The legacy of Mei Lanfang

Procrustes at large ... At the Beijing Opera ... Inspecting Chinese trains ... Westinghouse's automatic coupling system ... Manners on the subway ... What next for China? 

A touch of Les Girls at the Beijing Opera

I HAVE been overwhelmed by the immensity of the monumental masonry in the Forbidden City, until I came across the plaque that Emperor Kangxi placed behind the throne about 1680: "Doing Nothing".

Kangxi was a contemporary of the Merry Monarch, Charles II, whose approach to ruling was a similar - Gone Fishing (with Nell). 

However, the English, then later the British, managed to generate a democracy that at least claims to be liberal (with an independent judiciary, noted by the best Chinese think-tankers as the bit that modern Western demagogues neglect as they claim an electoral mandate for their madder whims).

For the British this emerged from the muddle of indolent or non-English speaking kings.

The Chinese were not so lucky, despite a surfeit of indolent and non-Mandarin speaking Emperors.

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ONTO the Beijing Opera, hiding in a former temple down a back alley (Xiheyan St) near Hepingmen station on the metro, with some splendid Quanjude Roast Duck restaurant on the way. 

How similar, but how various are our respective cultures.

Beijing Opera comes across as an extremely stylised, sumptuous and well-clad version of a Mystery Play from c.1400 - without the fart jokes that were the stock-in-trade of English drama until Shakespeare and Marlow raised the bar.

The whole operation is a shrine to Mei Lanfang who managed to keep alive the tradition of cross-dressing male performers acting the female roles - and a princess or female general is always leading.

Here's the synopsis from the first act:

"Emperor Ming makes an appointment with Princess Yang to enjoy the flowers and drink the wine.  Princess gets the banquet ready but the Emperor has gone to another Princess's palace.  Princess Yang is annoyed and has to drink by herself until she gets drunk."

Well, what's a girl to do? - particularly when assisted by a pair of eunuch courtiers as hapless as the stage duo in this performance.

Mei Lanfang commenced his career in the Beijing Opera as the first Chinese Republic was descending into warlordism, and he kept the flame alive through the terrible period of Japanese invasion after 1931, travelling to the West to show the style.

That this wonderful artform still exists stands as a monument to Mei Lanfang. A life well-lived and a show worth three Michelin Stars.

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Late with the Westinghouse coupling system

IF YOU want to get a snapshot of the modern history of a country, look no further than its railways.

The Beijing museums are replete with halls of revolutionary heroism that work as emotion-tainted advocacy.

However, the Beijing Railway Museum at Qingmen (not far from Tiananmen Square) gives the game away.

The first railway was laid in China in 1879, 50 years after Stephenson had sent his Rocket down the line from Stockport to Darlington.

The photographs of the medievally clad courtier functionaries, sent to inspect this intrusion into a placid past, show troubled faces.

They were already troubled by British aggression in the Opium Wars of 1842 and 1860 - fought to enforce Britain's "right" to flog Indian grown opium to the Chinese, over the protests of the Chinese government. 

The signage around the ruins of the Summer Palace, burnt down by the British in 1860, leave no doubt of long memories.

The ill-prepared Chinese defence forces provided a glaring lesson in the error of holding to a closed and reactionary caste of mind, which is not to excuse the monumental hypocrisy of the various British governments.

By the time China was building its first railway, Westinghouse had already invented airbrakes and the automatic coupling system, both of which enhanced the safety of railways immeasurably.

The latter invention was spurred by Westinghouse seeing a railway man lose the last of his fingers attempting to couple shunting wagons. 

For all that Procrustes loves the Chinese, the behaviour en mass in the subway seemed to throw-up the contrast with Westinghouse.

Every attempt to alight is impeded and subverted by the gadarene rush of those boarding.

Your correspondent wistfully contemplated the seeming indifference the Chinese express for each other's welfare, which is a different thing from their national pride - presently in rotund proportion.

Westinghouse made a lot of money out of his inventions, but the American genius seems to lie (or is this now past tense?) in the capacity to harness empathy to the profit motive.

The critical part of the equation lay in seeing the human need. I'm hanging about waiting to see if a newly emerged, wealthy China will contribute to general community advancement in ways beyond being a mass market and giant manufactury.

From what I've seen, there are strong possibilities in medicine and agriculture.

Meanwhile, some basic manners on the subway wouldn't go astray.