At 5:30 p.m., April 2nd, 2019, Foreigners Performing Crosstalk-Experiencing Traditional Chinese Quyi(refers to traditional Chinese art forms) Culture, a Mandarin Corner event organized by the School of Chinese Language and Literature, was held in Wenhua Hall. It was an honor for us to have invited young crosstalk performer Yan Jiabao and his partners Ye Guo(Shyshov Iegor, Ukraine), Tina(Khuan Ya Tin, Kazakhstan), Wang Shuai(Esam Ahmed Mohamed Khalil, Egyptian) and Komatsu Yota (Japan)to give us wonderful performances.
First, Professor Zhang Xiaohui, executive president ofthe School of Chinese Language and Literature, delivered a speech to warmly welcome the students from home and abroad and hope the overseas students may find crosstalk appealing.
Then, the show started.
Yan Jiabao introduced to us“what crosstalk is”. Crosstalk, also known asXiangsheng, is a special Chinese comedic performing art, including four basic techniques as“speaking, imitating, teasing and singing”.“Xiang”and“Sheng”literally stand for appearance and voice respectively. Crosstalk, therefore, asks the performers to amuse the audience through facial expressions, movements and languages. As a broad and profound form of art, crosstalk is of great help for overseas students to study Chinese.
Yan interacted with overseas students and invited some of them to try Chinese tongue twisters.
He then invited his partners to deliver wonderful performances one by one.
Komatsu Yota performed a clapper talk show calledRainbows In The World.
Wang Shuai performed an Arabic tongue twister.
Ye Guo shared his thoughts about studying crosstalk. He thought that studying crosstalk is useful to the study of Mandarin pronunciation, and helpful in learning the Chinese culture and building self-confidence in a more interesting and rapid way. For starters, learning crosstalk can be truly challenging, but Ye Guo told everybody not to be afraid, but to embrace challenges and feel the charm of crosstalk.
At last, Yan Jiabao, Ye Guo and Tina performed a complete show of crosstalk called“Foreigners See China”, which made the audience roar with laughter.
The participating students come from Italy, Malaysia, Japan and ROK, as well as from China. We hope this event may arouse your interest in crosstalk and enthusiasm for learning Mandarin. Wish you can learn and benefit greatly!
