Sep. 30. TianQiaoLe Tea House

The first day of this 8 days, one-day-stop holiday.

Made a late waking up morning. Started to think about what to do in this whole golden week without wasting it. OK, let's move.

First, headed to Room 209, Center Building of nearby University, to top up the net access fee. Another 1 year accessibility at least for my thu email. It's, ..., actually, no use at all in my daily life. But, I prefer the feeling of ownership.

Then, cycled to the metro station in WuDaoKou, spent 20 minutes to find a space to leave my bicycle. Purchased a 5 RMB ticket and got to XiZhiMen. You can not image the importance of the public transportation system in China until you got to see the people sea in XiZhiMen metro interchange station. And even the door can harldy be closed for the outer-loop train, I selected the inner-loop train instead and spent 1/2 more time to go to my destination without being pressed into a much more thiner version of me. (Do not imagine. It will be terrible).

QianMen, The Front Door, and JianLou, Arrow Building, The outer frontier of The Beijing City. All the building in QianMenDaJie were tore down. The ungly-developed building were undergoing the renovation. The whole area will be return to Beijing traditional culture. At least, it is some of the good things the government has been doing for the sake of the culture preservation. But now, it is nothing in the main street which should have been filled with people shopping for the local artifacts. Though the DaShiLa was filled with people, I had no interests in visit there for the moment.

No idea how far my destination will go and without google earth in hand (How to? need update my handphone), I had to get on to bus Route.59. Almost failing to get the back door (for exit) from the mid-door (for entrance) in this bus with people filled as sardine, I escaped down at TianQianXiZhan. After another 5 minutes walk, here came the TianQiaoJuChang, TianQiao Theatre.

In 2003, the 'Cats' came to China. They were going performing in TianQiaoTheatre. The whole theatre was renovated to adapt the huge dump area for those smelly cats. But the SARS prevented the final trip, and The Cats came back after and performed in the People's Conference Hall of China, the worse place for such a musical. Damn lucky the fans in Shanghai, I have to say.


Checked at the ticket counter, only the ballet of the Romeo and Juliet was showing tonight. And thank for the help of the counter lady, I found my place, TianQiaoLe Tea House.

Already familiar with the name of Guo DeGang, the XiangSheng genius who is not interested in the commercial media, and who devotes himself and his colleagues in the theatre shows. The program of tonight was the Episode III of the PiFengShan series played by Mr. Guo himself, while two pair of other XiangSheng as rest. Time flew fast. Within the voice of the actors on the stage, the sound of cracking peanuts and sunflower seeds, the hushing and the applause rising now and then, the bumping of the tea cups, all but not limited to, the feeling of the old Beijing entertainment came back to the hundreds people in side this tea house. When the fade of the XiangSheng was talking about everyday by the experts of inside and outside, an art can not thrive with the massive media or with the suits and ties while its origin was from the local people, from the streat or the teahouse live show with gray or blue long dress and a simple piece of wooden block. Just like the HuTong, the lost of hutong can not recover back, because it is not a dead shows in the museum, but a living life of the people and enviroment.

The shows ended at 22:00 in the night. The first was over.