Riding the wind of rebirth

“That’s one way to put it,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “However, those who play the drums are usually Sichuan opera enthusiasts who have been performing as amateur singers for a long time and have a certain level of skill. They usually have a fixed group, or ‘troupe,’ and they regularly ‘meet’ in one place to perform.”

“A drum troupe consists of about six or seven people. They sit together and sing and play their own music. They don’t need a stage, makeup, or costumes. They entertain themselves. The skilled ones can gather instruments such as the clapper drum, the tang drum, the gong, cymbals, and the suona, just like the performance of a professional Sichuan opera troupe.”

"Look, everyone is looking at the person playing the drum. That person is the conductor. Everyone performs according to his rhythm. The drummer is the center, and everyone performs around him, so it is called 'surrounding the drum'."

“Really?” The two sat at the tea table observing the other side. Mai Xiaomiao nodded and said, “I thought the opera singers were the main characters.”

“They are all opera singers,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “Anyone who plays the drum, regardless of what instrument they play, can usually sing a few lines. Moreover, there are divisions of labor; a play needs all the roles of male, female, painted-face, old man, and clown.”

“This activity has existed for a long time. Fu Chongju’s ‘Chengdu Tonglan’, written in the second year of Xuantong, records: ‘Weigu, singing without stepping out, with drums and gongs all prepared, is a kind of sitting singing and talking, also called bench play.’”

"Now the treatment is a bit better, and it's a little chair play." Now Mai Xiaomiao can distinguish between a bench and a chair.

"Generally speaking, the people who play the drums in a drum troupe are basically fixed, but the people who sing the drums are different. They can be enthusiasts who have been participating in the activities for a long time or ordinary enthusiasts. However, many enthusiasts, because of their long-term participation in training, have actually become 'stars' in the end. They first start as enthusiasts and then take the stage to become famous artists."

"Oh, by the way, there was a very famous drum troupe in Sichuan during the Republican era. Can you guess who organized it?"

How could I possibly guess that?

"It was the Lan family, who inherited the tradition of Sichuan cuisine, who formed a 'one-house troupe'. The drummer was Lan Guangyu, who also sang the role of a scholar; there was also Lan Zhongquan, who played the gong and also learned the role of a painted-face character; and finally, there was Lan Guanglin in the family, who was influenced and nurtured by a group of amateur opera enthusiasts and eventually became a famous Sichuan opera artist."

"The Lan family has quite a few stories to tell," Mai Xiaomiao said with a smile.

"There was also the Huang brothers from Zigong. Their troupe of friends not only entertained themselves but also meticulously studied and innovated Sichuan Opera percussion tunes. They created many exquisite and melodious tunes suitable for actors to sing for the high-pitched percussion of Sichuan Opera. In the end, they even formed a school of Sichuan Opera, the 'Ziyang River' singing style based on the 'accompaniment singing' of high-pitched percussion. Later, a famous drummer named Huang Yiliang also emerged."

"How's their level?" Mai Xiaomiao asked. "I can't understand a word they say."

"The play they sang, 'The Empty City Stratagem,' is quite difficult. Anyone who can sing this play must be quite skilled. I guess they are all retired employees of the Sichuan Opera Troupe, which used to be a professional team," Zhou Zhi said. "Oh, by the way, Tingting's mother was in our county's Sichuan Opera Troupe. She changed careers after the troupe disbanded and came to Chengdu to develop her career."

"No wonder Tingting sings so well, it turns out it's a family tradition."

The story of the Three Kingdoms is a good story, so Zhou Zhi sat in the sunshine, drinking tea and eating melon seeds, while telling Mai Xiaomiao this story about Zhuge Liang.

Mai Xiaomiao had also visited Wuhou Temple. She didn't even need a ticket because the staff of Wuhou Temple had asked someone to help raise the koi fish that were sent to them by the island nation when they were maintaining the koi pond.

Currently, in the entire city of Shu and even the entire province of Shu, apart from the koi pond inside the Wuhou Temple, which was built with the help of Japanese people, only the large aquarium at Suihuaxuan meets the standards for raising national treasure-level koi. Therefore, the two of them are very familiar with the staff of the Wuhou Temple, which has also made Mai Xiaomiao very interested in the stories of Zhuge Liang and the Three Kingdoms.

The two chatted about everything from the Empty City Stratagem to the Wuhou Temple and then to the koi pond. Zhou Zhi pursed his lips and said, "Actually, it's all because of the desire to save money. They're reluctant to run the filtration equipment often, they don't replace the filter materials when they need to, and they're reluctant to change the water when they need to. How can they raise fish well?"

"Those koi are quite beautiful. It would be great if we could breed baby fish just like them."

“If we want to breed them, our pond alone won’t be enough. We’ll need to open a fish farm base.” Zhou Zhi laughed. “But that would complicate things. We’d need at least an expert who is very proficient in raising large ornamental fish.”

"Doesn't Chengdu have a zoo? Their goldfish are quite beautiful."

"Hey? That's a really good idea." Zhou Zhi stroked his chin. "We could consider having the two organizations work together, and have the experts from Chengdu Zoo try to breed superior offspring from the koi at Wuhou Temple. We could invest some funds to sponsor it, open a fish farm, and raise good fish to release into our pond."

Today, the goldfish at Chengdu Zoo are very well raised, forming a three-way balance with those in the capital and Suzhou and Hangzhou, and making a great contribution to the breeding and cultivation of goldfish varieties.

Even the predecessor of Chengdu Zoo, Baihuatan Zoo, originally only had a few kinds of goldfish available for visitors to see.

Unfortunately, with the rise of ornamental tropical fish, native goldfish were not popular for a long time, and fish farms in various places switched to raising more expensive tropical fish, which greatly hampered the goldfish breeding industry.

It wasn't until twenty years later that people rediscovered the beauty of native goldfish. Unfortunately, by then, fish farms in Chengdu could only raise ordinary varieties of goldfish. The best breeding fish mainly came from tropical regions like Fujian and Guangdong, where the climate is hot, the fish mature quickly, and they are large.

However, carp and goldfish are actually very suitable for raising in Sichuan, and judging from the experience of Chengdu Zoo, it is also possible to breed them. Zhou Zhi thinks this is a valuable intangible cultural heritage, and if it can be continued by spending some money, it would be a good thing.

However, this idea could only be realized when they arrived in Chengdu. The two of them had nothing to do today and just chatted idly, which made them feel quite comfortable. As evening approached, they ate a bowl of the famous "Shima Zi Lamb Rice Noodles" at the bridgehead outside the small park.

The term "stone embankment" was actually the old name for river embankments. At that time, concrete was not available, so pebbles were placed in bamboo cages to reinforce the river embankments, which were called "stone embankments".

Because it was situated on the old passageway in and out of the city, the area from Shima to Datongmen naturally attracted a large flow of people. Farmers from outside the city carried their homegrown vegetables and poultry to sell, buy salt and cloth, and merchants traveling between Dali and Kunming came and went. More importantly, fishermen living on the shores of Qionghai Lake came to sell their fish, shrimp, water chestnuts, and seaweed. For the sake of convenience, a large market formed on the riverbank.

After the market opened, many people set up stalls and started doing business. Later, many houses were built along the side of the city wall and shops were opened. Among them, the most famous snack shops were Gao's mutton offal rice noodles and whole mutton soup hot pot.

It's winter now, which is the peak season for mutton restaurants. (End of Chapter)