The wanderers who are away from home are, like Yang Silang, migratory birds who miss their homes.
Even people who don’t watch Beijing opera know about this play – just like people who don’t watch Beijing opera know about Yu Kui Zhi, the master of Beijing opera, because he is in the Spring Festival. The story of the House of Heavenly Waves is a household name, and the Yang family’s play has been passed down from mouth to mouth. Who in China doesn’t know about the Yang family’s seven lords and eight tigers? Over the years, there have been numerous movies and TV shows about the Yang family, but it always seems like you’re watching a fashion show, which is ultimately a handsome and beautiful fight, but with the shell of the Yang family. As with many plays, “Si Lang Visits His Mother” is also an adaptation of a play from a small talking book, “The Yang Family House Evolution” also has the plot of Si Lang being captured, but in the novel, Si Lang is more like the lurking Yu Zecheng, and finally did help the Song army break the Liao. The drama was changed to be more tense, less high and mighty, and more of the five flavors of life.
The plot of “Silang Visits His Mother” differs slightly from one version to another, depending on how it is performed. The main plot is roughly like this: In the battle of Golden Beach, Yang Yanhui was captured, changed his name to Muyi, and was recruited by Empress Xiao as a horse in harness and married to Princess Tiejing. Fifteen years later, the Song-Liao war again, Yang Yanhui heard that his sixth brother Yang Yanzhao hanged the marshal, his mother She Taijun escorted grain and straw to the front line, and inevitably moved to miss his relatives. But being in an enemy country, he had a wife and a son, so he could not cross the border to see his mother and was very bitter. When Princess Tiejing asks about the secret, she offers to help her husband steal the arrows, and Siro takes advantage of the night to cross the border. Yang Liulang recognized his fourth brother, personally untied, to see his mother and sister, the family’s grief and joy, hug headache and cry. The family was overwhelmed with grief and joy and cried with headache. When she returned to Liao, Empress Dowager Xiao found out that her daughter and son-in-law had collaborated to deceive her, she was furious and wanted to kill Yang Yanhui, but Princess Tiejing begged her, but Empress Dowager Xiao refused to allow her. The princess cried and wiped her neck, but the Empress Dowager Xiao saw that the situation was not good, she could not let her little grandson become a fatherless orphan, so she let Yang Yanhui go.
The most frequently performed part of “The Visitation of the Mother by Silang” is the “Sitting in the Palace”, which has an interesting and entertaining plot and a great singing voice. In particular, the duet from “listening to his words scares me to sweat” to “standing at the palace gate and calling for a small fan” is a classic piece, which requires the old students and the young ones to work in tandem and not to make the slightest mistake. The last line of the song, which is the closing line of the old students, has to win the applause of the audience. Although the role of She Taijun is not much, but in the meeting of the mother of a fold that paragraph “a see of the child tears full of cheeks” is also a famous section, the singing skills are very high requirements, not to the role of children can not down. When Tan Zheng Yan, the seventh generation of the Tan family, pretended to visit his mother, he asked Lan Wen Yun to paste She Taijun, and the singing was really great. But the high talent thin life, blue teacher now in the situation, let people saddened.
There was a time when this play was not allowed to be performed because it was a “traitor play” and a “surrender play”, considering that Yang Yanhui’s surrender to Liao to recruit his bride was a “traitor to the country and the enemy”, promoting the It is “politically incorrect” because it is “traitorous philosophy” and insults the image of Yang family generals as “a family of loyalty and martyrs”. But I thought, from the novel inside the enemy camp fifteen years, to the drama inside the rush side, more humane, is the cry of humanity, shouted not “shoot me” but “I am a person”, so more touching. The fact that the person who killed himself is certainly worthy of respect, but the person who endured death and stole his life should not be blamed, this is the most fundamental human nature ah.
Although “Shilang Visits His Mother” is a big old drama, the three female characters in the play are all glorious. The wife of Shilang, Princess Tetsumaku, is even more Yamato Nadeshiko than Yamato Nadeshiko, but without the pretensions of Yamato Nadeshiko, she is more agile and spicy. Princess Tie mirror is understanding, see her husband sullen, expected her husband has something on his mind, guess the heart of the paragraph is quite interesting, first asked if the mother gave you angry suffer, ask and ask, but not understand, after all, is still a girl, a good little jealousy, thought her husband has someone else in his heart. I asked if my husband was not having an affair, but I felt relieved and wondered, what else could it be? The sidekick is still reluctant to say, the princess came to a point of spice, pretending to be angry, scaring the sidekick, if you do not say “brother hey I want your head!” In fact, she will always want the sidekick’s head? But the scare did work, the harnessed horse was willing to say, but the harnessed horse did make people anxious, but also let the princess bet a spell to swear, the princess quite disdain this set, but see him anxious look fun, so he did, asked him to bet a spell is how a bet. I think it is because of something in the heart, the horse harnessed by the side of the horse IQ plummeted (may not have been very high), said how a woman from a foreign country can not even bet on an oath? This is a trap, the princess is waiting for it:.
Unlike you Han Chinese, you can’t even swear, just for fun! –What a playful and cute little daughter-in-law.
The sidekick then revealed the truth, my name is not Muyi, I am Yang Yanhui!
