In 1644 the last of the Ming emperors committed suicide when a rebel army entered his capital. But the rebel did not become the next emperor; the throne went to a Manchu leader who, in characteristically Chinese manner, had been called in by the Ming ruler to help put down the rebellion. The Manchus soon established themselves as firm rulers of the land and forced all Chinese to adopt the queue. China became under their rule a strong and united empire; in fact, many writers believe that the reigns of K’ang Hsi (1662-1723) and of Ch’ien Lung (1736-1795) were the most glorious in all Chinese history. Both of these rulers were great warriors and administrators, as well as patrons of literature and the arts. The drama, too, flourished; a recently published catalogue of Chinese dramas records eight hundred and fifteen plays of some literary merit from the Ch’ing Dynasty.

Among these the critics assign the first places to two historical tragedies written about the beginning of the eighteenth century: “The Blood-Stained Fan” (T’ao Hua Shan) by Kung Shang-jen and “The Palace of Eternal Life” (Ch’ang Shan Tien) by Hung Sen. The former deals with the last days of the Ming Dynasty. The author presents the struggles of the various parties and the dissensions among the generals in the face of a tottering throne. In the foreground of the revolutionary scene stand two lovers. The hero, a courageous young literary man, is forced to flee before his political enemies, and the heroine is likewise threatened. Since she prefers death to disgrace she attempts suicide. The play takes its name from the fact that some of her blood stained the fan her lover had presented to her. An artist, coming across this fan, painted the bloodstains into peach blossoms so cleverly as to deceive every one. After years of civil war, in the course of which the dynasty is overthrown, the lovers meet again. They feel that love has no place in a broken and disrupted fatherland; patriotism is higher than love—such seems to be the author’s meaning.

The other play, “The Palace of Eternal Life”, goes back to a much earlier period, that of the T’ang Dynasty. It has for hero and heroine the emperor Ming Huang, traditional founder of the Chinese theater, and his capricious concubine, Yang Kuei-fei. The Palace of Eternal Life was the name they had given to the pleasure dome where the famous lovers gave themselves up to idyllic and voluptuous amusements.[16] This story is full of romantic and dramatic elements; there are said to be more than fifty plays that have Yang Kuei-fei for heroine. Versions by ballad singers have been well translated by George Carter Stent,[17] a Britisher who secured unprinted popular ballads by having street singers come to his house to recite them while his teacher wrote them down verbatim. Since Yang Kuei-fei and her lover play such an important part in the Chinese drama, it might be well to quote two of the numerous ballads about her.

During the Ch’ing Dynasty the native music was gradually superseded by a much cruder, less melodious product imported from barbarian lands. With the old style of music went many of the better plays; in many cases they were replaced by the so-called “military plays”, that is to say acrobatic exhibitions of stage fighting to the accompaniment of crashing orchestral pandemonium. Toward the end of the Ch’ing Dynasty the Yuan drama had almost entirely vanished from the Peking stage. In a later chapter will be found a fuller discussion of the newer types of music.

But the chief innovation in the drama under the Manchu rule came through the influence of popular novels. Episodes from the famous novels read by everybody were brought on the stage in ever-increasing numbers. The novel, like the drama, is a literary form despised by the pundits and it too began to flourish during the Mongol Dynasty when the literary examinations were suppressed. Many novels are of unknown authorship, because their authors considered such works as beneath their dignity. But for the very reason that the authors did not employ the literary language the great masses of the people were able to enjoy these stories. Let it be remarked in passing that the novel is now coming into its own and is receiving its just share of attention from scholars, at least from the progressive ones. Doctor Hu Shih, of the National University, Peking, has pointed out that it is the novel written in the vernacular that has given to spoken Chinese such unity as it possesses, and that it is through works in the popular language that a common speech for all China may ultimately be achieved. To-day, of course, natives of Peking, Shanghai, and Canton speak languages differing as widely as do those of Berlin, Amsterdam, and London, or Rome, Paris, and Madrid. Due to the crystallization of the written language, however, students from the three Chinese centers can read one another’s letters, although, as I have often observed in laboratories or on the playground, when they converse they have recourse to English. It is due to their linguistic and literary importance that Doctor Hu Shih has edited critical editions of about a dozen famous Chinese novels.

