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Shan Tianfang, died at 83 on Sept. 11, 2018 in Beijing
because of multiple organ failure. His energetic oral interpretations of
classical Chinese novels and historical events pushed the ancient pingshu
tradition forward into the modern age for generations of Chinese.
Mr. Shan tried for many years to avoid becoming a performer
of pingshu, the Song dynasty-era storytelling tradition. Growing up in the1950s
in a family of folk art performers, he had seen struggle firsthand. It was a
life of constant financial troubles and low social status. So it was with great
unwillingness when, out of financial necessity, he became an apprentice(徒弟)
to a family friend who was a master of pingshu. He made his first public
appearance in 1956.
In the pingshu tradition, the performer wears a traditional
gown and sits behind a desk equipped with a folding fan and a wooden block. The
storyteller tells a legend — typically a classical Chinese epic — from memory,
using different voices and exaggerated gestures as well as adding occasional
background detail and commentary.
Mr. Shan grew to love the storytelling form, which is
popular across northern China. It is a demanding profession that combines
acting, oration, writing, historical research and literary criticism and
requires countless hours of memorization. In teahouses around the northeastern
region, he became famous for his fresh takes on the classics.
In 1976, many Chinese were hungry for some new forms of
entertainment, and it was against this background that he grasped the
opportunity to record a pingshu radio broadcast. He soon discovered that
performing on radio was vastly different from doing so in teahouses. There were
no props(道具), no reactions from the audience to
guide him — just Mr. Shan and the microphone in a recording studio. So for his
first radio performance, a shortened version of the historical novel. The
Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties, Mr. Shan used the studio's three recording
technicians as his audience and adjusted his performance based on their
reactions.
The performance had its first appearance in 1980 on Chinese
New Year, and more than 100 million Chinese were estimated to have tuned in
during the 56 hours over which it was broadcast. It was the beginning of a
dramatic second act both for Mr. Shan and for pingshu in the People's Republic
of China. He was soon a household name across the country.
Over six decades, Mr. Shan recorded more than 110 stories
for radio and television totaling about 12,000 episodes and lasting 6,000
hours. His best-known works include his interpretations of Chinese classics
like 'White-Eyebrow Hero' and 'Sanxia Wuyi' and his dramatizations of
historical figures like Zhuge Liang and Lin Zexu.
Even today, hop into a Beijing taxi and the driver may be
listening to one of Mr. Shan's recordings. "For my generation, Shan
Tianfang was a master," said Zhao Fuwei, 48, a Beijing taxi driver. If
back then there was such thing as a viral star, then Shan Tianfang was
definitely the hottest viral star.
"Listening to his stories has made it easier to kill
time in bad traffic," Mr. Zhao added. "He was so good at making
complicated historical stories simple and interesting". You feel like
you could empathize with the characters in his stories, even though they
lived a long time ago.
But in recent years many of the great pingshu performers
have died, and the tradition is fading. By the time Mr. Shan retired in 2007,
interest in pingshu among Chinese had all but been replaced by mobile phones
and gaming. Nevertheless, even after retiring, Mr. Shan worked tirelessly to
promote pingshu among young Chinese, instructing apprentices and starting a
school dedicated to the folk arts.
Ever willing to adapt to new technologies, he posted a
message to his Sina Weibo microblog account on Sept. 6, five days before his
death. It was an announcement about a new live-streamed(直播)
lecture series about pingshu.
