman he loved (sort of a 12th century Fugitive). The judge set to hear the case decides to sleep on it before he decides the man's fate, and during his sleep the murdered woman appears to him in a dream, explaining the real situation. She was helped by my favorite character in the opera, the "油流鬼" - you liu gui - or "ghost in charge of adding oil to lamps". There were a lot of guis (ghosts) in the opera, all clad in black spandex bodysuits with neon colored pleated skirts, all capable of various acrobatic feats (it got kind of strange in parts). All in all, though, it was much more entertaining than I thought it would be, and just really intere sting to watch.
I'm headed off now to grab some dinner - will write more tomorrow about today's activities. zai jian!