Among the novels, “The Story of the Three Kingdoms” (San Kuo Ch’i) is by far the most popular. It was written in the Yuan Dynasty and deals with the period of romantic chivalry, 221-265 A.D., when three dynasties ruled in three separate capitals. In it appear the cruel Tsao Tsao and the resourceful Chu Ko-liang, together with many another brave warrior. Every educated Chinese has read it, and the illiterate coolies have hired readers, that they too may learn of the stirring adventures of their more or less mythical heroes. The enthusiasm for this book is simply unbounded, as the following instance may serve to illustrate. Friends of mine in Peking, a young architect and his wife, were continually annoyed during hot August evenings by a fairly loud voice with a monotonous rising and falling inflection that kept coming over the wall of the adjoining courtyard from eight o’clock until midnight. It cast a shadow over conversation, it distracted attention from reading, and it effectually prevented peaceful sleep. My friends began by setting their victrola on their side of the wall to playing “Over There!” for an hour or two on end; next they sent out the house boy to buy firecrackers and ordered him to set off package after package under a tin pail; and finally they allowed a bottle of asafetida to trickle over the wall—but all to no avail. They recovered neither their peace of mind nor their slumber until the shuo-shu-te had read to his coolie audience the last chapter of “The Three Kingdoms”, a novel as long as the whole Bible.

An endless number of plays are based on this book of romantic history, which deserves to be called the national epic of the Chinese. A long list of “military plays” derive their plots from the “Shui Hu Chuan” (Story of the River Bank), a novel based upon the doings of a band of brigands who terrorized a number of provinces early in the twelfth century. Some of the swashbucklers in this story had Robin Hood’s habit of giving to the poor what they had stolen from the rich and corrupt officials. From the “Liao Chai” (translated by Mr. Giles, “Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio”) come many plays dealing with fairies and other supernatural beings. The novel that might be considered a possible rival in popularity to the story of “The Three Kingdoms”, is “The Dream of the Red Chamber” (Hung Lou Meng), the story of the love of a young idler for his two pretty cousins, and the decay of an old and wealthy family. Poetic love stories from this novel were brought on the stage only in recent years by Mei Lan-fang, the actor who is responsible for many innovations in the Peking theater. The play, “Burying the Flowers”, mentioned in the chapter on Mei Lan-fang, is one example of a dramatization of an episode from this book.

In his “Geschichte der chinesischen Litteratur” the German scholar Wilhelm Grube, who knew the Chinese character well, remarks in discussing the novel that a ruse or a sly calculation on the part of a warrior seems to appeal to the Chinese much more than actual bravery on the battle field. A number of plays taken from the story of “The Three Kingdoms” bear out this point by reason of their perennial popularity. No play perhaps is oftener acted than “The Ruse of the Empty City” (Kung Chuan Chi). The famous hero Chu Ko-liang is in a city stripped of all its defenders when suddenly a strong enemy force arrives. He orders the gates to be opened wide as though peace were reigning throughout the country, and seats himself on the wall above the gate. When the advance guard of the enemy arrives it finds the commander, who more than any other is known for his resourcefulness and his stratagems, calmly reading a book in the face of the threatening attack. Naturally enough the enemy fears an ambush of some sort and withdraws. By his calm Chu Ko-liang has saved a city; his bluff has won.

