歡喜扮戲團

When I was little, I was surprised to find that a certain Peking opera singer named Chen Yang Lin was extraordinarily handsome. At the time, I did not know that Chen was actually an actress playing male roles. I just thought that she had a certain quality men did not usually have. I secretly wished that my future boyfriend would be like him. Later, thanks to Young Li Hwa , Taiwanese opera on TV became very popular. Each time my grandmother, mother and I watched her perform, we were like teenage girls in love. We were crazy about her. So many times, mother said she wanted to go to Taipei to see Young because she could not believe the “rumor” about Young being a woman.
In the year of 1991, I watched Taiwanese opera singer Shei Yuei Sha on stage for the first time. She always played the handsome young men on stage whom had his ways with women. I was so fascinated by her that I visited her soon after the performance. When the door opened, I saw an old woman in her pajamas. The vision in front of me could hardly match the passion in my heart. Yet, after we started talking, I was charmed. I could not help but thinking that I was actually talking with a handsome man. When I excused myself to the restroom, I found my face flushed like a love-crazed woman with moisture in my eyes. More surprisingly, when I finally had the chance of working with the opera crew, I realized that many male musicians were also enchanted by Sei---a man in our eyes on stage or off. These men all blossomed around her and wanted to take her out for a date. I was so surprised. How did she do it? How could she play the two opposite genders so well? Could it be that we all have both Ying and Yang inside us, if capable, we can call out either character by will?

Uhan Shii is an oral history theatre group. Since 1991, I have visited elders in many towns of different sizes in Taiwan and wove their life stories together and had them come to the theatre to rehearse. We had our first production of the “Echoes of Taiwan” series in 1995. Now we are working on “Echoes of Taiwan (X) :When Spring Comes”.
Today, I am going to talk about “Stories of Taiwan (VI):We Are Here”, a story about the lives and history of the Hakka people. Hakka is one of the three major ethnic groups in Taiwan, with five million people. As a Hakka woman, I live in the metropolitan Taipei city, but I rarely hear people speak Hakka or know who is Hakka.

Uhan Shii Theatre Group is an oral history theater. Our group members came from all over Taiwan. They could be old performers of traditional folk opera, homemakers, or retired businessmen... These people do not live on or around the stage. I have traveled throughout many towns and villages to find them, interview them and invite them to come to Taipei for training and rehearsals for the Echoes of Taiwan series.

THE POSTGRADUATE SHORT ARTICLE
The subversive practices of reminiscence

Ms. Ya-Ling Peng founded UHAN SHII, which means happy, delight, and cheer in Chinese , in March 1995 . UHAN SHII is a performance group especially for actors older than 60. The theater productions such as “Echoes of Taiwan” series, are based on the oral histories of its aging members.Elders relate emotional life experiences to younger generations to help them better understand Taiwan’s tumultuous recent history,which they are not old enough to remember. UHAN SHII’s audience is usually a mixture of 60% young students, 20% adults, and 20% elders.

The Uhan Shii Theater Group is more than a collection of old folks acting out bittersweet life experiences from Taiwan’s past. It is, among other things, the culmination of a soul-searching journey for a Taiwan-born theater artist.