Foshan City, Guangdong Province is home to one of the traditional Chinese operas– Cantonese Opera. Today I have invited Alice and Elaine, students from Xishan Primary School and Huancheng Primary School in Foshan, Guangdong Province, to participate in my online traditional Chinese opera workshop. Alice said that when she was in kindergarten, a teacher had explained to her about traditional Chinese opera, but she was not interested at the time, while Elaine said she had never been exposed to this traditional culture at school.
At the end of the workshop, they expressed their desire to design their own school uniform about traditional Chinese Opera and said with great anticipation, “It would be great if I could really wear this to school!”
Meanwhile, I conducted a short interview with their parents.
Q： Is your child usually exposed to traditional Chinese opera at school?
A： It depends on their teachers, especially the Chinese teachers, who, if they knew anything about Chinese Opera, might have given them a brief introduction in class. But the school does not offer such a course.
B：To be honest, I’m not really sure, because I’ve never heard my children tell me
Q： Does your city government have a relevant platform for children to learn traditional Chinese Opera?
A：Yes! For example, there are free Chinese Opera classes at the Children’s Palace, which children can attend every week if they are interested. However, the problem is that most young people do not understand or are not interested in this traditional culture, like my daughter who thinks it is very old-fashioned. I really want her to learn it, but how can I get her interested? Maybe this type of traditional culture needs to be combined with something fashionable to get the attention of young people.
B： I agree with her that there is a weekly public performance of traditional Chinese Opera in a park near us, but the enthusiasts are usually more elderly, as many young people, even of my age, do not appreciate it.