Another “peculiar” (as Bret Harte would put it) play from the same source is “Hsü Mu Ma Tsao” (Hsü’s Mother Curses Tsao Tsao). The famous general Tsao Tsao found that he was being defeated continually through the clever stratagems suggested to his opponent by a certain Hsü Su. He therefore plotted to get this clever adviser into his hands in order that he might profit by his knowledge of strategy. For this purpose he kidnaped Hsü Su’s mother and sent a forged letter asking the son to come to her. Filial piety demanded that Hsü Su obey and therefore he came into Tsao Tsao’s camp only to be forced into the service of his enemy. When Hsü Su’s mother heard how her son had been tricked she went to Tsao Tsao’s tent, called him a man without honor, a traitor, and a wretched deceiver. This scene, when the tottering old lady scolds in a shrill voice, as only a Chinese woman can ma, is of course the pièce de résistance of the play. When she has spoken out her mind she returns to her own tent and commits suicide. Although Tsao Tsao continued to hold Hsü Su, yet the latter never offered a single stratagem to the general, an outstanding piece of bravery according to the Chinese view. The very favorite play from this novel is “Ch’un Yin Hui” (The Meeting of Many Heroes). When this play is staged with the parts of the great heroes of the novel filled by stars, the Chinese theater lovers feel that such an ensemble offers about the finest thing possible. The plot again turns chiefly upon a ruse by Chu Ko-liang. His side is facing tremendous odds in the huge fleet of wooden vessels under the control of the enemy, and therefore his commander decides to attack them with fiery arrows. Chu Ko-liang is commissioned to procure 100,000 arrows, and is given for this task five days, which he himself cuts down to three. Two and a half days he spends in calm meditation, doing nothing about the arrows. When one of his comrades discovers him sitting under a tree he is very much alarmed at the waste of time and suggests that the only thing left for his friend is to commit suicide. But our hero is undaunted. He places a number of straw men in the prows of a few boats and sails toward the position of the enemy. Owing to the dense fog the enemy commander is unable to ascertain the size of the attacking force, but he orders his archers to shoot as fast as they can. The arrows strike the straw men and pierce them without doing any harm. When 100,000 arrows have been caught up in his decoys, Chu Ko-liang orders his boats to retreat, and thus is able to deliver the required number of arrows to his commander on time. The manner in which the play is staged, with two or three arrows flitting across the scene, provides, at least for the Westerner, a distinct anticlimax.

Another play in which three stars play together to good effect is “The Three Strange Meetings” (Ch’i San Hui) or, as it is popularly nicknamed, “The Three Pulls.” It is a popular comedy written during the time of the Manchu Dynasty, and is one of the favorite plays of Mei Lan-fang. Through his great prestige he is able to induce other stars to play with him, and when he presents the rôle of the wife supported by Chü Su-yün as husband and Li Shou-shan as father, the Chinese consider it a perfect performance. The play is rich in glimpses of Chinese life and also full of excellent opportunities for the actors to show their mettle. The opening of the play is also most unusual, for, like Goethe’s “Faust” and some of our other famous plays, it has a prologue in heaven. There is as a general thing no curtain used in the Chinese theater, a rule to which a scene in heaven forms an exception. Stage hands bring on a curtain about eight feet high and twelve feet wide, supported by bamboo poles and painted with clouds and bats to symbolize the sky. Behind this the stage is set for the divine scene. When the curtain is removed the spectator sees a god seated on a high throne. Four spirits bearing tall shields painted with the conventionalized cloud pattern stand by his side. The horns of the orchestra are blown mightily and fireworks are set off until finally the god begins to speak in a slow, impressive bass. Like a Homeric Zeus he sends a messenger to earth to free a certain innocent man who is languishing in prison. The messenger is ordered to find the man’s daughter and to conduct her to the prison. The divine herald departs, carrying a horsehair switch, the conventional symbol by which a spirit may be recognized on the Chinese stage.

The next scene begins the first of the four acts on earth: 1. The Weeping in Prison; 2. Writing the Petition; 3. The Three Pulls; 4. The Family Reunited.

