Review: 5,000 years of Chinese characters

Chinese culture on show at the Royal Canberra Theatre.

By Michael de Percy

16 March 2010: Celebrating the coming Year of the Tiger, this performance of song and dance was presented by the Chinese Embassy. I was fortunate enough to obtain some tickets to the event but I had no idea what to expect.

According to the blurb, all the performers were enrolled university students. This was very much a nationalist production designed to showcase Chinese culture abroad. It was also an educative event which opened my eyes to a few things about Chinese culture I would otherwise not have discovered.

The highlight for me was the performance known as ‘face-changing’ (or ‘bian lian’ in Chinese) which is typically a part of Sichuan opera. The artist who performed on the night was exceptionally gifted and exuded charisma. He danced around and interacted with the crowd while changing his face masks just like a magic trick. Some colleagues who saw the show said they had seen better in China. But this guy impressed me no end – I simply cannot comprehend better so it must be really good!

Other performances included Chinese opera singers, drummers and traditional musicians who impressed me so much I am trying to find some of the music to add to my collection. The traditional aspects of the performance I really enjoyed.

Some of the modern performances were less impressive, yet overall the show worked quite well. However, the title of the performance was a little misleading as there was not much on the ‘five thousand years of characters’ theme.

The most disappointing part of the show was the Australian presenter who introduced each segment with his co-host (who should have done all the introductions herself). The young Aussie lad had the classic drone of an ‘Ask the Leyland Brothers’ narrator and he was so nervous I thought he might be a first semester first year student speaking in public for the first time. I was sympathetic toward the lad but he was completely outclassed by his colleagues.

There were the obligatory nationalist overtones which you would expect in any national cultural production, but these were no worse than the overly-Australian productions with their re-written histories I have seen overseas. The funniest segment was when a young woman performed ‘Click Go the Shears’ in English and then in Chinese, though I was disappointed she skipped my favourite line which you never hear these days: ‘he works hard he drinks hard and it’s off to hell he goes’. But that’s all just about making the past more palatable in the present.

In short, if the idea was to sell Chinese culture abroad, this impressive group of young performers achieved their goal admirably, and their truckload of energy and charisma enlightened me about a country which I know too little about.