Shanghai: Opera School and Yuyuan Garden

Consider this a follow-up to Nana's last post on academic pressure in Korea: on the first full day of the 9th grade class trip to Shanghai, we visited two veritable shrines to academic success as the foundation of filial piety--namely, the Shanghai Opera School and the Yuyuan Garden.

Shangahi Opera School

In the morning, we took a tour of the Shanghai Opera School, a boarding school where students aged (roughly) 8-16, in addition to their academic studies, learn the range of skills necessary to perform classical Chinese opera.

In other words, they learn singing, gymnastics, stylized martial arts, stylized operatic diction, costume-making--even how to apply their elaborate makeup. If the demonstration performance they showed us is any indication, by the time the kids are 16, they're really exceptionally skilled.

The shots above and below are from a beloved farce scene in the classical opera literature. The figure in white is the bodyguard of a popular general. The figure in black is an innkeeper who mistakenly thinks the bodyguard is an assassin. The conceit is that they're fighting in pitch dark, so neither can see the other.

Even so many hundreds of years after it was written--still hilarious!



Yuyuan Garden


Our second stop that day was Yuyuan Garden, a few blocks off the river near the Bund. It is a classic Chinese city garden, rambling and shady, rocky and green.
The garden was meticulously built over the span of several decades by a Ming-dynasty official for his beloved father, also a high-ranking Ming official. Back then (and even today, to a degree), it's assumed the first-born son will assume responsibility for the care of his parents in their old age, and this fellow went above and beyond the call of duty.

He got the money to do so, of course, by acing his exams. No joke--the modern East Asian exam system dates back to the old Chinese imperial exams, which secured top performers lucrative and powerful positions in the government.

Apparently this is the #1 destination for school trips to Shanghai.

So let that be a lesson, kiddos. If you don't mind letting your parents starve in the gutter, sure, keep playing that video game. Otherwise, crack open those books!