Li Kuei-chih (played by Mei Lan-fang), newly married to a young magistrate, visits the prison, inspired by the divine messenger. There she sees the jailer mistreating an old man, in whom, to her surprise and grief, she recognizes her father, from whom she had been separated in childhood at the time of his unjust condemnation. The jailer is willing to relent after the daughter, without disclosing her identity, has paid him a good-sized bribe. Li Kuei-chih then asks her husband to make an effort to free her father by writing an appeal to a higher court. The husband complies very willingly, but, in order to write the petition he must know his wife’s “little name”, a sort of family nickname of the little girls, which, according to Chinese custom, is never revealed to the husband. There ensues a fine comedy scene in which the wife at first withholds and then shamefacedly tells her “little name”, to the great triumph of her husband. In presenting the petition to the judge of the higher court, the wife is recognized by the judge as his long-lost sister. He rises from his seat, and discarding the stiff formality of the courtroom, pulls Li Kuei-chih out of the room in order to reveal his identity to her in the privacy of his home. The husband is told of this by the servant, and rushes to the court in a rage, because he fears that the judge has been induced by his wife’s beauty to make her his concubine. The judge is not in the courtroom, but he sends out two officers to bring the husband also into his home. The second of the three pulls comes when the messengers drag the husband off-stage in a state of comical terror; for, like a true Oriental, he fears sudden death,—a fear that caused Abraham to lie to the Pharaoh of Egypt about his relationship to the beautiful Sarah. In the next scene brother, sister, and husband are happily reunited. The father is summoned from the prison into the court. He recognizes his son, the presiding judge, and gratefully bows toward the audience (that is, toward heaven) for, according to Chinese custom, a father dare never bow toward his son, no matter what position the latter may hold. Thereupon the father is also pulled off-stage to complete the happy family reunion. The jailer, knowing full well what manner of unpleasant death may be in store for him, ends his life by jumping down a well.

This last-named action is accomplished by the jailer’s making a quick leap and running off-stage, the conventional expression for suicide by drowning. The court scenes, especially when the play is given by Mei Lan-fang, abound in gorgeous costumes of richly embroidered silk. The various characters wear historically correct dress, the Manchu robes with wide sleeves. So far as my own observation goes, I have found that for Manchu or Ming Dynasty events the styles of the respective periods are followed, but that beyond this no attempt is made at providing historically correct costume. Characters in plays taking place before the Ming Dynasty wear Ming costume; it is the style worn before the coming of the Manchus and therefore serves for all ancient settings.

The actor who plays the part of the husband in this play is Chu Su-yün. He is nearly fifty years old, but he continues to play the rôle of the lover opposite Mei Lan-fang, because there is no younger man who can do it half so well. He is really as good as any Occidental comedian in assuming the expressions of surprise, anger, or terror; he stutters admirably whenever necessary, and in laughing gets a comical effect by means of his faulty teeth, blackened by opium smoking. In another play, “Ngoh Chia Chuan” (The Ngoh Family Village), he plays the part of a young boy who has prodigious strength; in fact, he, though a mere child, protects his family’s home by killing two generals. In one of the first scenes the parents forbid their abnormally strong offspring to handle dangerous weapons, whereupon this actor in the costume of a child goes into tantrums of weeping that convulse the audience by their realistic imitation of the overgrown baby. Li Shou-shan, in the rôle of the father, is made up as a fine, dignified old Chinese gentleman. He brings out very poignantly the tragic situation of the helpless old man unjustly imprisoned; though perhaps by some of his pitiful wails he somewhat overdoes his part.

Another very popular domestic drama is “Ta Chih Shang Wen” (Beating the Nephew and Worshiping at the Grave). The Chinese prodigal son is Ta Kuan, an orphan boy raised by his uncle. Wicked companions taught him gambling and other ways of squandering money, and as he needed funds for these pursuits he insisted that his uncle give him his paternal heritage. In a short time, of course, all his substance has been wasted with riotous living and Ta Kuan is forced to beg for his food. His uncle at that time is distributing alms among the poor and the nephew is not ashamed to appear among the beggars at his uncle’s door. Naturally, the uncle’s “loss of face” is tremendous; he becomes extremely angry and chases Ta Kuan off with blows. But his aunt, in the kindness of her heart, gives him some money and urges him to avoid his angered uncle. But in China too there is a destiny that shapes our ends: Ta Kuan’s money is stolen from him, and with no prospects whatever before him, he suddenly becomes pious and worships at his father’s grave. While he is busy burning paper money (i.e. paper imitations of silver ingots) for the spirits of his ancestors his uncle and aunt happen also to visit the family graveyard. The moment Ta Kuan sees them, remembering his uncle’s blows and curses, he runs away. His foster-father is very much surprised that some one should have been burning paper money at his brother’s tomb. He never would have suspected his nephew of such an action, but when he finds that it really was Ta Kuan, his heart is touched by such a display of filial piety that he sends for the nephew, inviting him to return to his house, and then persuades him to study under the direction of a teacher. There has been a real change of heart in the youth, for he applies himself diligently to his task. And virtue is not without its reward; for when Ta Kuan takes the examination he passes with the very highest honors.