Imagine, if you are the princess, what will you think? The 15 years of the ideal husband, the father of her own son, not even a real name, it is easy to say the real name, but the deadly enemy of Liao – Yang family general, not to mention the feud between the Yang family and Liao, is the princess’s father, the old emperor of Liao, was also shot dead by Yang Dalang sleeve arrow ah! On the other hand, Yang Ling Gong was also forced to kill himself by the Liao, and the three sons of Yang family also died in the hands of the Liao. The family feud between the princess and the sidekick was much deeper than that between Romeo and Juliet, but they – mainly her – were married for fifteen years in such a confused way.
Whenever the moment comes, men tend to faint, but the girl is sober. The princess soon chose to clear the priorities, as long as he will return, I have to help him out of the gate to see his mother, but he will really come back? She wants Yang Silang also swear, but she did not also say it, you southern Han people betting on the oath are when playing, but she chose to believe her husband. She went to help her husband to coax her mother, Empress Dowager Xiao, who was worried about state affairs and saw her daughter coming with her grandson, and liked it in her heart, teasing her grandson for a while, as a relaxation outside of state affairs, but fell for her daughter’s way. The princess said that Ah Gao wanted to see the arrow, but how could she give the arrow to just anyone, but the little grandson wanted to play with it, so she gave it to him for a while, who thought that her daughter would give the arrow to the sidekick.
Yang Silang got the token arrow, came to the Song camp, the brothers identified, and then met his mother. There is a version of “Visiting Mother” that is designed this way, which I think is better, and She Taijun’s character is more complete. When the hug and cry after singing a paragraph, then you have to ask your son how the fifteen years have come. I became the sidekick of a liao state. Who would have thought that he would be the son-in-law of Empress Dowager Xiao, the enemy of his country and his son-in-law? But when the mood calmed down, the mother’s love for her son overcame the disgusting “political correctness”, hey, who cares which son-in-law, as long as her son is doing well, it’s okay, right? So I asked Siro, “Did Empress Dowager Xiao treat you badly? How is the princess treating you? I heard that the princess and Siro were very affectionate, even the arrow was designed by the princess to cheat, She could not help but sigh that the princess is really a good daughter-in-law. The first time I saw him, I had to say goodbye to him, and he wanted to stay with him, and his eight sisters and nine sisters hugged his legs to keep him from leaving. But the old hero understands his righteousness.
The princess helped him steal the arrow, if he does not go back, will not also involve the princess to suffer a knife? Regardless of his return to the Empress Dowager to kill or punish, but also a good man to do a good man when, ungrateful things, how can the Yang family do?
I have not seen my mother for fifteen years, it was easy to meet her, and after crying, I had to part again. Just back to the pass, they were kidnapped to see their mother-in-law. This Empress Dowager Xiao was also a woman of greatness, who presided over the state after her husband’s death and governed Liao in an orderly way. Empress Dowager Xiao, a pair of in-laws, had never met each other – if they met, it was estimated that one would raise the dragon head staff and one would draw the phoenix plume sword and fight a hundred rounds first. Empress Dowager Xiao’s anger can be imagined, well, the two together to deceive me, and my two incompetent brothers, also followed and stirred, and this horse in harness is even the son of an enemy, this can not be spared! How to persuade can not, who can not persuade must be killed Yang Yanhui – Yang Si Lang really good determination, the execution field also dozed off. The princess is anxious, the daughter to the mother spilled and scolded up, you want to kill him, I also do not live! This grandson of yours, you go to raise yourself! The Queen Mother of Xiao is also angry at this time, also think really to force the daughter to be anxious daughter really can not think of their own regret, so I can only count on it.
For Yang Silang, lost in the sands, alive or not, in Hamlet is a problem, in Yang Silang is a problem. But he should live, not a death, death is sometimes simple, especially the blood of generosity to die, just a few words over the head to do a few hostile actions, you can let yourself die. It is harder to live with a heavy burden on your back than it is to die. So in “The Orphan of Zhao”, Gongsun Pestle and mortar is not easy enough, and Cheng Ying, who bears the scolding to live, is even harder. He gradually learned about his parents and brothers, but he had to restrain his pain and could not show his feelings. The good thing is that the woman on his pillow is gentle and considerate, and can soothe his heart full of wounds, but she is the daughter of an enemy, the princess of an enemy country, which is simply a kind of irony. The good thing is that these fifteen years are quite stable, the identity is not exposed, the couple love each other, there is a lovely son, the battlefield, the smoke has gradually dissipated, although the relatives are far apart, but I will miss you in the north.
But the peace was broken by war again. Xiao Tianzuo set up the Heavenly Gate Formation, and Song and Liao went to war again. As the son of the Yang family, of course, Siro would not go to battle for the Liao state. But the news that came to him made him lose his soul – the commander of the Song army was his sixth brother who had left him for fifteen years, and his gray-haired mother also came to the front with food and straw. All of a sudden the fifteen years of sequestered homesickness and flesh and blood all came to his heart, making him restless, so “Yang Yanhui sat in the palace courtyard thinking about himself and sighing”.
In the absence of sadness, this is a reunion play, but also some playful and humorous bridge. But for those who are away and can’t return home, there must be another emotion. Long Yingtai wrote that the veterans of the family village who went to Taiwan in 1949, every time they watched “Shilang Visits His Mother”, they sobbed. For them, a shallow strait is really “mother on the other side, I am on this side”.
These days, as the New Year is approaching, the airplanes, trains and automobiles are full of Shilang who are returning home.
I wonder if they will also sing: “Although the princess does not stop, how can I cross the border without a ticket?”
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