Relocation of one “Sake factory”
Recently, there was the news that the factory of its company called Michizakura Sake Brewery is relocated from Gifu to Hokkaido, in Japan.
Cold water, good quality rice, and temperature control are especially important for making good tasteing sake.
Combined with the effects of aging its factory and global warming, it decided to relocate to take an more suitable environment for making sake.
*sakura(zakura) is the same as “cherry blossoms”
Chinese traditional performing art “Peking opera”
By the way, do you know the Chinese-Hong Kong movie “Farewell My Concubine”, which won the Palme d’Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.
It is the “tragedy” that is sometimes called “Romeo and Juliet” in the Orient.
The Hegemon-King Bids His Lady Farewell knew as “Farewell My Concubine” is one of traditional Chinese story and opera.
The stage is China from the occupation of Japan to the Cultural Revolution, and this turbulent era is depicted centering on the hero and his childhood friend through the training at the traditional performing arts “Peking Opera” and the growth with it.
It is a love-hate blockbuster.
The roots of Peking Opera started from the Qing dynasty, but it is rather a new tradition in China’s 4,000-year history.
Still, it has a history of over 200 years.
The reason why men play women
In the movie of “Farewell My Concubine”, the hero plays the “Dan”, that is a female role.
So he plays like a woman.
It is similar to “Kabuki” in Japan, and all the stage performers are performed by men.
*A actor of Kabuki who plays a female calls “Onnagata”
Why did man play as woman in the first place?
Peking opera’s case was the opera for male.
There was bans on female performers and audience members.
And Qing dynasty banned too.
Of course, there were no appearance of women who want to play as a player.
Actually the lifting of the ban in the early 20th, but male Dan seems to be more popular.
Kabuki’s case was from the moral crackdown in the Edo period of the late 17th or the early 18th.
In the first place, Kabuki itself is derived from “the dance” by the woman, she called Izumo no Okuni who is a shrine maiden.
She and some people toured various places in Japan as a travel performers’ troupe.
The purpose is to earn Izumo Taisha repair costs.
*Izumo Taisha means a big shrine in Izumo,Japan.
The dance she danced was called “Kabuki Odori” and became the masterpiece of the current Kabuki.
Odori means “dancing” by Japanese.
That was one of a “boom“, so a retreat in popularity awaited.
In that, it was connected with “Yukaku”.
This is the moment when “Yujo Kabuki” was born, which attracts women more brilliantly and appeals to men.
*Yukaku means once Japanese prostitution’s area, and Yujo indicates the women who live in there.
Concerned that such erotic elements would disturb the world, the Edo Shogunate was banned from acting by women.
It might feel like pole dancing or striptease.
There seems to be reason why “dancing” is often depicted as a symbol of play commonly.
In fact, in the same Chinese-HongKong movie “HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS” as “Farewell My Concubine”, there is a scene that men chatted and drank alcohol each other watching a female dance.
Kabuki keep on being performed only by men currently, and therefore it was transformed into a new performing art that emphasized the “femininity” of men.
On the other hand, in the modern Peking Opera, women play on the Dan.
The reason is?
That is because the number of actors decreased during “Cultural Revolution“.
This was a great tragedy for Peking Opera.
Sakura’s how to blossom all the time is…
Cultural Revolution was a policy that admitted “failure” in the subsequent by Chinese government,
It is said that the development has been set back for decades
Especially in Peking Opera, it was a break in tradition and despair.
However, after Cultural Revolution, it has taken a new form and inherited and developed to this day.
That is that they have to change “to be alive“.
Just as Michizakura left the place of origin and chose a new land to keep on blossoming for many years.
Just mourning for bad luck cannot recover the lost past.
In the future, the culture will face an increasingly prominent problem about the shortage of successors.
So if we want to be alive, we would keep on changing anytime.
Because there will not be inherited or developed in tradition or culture unless it accepts change.
Leave a Reply