A play similar to the previous one in that it is much more moral than probable is “Chu Sha Chü” (A Cinnabar Spot). A certain elderly gentleman by the name of Han was very unhappy because he had no son. To remedy this condition he bought himself a concubine; but when the marriage was about to be consummated, the bride wept bitterly. Han asked the cause of the tears at such an inappropriate time, and learned that his new spouse was in reality a married woman who had allowed herself to be sold to aid her sick husband. The old man took pity on her, burned the marriage contract, and presented her with more money for her unfortunate husband. A noble and unusual action, to be sure, which merited and received an unusual reward! The woman returned to her husband and the latter recovered at once. Returned once more to health, he went about his business which carried him to Sze-chuan province. He brought with him a present for his benefactor, a young boy whom he had bought in a district afflicted by famine. Han was very much pleased with the bright boy and devoted himself eagerly to his education. He gradually remarked that the boy resembled him a great deal and began to wonder if it might not be possible that it was his own son, who had been carried off a few years before in the course of a rebellion. One day it occurred to him to examine the sole of the boy’s foot, and there he found the very same cinnabar spot that had always been his own distinguishing mark. This proved conclusively that it was his own son, and both were very happy over the reunion that had been brought about through Han’s kindness to a poor woman!

The moral Chinese stage sets forth not only the reward of virtue, but also the punishment of vice. There can be seen on the Peking stage almost any day a warning to cruel husbands called “Pang Ta Pao Ch’ing Lang” (Beating the Heartless Husband). Mu Chi was a scholar holding the first degree (Hsiu Tsai, corresponding somewhat to our A.B.), but he was very poor because his parents had not left him any property whatsoever. When a famine struck the country he was forced to beg for his bread. In his half-starved condition he was one day caught in a snowstorm, in the course of which he fell to the ground more dead than alive. In this condition the daughter of the head of the beggar’s guild found him lying before the door of her home. She took pity on him and nursed him back to health. At first her father was none too pleased with his daughter’s action; but when the daughter represented that the gods would surely reward her good deed, he became reconciled to the presence of the young man in the house. The daughter fell in love with her protégé and was very proud of his rank as a Hsiu Tsai. The father also became quite fond of the young man and gave him his daughter in marriage. Then it was arranged that Mu Chi was to go to Peking to take the examination, while his wife and father-in-law were to go along to beg and thus furnish the young man with a living until such time as he should have secured a profitable post. Mu Chi passed the examination and was appointed the magistrate of a town. The moment he had received his appointment he became extremely disdainful of his new relatives and in the course of the journey by boat to the town where he was to become magistrate he pushed his wife overboard into the stream and drove off his father-in-law. However, a certain high official saved the life of the beggar chief’s daughter and adopted her as his child. When he had learned from her the story of her husband’s ingratitude he decided to punish the wretch properly. He called on him in his magistracy and offered him his daughter in marriage. Mu Chi, the cad, naturally was glad to marry into the family of such an influential man, and accepted eagerly. But what was his chagrin and fright when on the evening of his marriage he raised the bride’s veil to find under it the beggar’s daughter! The official then entered the bridal chamber with a powerful stick and ordered the beggar’s daughter to give Mu Chi a sound thrashing. This she did with a great deal of “heart”, as the Chinese say, for which no one can blame her. But Mu Chi decided to become a wiser and a better man; he sent out men to find his father-in-law, and the three lived happy ever after.

But the very crowning piece of righteous moral indignation in all the Flowery Kingdom is found in a story connected with Yo Fei, deified as the god of war and worshiped as a special patron of the theater. In his lifetime Yo Fei was a faithful general of the Sung emperors, a great fighter against the Mongols. In fact, he had almost succeeded in capturing the Mongol emperor with his entire army when the enemy bribed some high Chinese officials, chief among them Ch’in Kuei, to do away with their great patriotic leader. Yo Fei was summoned before a court for trial, but was cleared of all charges. Then he was tried again before Ch’in Kuei and two other judges, this time being condemned to death by strangling. Before the sentence was carried out, his cruel executioners tore the skin off his back where his mother had tattooed the famous inscription, “I repay the state with integrity and loyalty.”

