RED BOAT TROUPES AND CANTONESE ... - University of Georgia

were not written. The practice ceased in China in the last few decades. However, operas with
only rough sketches written out were still performed in Southeast Asia in the 1970’s according to
Mr. Law Ka Ying in his television interview. 101 When permanent theaters were built, and when
sound movies were introduced from the West, new productions were needed often in the cities.
Hoi sun hei, new production, began to replace a generation of tai kong hei. A generation of
energetic librettists/composers was in high demand for the urban theaters.
The stories of Cantonese operas were usually legends, folklore, heroic epics, romantic
stories, and relations in a family, such as the struggle to keep a good wife in Wu But Gwai. Each
story has a moral message. The moral guidelines in many operas have been valuable to society.
Occasionally there are plots with unhealthy or twisted messages; these operas usually do not last
long. In the days when education level was low, especially in the rural areas, opera stories
served the important purpose to spread go toi gaau fa (teaching morality from the high stage).
Opera also passed on social and historical knowledge. In an interview, singer Fong Yim Fun
said, “traditional opera in China has provided Confucian moral standards and education in lieu of
religious beliefs.” 102 In addition, the famous performer and owner of a troupe that was
continuously stationed at two theaters for more than ten years in Hong Kong, Sit Kok Seen said,
“Dramas could change culture, which is a tool for social education.” 103
According to 120 Cantonese opera synopsis project that I was involved with at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Opera Information Center, most operas follow the moral
code of praising good people and punishing the bad ones. Zong jyun culture, that praises the
valedictorian of the national civil examination, is in many of the scripts. After a young man had
101 A renowned performer of Cantonese Opera in Hong Kong. He is from a family of performers.
102 Fong had donated the venue as an office for Eight Harmony Guild for the Performers.
103 B. G. Lai, Sit ma zung hong yu gna shuirt dik dan sung [ Competition between Sit and Ma and innovations of
Yuet opera] (paper presented at the International Seminar on Cantonese Opera, Hong Kong, November, 18-20,
1992), 539.
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