cultural activity at all from one year's end to the next, and they loved acrobatics, which you could understand whether you'd been to school or not, so just about every family came to watch, lots and lots of people. There was no electric light in the countryside in those days, we used big hanging hurricane lamps to light the performances we held to bring cultural entertainment to the peasants, and to promote the Party's policies. Sometimes we'd move on very quickly; we'd put on two shows and then leave, then another two shows and off again. All our things went in two big horse-drawn carts, sometimes we even slept on the carts – from time to time there'd be a thump, and that would be someone falling to the ground. We often slept on the ground; if we did get a room there'd be no windows, you'd sleep over here, and over there the worms would be wriggling in and out. After a while conditions improved a bit – we got a tractor, later on it was trucks, ferries and trains, and in the 1980s, after the Reform and Opening, we even got to take a plane. When we retired we joked that we Chinese acrobats had been on everything except submarines and the
XINRAN: You said your troupe went to many villages to perform – how did you do those performances? I think it must be impossible for many young people to imagine: no theatre, no lights, no proper stage, how did you put on a show?
YISHUJIA: In the countryside we used the threshing grounds. Some of those big threshing grounds had an earth platform, others didn't.
XINRAN: What was the earth platform for?
YISHUJIA: I don't know, singing opera perhaps? The countryside was very poor, but you still used to get people who went there to sing traditional opera, trading and singing opera at the same time – I think it was a bit like going to market.
XINRAN: I've seen that too, a big acrobatic display on market day – hardly ideal conditions for a performance!
YISHUJIA: Too right! Take juggling stools with your feet: if there happened to be a strong wind, the stool would be blown to one side with one gust, and then, whoosh, it would turn over onto the other side, it was really difficult! If you were juggling umbrellas with your feet, whoosh, one puff of wind and you couldn't find your umbrella at all!
XINRAN: If you fluffed your performance, what would the locals do?
YISHUJIA: You'd have to have another go. If you got it right the second time there'd be clapping from the floor, otherwise they'd curse you for a clumsy fool – peasants are very down to earth, you know.
XINRAN: Did you get used to going to live in the countryside?
YISHUJIA: At that time I only knew to follow the troupe everywhere it went, I didn't feel anything really. It wasn't that comfortable in winter. I've always had pains in the joints on this leg, and why? It's from one year when it was snowing heavily outside, there was only a grass curtain at the window, we were all very tired, we just went to sleep wherever we fell, huddled in pairs for warmth. One quilt couldn't cover four legs, so our legs stuck out, and my leg got frozen, it itched and hurt like mad, and now I'm old it gives me trouble.
XINRAN: What did you do for food?
YISHUJIA: We brought our own kitchen along with us, pots, bowls, ladles, oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar, the lot, and we bought whatever vegetables they had locally.
XINRAN: Where was the poorest place you went?
YISHUJIA: There were no rich places in those days. Shangqiu in Henan would have been the poorest. The wife of one of the troupe's members lived in Shangqiu, her children never had a chance to eat any meat, or to buy fish. The winters were bitterly cold, and for New Year she'd make the children grope for small fish in the ditches, and their New Year feast would be the whole family clustered around a pot of simple fish soup.
XINRAN: How long did circuit tours like this go on for?
YISHUJIA: Right up to the Cultural Revolution. Before that we went to the countryside at fixed times every year to put on shows for the peasants, but after the start of the Cultural Revolution we slowly stopped going to the countryside, and stuck to doing revolutionary performances in the city. In any case, our wages from the state were the same wherever we were – I got 29.5 yuan every month for ten years, which nowadays is barely enough for a cheap family meal out!
XINRAN: When you think about the revolutionary operas, does it seem ridiculous? I find it very strange. I thought a lot about this before I came to hear your story, I suppose you can insert revolutionary slogans into things like opera, ballet or plays, but how do you add revolutionary slogans or quotations from Chairman Mao into acrobatics?
YISHUJIA: It was ludicrous really, we were all idiots. We acted out battles, or things like 'catching a spy', or taking American soldiers prisoner, that kind of revolutionary stuff, all fighting and killing. Some of the acrobats had good voices, so they'd sing a revolutionary song while making showy gestures, but I couldn't sing. Sometimes we did fancy work with staves, and that was the PLA fighting a battle. And tumbling? Boys would do the big somersaults, girls would do the fill-in parts in the background, cheering 'Ten thousand years of long life to Mao Zedong!' Basically, all the acrobatic skill was lost. When we went to the army units to show our support, we'd perform 'In Praise of Men He', because we wanted to stick to the revolutionary model. This Men He was a hero of the Liberation, he died a hero's death to help the common people. Those of us who were playing the common people all had to wear Red Guard armbands.
XINRAN: During the time of the Cultural Revolution, nobody in China could avoid making a public statement of their position, including foreigners. Those who went along with it survived, those who went against it perished. What were your feelings when you had to change from performing in your national costume to Red Guard costumes?
YISHUJIA: Nobody dared to have an opinion in those days, we just knew we had to go along with the revolutionary image, it was the Cultural Revolution, you couldn't do anything else. And we really felt that national costume was old, we should smash the old and embrace the new, so we ought to wear something new. It's no different from young people these days who wear those rubbishy clothes to keep up with the fashion, at the time that's what we thought.
XINRAN: So what was the difference between what you performed then and the things you did before?
YISHUJIA: Originally it was pure skill and art. During the Cultural Revolution it was just revolutionary gestures, and you had to force words into the acrobatic numbers, to promote Mao Zedong Thought.
XINRAN: So our traditional acrobatic arts were just actions put to music, then in the Cultural Revolution you started talking, like in a play? yishujia [laughs heartily]: Yes, it was all talk.
XINRAN: I can't imagine what kind of acrobatic performance that would be! Who did the talking? How did they speak? Don't you need breath control for acrobatics? Could you control your breath while you were talking?
YISHUJIA: The movements didn't matter, the important part was shouting slogans and making revolutionary gestures. For example, when I was doing fancy work with a stave, after I'd completed a set, I'd say: '
XINRAN: You're a National Level One performer, what is your greatest accomplishment in the field of acrobatics?
YISHUJIA: How much do you know about acrobatics?
XINRAN: I don't understand it, I've only seen it, it's very mysterious to me.
YISHUJIA: Some people say that acrobatics is a catch-all designation for every kind of art that involves the human body surpassing its normal limits. Actually that's inaccurate. Acrobatics includes art, animal training, farce, vocal skills (including animal impressions and funny voices, puppet theatre, shadow plays and the like), and many other different types and varieties of strange techniques and skills, like sword swallowing, fire eating, cutting people or horses into pieces, everything of that kind. For this reason, the ancients also referred to acrobatics as 'Strange Theatre', the 'Hundred Acts' and 'Juggling Theatre'.
Compared with the acrobatics of other countries, Chinese acrobatics has its own special features: we attach a lot of importance to the skills of the waist, legs and top of head, this is what the phrases 'artistic acting and lively fighting' and 'tumbling from Peking Opera, skills with the head from acrobatics' are referring to. Seeking stability in the midst of risk, seeking peace in the midst of movement, seeking strangeness in the midst of the ordinary to attain perfection; the special characteristics of this art are displayed most plainly in