At Hangchow is found the tomb of this great Chinese patriot. Before it, as every tourist sees to his surprise, are four statues in a kneeling position and bound with chains, while an inscription invites the wanderer to urinate on them.[21] These villains, who are literally in very bad odor, are Ch’in Kuei, his wife, and the two other judges who condemned Yo Fei to death. This drastic, posthumous punishment seems to have had very little effect in furthering patriotism in China, for in recent decades neither the Russians nor the Japanese seem ever to have had any trouble in finding Chinese statesmen willing to accept bribes for the betrayal of their country. The story is also told that in 1678, fully 500 years after Yo Fei’s death, this play was performed in a certain town, when suddenly an excited spectator rushed on the stage and stabbed to death the unfortunate actor who was playing the part of Ch’in Kuei, the traitor. In the course of the trial this fervent patriot told that in all his books he had carefully cut out the name of Ch’in Kuei wherever it occurred. The man was not put to death, as would have been the case had he been a Britisher, nor was he celebrated as a hero, as would have been the case had he been a Frenchman, but in characteristic Chinese manner he was dismissed as an idiot.

Though as a general thing there is very little courtship on the part of young people in China, yet there are on the stage quite a number of romantic love stories. In the chapter on Mei Lan-fang I have mentioned some taken from the novel, “Dream of the Red Chamber.” The same actor frequently presents “Yü Chan Chih” (A Precious Hairpin), the plot of which might be an Occidental love story. In a certain convent the abbess had living with her the daughter of her deceased brother, a very attractive young girl by the name of Ch’en Miao. In the vicinity there lived also the abbess’ nephew, with whom, because of his personal charm and great learning, the young lady fell in love. One day the nephew became ill and Ch’en Miao asked permission to assist in taking care of the patient. Under the tender care of such an attractive nurse the young man recovered speedily, but he too had lost his heart. He found means to visit Ch’en Miao in her room one day as she was reading poetry, whereupon, like Paolo and Francesca, that day they read no more. In the village there lived an elderly magistrate who wished to marry Ch’en Miao, but when the generous judge learned that she loved a younger rival, he did not show any signs of jealousy; on the contrary, he went to the abbess to urge her to join in marriage the young lovers.

Peking theaters have very few properties, as has been stated, but behind practically every stage one finds a pair of plaster-of-Paris lions in imitation of the marble lions that guard the gateways of Chinese palaces and temples. They are used in a very popular play called “Chü T’eng Kuan Hua” (Trial of Strength and Viewing the Ancestral Portraits). The play seems to be a modern imitation of the Yuan Dynasty drama “The Orphan of the Chao Family.” A wicked minister persuades the emperor that an entire family, one of whose members he hates, must be exterminated root and branch. A friend decides to save the family name by substituting just before the execution his own young son for a child of the condemned family. His wife absolutely refuses to enter upon his plan, but when he kneels before her she is compelled to yield to his wishes to sacrifice her child; this is typical of the Chinese, inasmuch as they seem to think that when some one humbles himself unduly he must gain his end and other people must grant him whatever he asks. The man and his wife then bring up the orphan as their own son. The child they sacrificed was chopped into three pieces by the wicked minister himself, because he feared that it might some day revenge on him the slaughter of his relatives.

