TALES OF FORGOTTEN YEARS

Evening Star, Issue 20998, 12 January 1932, Page 1

TALES OF FORGOTTEN YEARS

A CHINESE STORYTELLER

Through Peiping’s eastern gateway there trudges the traffic of the land. High-arched, its passage burrows through a mighty wall. And the flat stones that form its paving are rutted with the wagon wheels of endless days. As to tho traffic, it is a sullen stream. Donkeys bearing impatient coolies, peasants bent beneath heavy loads, shaggy Mongolian ponies tugging hard at highstacked carts, slipping in the greasy mud which coats the slabs beneath their fete. Only in the fleet ricksha runners, whisking in and out, with their graceful, high-wheeled carriages, is added to tho picture the flavour of . life and dash —tho Eastern attitude of idleness without which it would not be Peiping. A moat lies just outside that wall, crossed by a wide bridge. And then the road, splitting around an outer guardian turret, joining again to cross another moat, continues through the poverty of a suburban settlement and on to Tung Chow, if maps are to be trusted. I set out along this road one afternoon, v but got, no farther than the pover'y of that suburban settlement. For a road could scarcely hold me, when there was a fair choking a narrow alley with stands and milling people, f walked from bolts of cloth to heaps of unpicked junk, from tinware to stockings, from Jiats- to food, but I lingered longest among tho works of jade and eloissonne. Close beyond this lane of wares began the tea houses, the stand of a lecturer, the tables and chairs and diagramed boards for tho Oriental’s game of ” Go.” All piling ono upon another. Yet, past all* these, I saw a crowd" clustered about a doorway. And in iny curiosity I left them with but a glance. Approaching the crowd, I heard the music of a Chinese mandolin * and a voice reciting—lightly, rhythmically, i had found my goal, though little did 1 know for_ what I was searching when I left Peiping’s eastern gate. Tho voice was that of a Chinese storyteller. For his auditorium he had a meagre hut, for his stage the hardpacked ground. His seats were a line or two of backless benches. And the music of a sharp-cornered, long-necked mandolin, played by a second man seated at a table, was his only accompaniment. A few children had stolen m to sit on the benches, while the greater crowd listened as they stood about tho doorway or looked in through the open windows along the side. Tho storyteller I think I shall never forget, as I saw him, pacing back and forth along the length of that .ittle room, between his wooden benches. His face betrayed no emotion as lie told his story, yet his voice, in its weird falsetto, tingled with tho deeds of 'forgotten years. Countless were the legends that he told, of heroes and of kings. Of Li T’ai-po, Lin Pang, of AVuti, and Tai-sn. Sometimes lie would stop beside a drum that was held in a taut string frame on his platform table, beating it softly m* measured stroke with the long, wandlike stick he held lightly in his hand. While, between tho fingers of his other hand were two brass clappers. And these he clinked to emphasise the verses of his tale. His tone was soft and accented, singsong, yet vibrant at times with feeling. There came tension to its syllables. Tension and idle peace. How his woi;ds mingled with the pickings of his accompanist! Special phrases he marked with the pointed wave of the wand in his hand. A’et never did there come a change to the quiet impassiveness of his face. Interludes between sections of the tale ran in the uncanny intervals of the mandolin. Then, heralded by a tattoo on tho drum, and a rhythmic clink or two of the clappers, he would tell on, weaving in romantic fancy the lives of stalwart men. A vendor of sweets and spiced fruits entered the hovel as the tale moved on. Ho walked silently from child to child' about the room. But the storyteller lived in tho land of his story. The children were bound by his words. And the sweets vender left unnoticed. After many stanzas, and yet too soon, the story found its ending. Tho storyteller laid aside the wand and the clappers, the accompanist, the mandolin. The crowd idled away from the door. And with one last glance I, too, turned to go back to the city’s gate. A glance that saw a storyteller, talking to a group of eager children. — 1 Christian .Science Monitor. ’