Xu Qing

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1947 he became a disciple of Shen Guangzhang to learn the craft. After years of performance practice he built on the skills inherited from his predecessors and broke new ground, using the traditional Pingshu storytelling form to narrate modern revolutionary themes. Within the regional tradition and school record of Sichuan Pingshu Storytelling in Quyituan, Chongqing: Storytellers in Chongqing and Chengdu have long moved between the two cities; storytelling venues are often set up at wharves, in market towns and in city teahouses, and the compilation of repertoire works and of tiao shu pieces draws on each other. According to the project archive, performance style divides into qing peng and lei peng: qing peng emphasises literary language and is skilled in wen shu, lei peng stresses tone and rhythm and is skilled in wu shu; according to the origin of the source book there is further a division into mo shu and tiao shu, the former adapted from novels and the latter devised by the performer. Since the end of the 20th century performers have declined and performances have shrunk, and transmission now relies largely on the quyi troupes and on programmes bringing quyi into schools. Sichuan pingshu is mainly popular in Chongqing Municipality and Sichuan Province. It had formed by the Xianfeng era of the Qing dynasty at the latest, and the protecting unit is the Chongqing Quyi Troupe. Its origins can be traced back to the storytelling artistry of the Song dynasty and to the pingshua narrative prose of the Ming and Qing dynasties; after the Qing conquest it took fixed form in the teahouse and storytelling-house culture of Sichuan and Chongqing, where performers won over their audiences by bare-mouth narration, relying on nothing but a waking block, a folding fan and a handkerchief and on the humour and rhythm of the local dialect. Around the middle of the 20th century Sichuan pingshu moved gradually from teahouses to the stage and the radio, producing modern repertoire works that performers wrote and told themselves and that kept abreast of current events. The storytelling performance is captivating and rich in the distinctive character of Bashu culture.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

He holds the rank of a national first-class performer. He inherited the narrative strengths of the qingpeng school and the performative strengths of the leipeng school, discarded stale formulae, and brought out the humour and flavour of dialect vocabulary; writing and performing his own material, he reflected the life of the people and kept pace with the times, giving audiences a fresh impression and helping to move Sichuan Pingshu from teahouses onto the stage and onto radio. His representative works include Hong Yan (Red Crag) and Duo Yin (Seizing the Seal). Within the documented technical tradition of Sichuan Pingshu Storytelling in Quyituan, Chongqing: Sichuan pingshu is a quyi genre mainly popular in Chongqing Municipality and Sichuan Province, formed by the Xianfeng era of the Qing dynasty at the latest. The performance format is a single performer narrating by mouth alone, assisted by such props as the waking block, the folding fan and the handkerchief. By performance style there is a division between the so-called qing peng and lei peng: qing peng emphasises the literary quality of the language and is skilled in wen shu (civil books), while lei peng stresses tone and rhythm and is skilled in wu shu (martial books). There is also a distinction between mo shu and tiao shu according to the different origins of the source books: mo shu refers to repertoire works adapted from novels such as The Three Kingdoms and Water Margin, whereas tiao shu refers to works devised by the performer himself, such as The Golden Rooster and the Hibiscus Picture and The Tale of the Iron Knight. The storytelling performance is captivating, the language full of humour, and rich in the distinctive character of Bashu culture. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Clear shed and thunder shed": Two performing manners: the "clear shed" relishes literary language for civil tales, the "thunder shed" stresses rhythm for martial ones. "Ink books and strip books": Items divide by source: "ink books" adapted from novels such as the Three Kingdoms, and "strip books" composed by the teller himself. "Gavel, fan and handkerchief": A single teller works bare-handed save for a gavel, a folding fan and a handkerchief, which stand in for weapons, books and other props. "Composed strip books": Representative self-composed strip books, performed alongside novel-derived ink books such as the Three Kingdoms.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He was born in March 1936 in Chongqing Municipality, of Han ethnicity, and died in February 2017. Representative bearer of Sichuan Pingshu Storytelling, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In 2008 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Fifth China Quyi Peony Awards, conferred by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the China Quyi Artists Association.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Xu Qing · National Representative Bearer Archive