A Book Dedicated to Our Youth - Volume 3 - Chapter 5.1

V3C5.1: The First Big Event
When our eyes are no longer as sharp as a child’s, so will the world in front of us start to blur the edges of what is right and wrong. 

Honest indifference, false kindness, the muddling between reward and punishment, black and white crossing, the relationship between schoolmates becoming complicated, no longer the simple “I like you” or “I don’t like you”.

One foot still lingering in treating the world freely like Lin Daiyu*, the other already having stepped into Xue Baochai’s rounded way of life. 

(Characters from one of the most famous Chinese classic, Dream of the Red Chamber)

We had already realized that the bonds between humans were also a form of wisdom, but, we had yet to understand that it was a difficult one, far deeper than simply getting into university. 

Winter break had ended, and a new semester had begun. 

In this term, there were two great events, the first, the choosing of the Student Council President, the second, the Literary Performance. 

Tong Yunzhou was in our class, which meant that the Literary Performance shouldn’t have been any trouble, but recently she had gone through surgery for appendicitis and was unable to participate in the talent show, so Shen Yuanzhe could only figure things out again by himself. 

Shen Yuanzhe got a headache from it, and during the self-study session, he announced an impromptu class meeting to discuss everyone’s ideas, however, apart from Tong Yunzhu, there wasn’t anyone with any sort of artistic talent. The boys contributed plenty, but only comedic ideas to make the class laugh, and the class meeting soon became a stand-up comedy show.

I felt strangely towards Shen Yuanzhe, as if I owed him something and was unable to watch him suffer. Even though I was an artistic idiot as well, I still tried my best to think of something.

I raised my hand. “I have an idea.”

Shen Yuanzhe motioned for everyone to quiet down and listen.

“We have a lot of guys in our class, so maybe we can do a male choir. Even though choirs are a little old-fashioned, at least it’s a formal performance.”

The class teacher who had been doing nothing finally spoke up. “I can get the school choir teachers to give us a few lessons.”

“We can also borrow the performance clothes from them,” Shen Yuanzhe added.

The guys discussed the idea in their normal, loud fashion, and agreed to the easy and doable suggestion.

“What about the second performance? Any ideas?”

I raised my hand again. Shen Yuanzhe looked a bit surprised, then smiled and motioned for me to continue.

“When I was in middle school, I had a friend who was very good at dancing. I noticed that in some performances, the role of the costume and props were very important, especially for non-professional actors with non-professional judges. Just a few days ago, I heard a song on TV called《Peking Opera Rap》and I really liked it. It felt very energetic and it moved my heart, so I went to the library and borrowed a book on Peking Opera faces.” 

I took out the picture book that I had been reading, passed it around the class. “I don’t think anyone in First High has ever performed something related to Peking Opera. You can’t perform pop songs, and contemporary dances need to be censored, otherwise the head teacher might cut it off, so everyone only goes around and repeats folk songs and dances. If we do this, it should be refreshing.”

Shen Yuanzhe replied, “The idea is good, but there are a lot of difficulties to it as well. The costumes for Peking Opera are all very expensive, there’s no way we’d be able to borrow any.”

“I’ve also thought about that,” I answered. “Can we use the class funds to buy some white cloth and then paint the faces from《Peking Opera Rap》onto them? With the song, we can change the team formations, or find some other way of showing it- we can think about it later. The point is to display the Peking Opera culture.” 

“The workload would be enormous, who would paint it?”

I smiled. “I’ve learnt painting before, so I can draw somewhat. Wang Qian can also draw. If she has time to help us then that would be even better.” I met her before in my art classes, and the teacher said that she was very talented. I passed the book to a classmate to give to Wang Qian.

The class was silent for a while before people started chatting, thinking that the idea was refreshing, and achievable. The theme is also very positive and active, belonging almost completely in the favourite style of the head teacher.

Ma Li announced, “I can do some cool flips. When you guys are moving around with the face, I can flip over it, like on TV. I learnt some martial arts when I was a kid but quit because it was too hard, but doing a few flips is no problem.”

I smiled at him. He returned it with a glare and waved his fist at me, as if trying to say ‘before when I didn’t hit you, it wasn’t because I was scared of you’.

The class teacher was happy. “We’ll do this then. I’ll go ask the teacher that’s taking care of all the film data if there are any films on Peking Opera. If there are, I’ll go borrow them for you to learn from.”

Wang Qian had already gone over a few of the designs and smiled. “These faces aren’t very hard to paint. The most important part is to make sure that the colors won’t lose their vibrance under lighting. I promise to successfully complete the mission.”

“In《Peking Opera Rap》there is a section spoken by young people. I thought that for it, we could get a few people to dress in a modern manner, and perform it in a way that is more closely tied to real life,” I said.

The boys laughed. “Could you still call that acting? Just get Ma Li and Wu Hao, the two rich young masters up and it’ll be settled.”

The entire class bursted into laughter.

I continued, still laughing, “we also need someone to act as an old man, so we’ll probably need to borrow some old-fashioned long shirts and a white beard to contrast with the modernness of the younger characters for a better stage effect.”

Everyone thought about this carefully. Zhao Miaomiao raised her hand slowly, feeling bashful, and said, “My grandmother and mom are both tailors, so we have some really old-fashioned clothing at home.”

Shen Yuanzhe smiled. “Thank you, you’ve helped us solve a big issue.”

This was probably the first time that the entire class had smiled at Zhao Miaomiao. She lowered her head and added in a whisper, “We can also get white fabric that’s cheaper than other places.”

The class teacher and Shen Yuanzhe spoke at the same time, “That’s amazing!”

The costume was solved, but what about the beard?

Ma Ti spoke up. “I have a white whisk at home that looks a lot like a beard to me. If all else fails, we can cut that up a bit and think of a way to hang it on someone’s face.”

Everyone was smiling now. Shen Yuanzhe continued, “Then we’ll end the meeting here. These two performances will need everyone in our class to pull their weight. Those with ideas, contribute ideas, those with talent, contribute talent. Everyone please have a think about it during their free time and talk to me and Luo Qiqi. We aren’t looking to win a prize, as long as everyone is having fun.”

The boys clapped louded, all of them cheering in unison. The class teacher smiled and didn’t object. I started to think that this pale scholar was also quite an interesting teacher.

After the class meeting was dismissed, I left the classroom with my bag. Shen Yuanzhe caught up to me. “I must thank you. After what you said, I realised that the Literary Performance doesn’t have to be some amazing dance or song. With what we are doing, the entire class can participate and I think that’s even more meaningful.”

I felt a little melancholy. My knowledge of the stage, costume and lighting came from Lin Lan, and my understanding of creation and formations came from Song Chen. Back then, even though I was actively participating, I didn’t notice at all. It was only now that I realized the mark all of them had left on my life.