The play as given in Peking theaters opens at the time when the orphan has attained the age of fifteen. He and his servant are playing in the courtyard of his foster-father’s house. The boy proposes that they make a test of their strength by moving the stone lions standing at the door of the house. The servant tries in vain to move them, while the boy, a prodigy of strength, picks up the massive stones and moves them with ease. Soon afterward the master of the house returns and asks angrily who is responsible for displacing the stone lions. The good-natured servant, who has the rôle of the clown in this play, says that he did it. His master then orders him to return them to their proper place, and thus in a comedy scene he is soon proved a liar. Then the adopted son is called; like George Washington he acknowledges what he has done, and returns the lions to their proper places without the slightest trouble. His foster-father now perceives that although but fifteen years of age, the boy is strong enough to avenge the cruel injustice done his family. Therefore he conducts him into the ancestral temple where he shows him the portraits of his ancestors down to the ones put to death by the wicked minister. No sooner has the orphan boy heard the story than he puts on his armor and sets out on his mission of revenge on the enemy of his family. Incidentally there is often a bit of comedy of a simple kind thrown in by the stage hands when they remove the stone lions, which they pretend to find very heavy.

On one occasion when I saw this play I was surprised to hear the audience break out into peals of laughter at the point when the boy set out on his errand of revenge. I inquired the cause of this from a Chinese friend. Amid sobs of mirth he told me that the orphan boy had left the temple on horseback! As usual, there was no scenery, the stage was bare, only a picture suspended from a chair set on a table marked the locality as an ancestral temple. The actor dressed for war had absent-mindedly acted as though he were on the battle field and had made with his leg the conventional sign for mounting a horse. I had not noticed the gesture at all, as it was a rather inconspicuous one. The humor of the episode is of about the same variety as that engendered years ago in the Philadelphia Little Theater when, in the course of the action, a cat wandered on the stage and in her haste to remove him an actress thrust him into the glowing stage fireplace—in reality, of course, off-stage into the wings.

In this imitation of a Yuan drama, in fact of the drama that several Western writers have called the nearest approach to true tragedy among all Chinese plays, practically all that is presented to modern audiences is the farcical element. Of farces the Chinese stage possesses many, some good and some less so. A certain Liu Yen-ming, in a farce by that name, lends money to a magistrate for a journey to the capital. The loan is arranged, like most things in China, through a third party—in this case an abbess of a convent. When a year has elapsed and the magistrate has not returned, Liu demands his money, or, in case the abbess cannot repay him, the hand of Yu Ying, the magistrate’s pretty daughter. He brings such pressure to bear by means of threats that the abbess finally agrees to arrange a rendezvous at midnight in the Convent of Great Purity. Yu Ying naturally enough refuses to marry a man just because her father owes him money, but when the abbess pictures the old miser as a dashing youth of twenty-three she gradually changes her tone and at last gives her consent. At midnight, therefore, Liu Yen-ming stealthily approaches the convent, but unfortunately he meets with a patrol of police who arrest the nocturnal prowler as he is unable to account for his presence near the convent at such an unseemly hour. Instead of in the arms of his beloved the money-lender spends the night in jail. But much more disagreeable for him is another development of the story. A young scholar on his way to the capital is on the same road when he observes that the police have arrested Liu Yen-ming. He decides that the police must be very strict in these parts and so demands hospitality at the very next house, which is of course the convent. The door is opened by a novice who has been told by the abbess what to do; the young scholar is asked to enter and to await the young lady. The youth, though somewhat surprised, is wise enough to hold his tongue and to follow instructions. Soon Yu Ying enters and finds that the young man possesses all the charms the abbess had falsely attributed to her father’s creditor. Love at first sight, then follow mutual explanations, and before morning an engagement sealed by pledges.

A rather good scene follows when on the next day the abbess calls on the miser to felicitate him on the pleasant night he has spent! There are delightful misunderstandings, but at the end of the scene Liu Yen-ming is in a towering rage, and determined to have revenge. He forces the daughter of his debtor to become a maid in his tavern, where she must perform the most menial tasks. In the end, of course, the young scholar returns from the capital as a magistrate; he enters the very inn where his beloved is serving the guests, recognizes and rescues her, giving the miser the punishment he so richly deserves.

One evening when I had gone to see Mei Lan-fang at the Chen Kwang Theater, there was performed as the last play among the curtain raisers another farce, “San Yao Hui” (Shaking Dice). This farce is much less presentable in every way, but is, I believe, more typical of the present-day drama, because of its episodic nature and lack of real plot. On the eve of the husband’s return the wife and the concubine are quarreling as to which is to share his first night at home. The dispute waxes hot and violent; herewith follows a prize specimen of the dialogue: