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    Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away, a Play
    Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away, a Play
    Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away, a Play
    Ebook92 pages2 hours

    Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away, a Play

    By Hock G. Tjoa

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    This is the story of Shopkeeper Wang and the friends, the regulars, and the transients who visit the Yutai (Abundant Peace) Teahouse, a Beijing neighborhood institution, during the decades of the early twentieth century. The setting is intimate and the atmosphere, action and themes, Dickensian. The play is adapted from Teahouse by Lao She (Shu Qingchun) Chinese original published in 1957. The original has been reduced from three acts, set over fifty years, with nearly seventy characters to a play in two acts set about twenty-five years apart with a cast of twenty (some multiple casting). It tries to reproduce as much as possible the characters and actions that Lao She created for a world of those living at the bottom edge of civility and into which corruption and exploitation roughly intrude. This is a world of the poor caught up in the spin-cycle of world historical change.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHock G. Tjoa
    Release dateNov 11, 2011
    ISBN9781466169012
    Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away, a Play
    Author

    Hock G. Tjoa

    Hock was born in Singapore to Chinese parents. He studied history and classics at Brandeis and Harvard and taught the History of Modern Europe and of Asian Political Thought at the University of Malaya. He has published George Henry Lewes, a Victorian mind and "The Social and Political ideas of Tan Cheng Lock." He is married with two adult daughters and now lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. In 2010, he published a selection and translation of the Chinese classic, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms under the title "The Battle of Chibi." In 2011, he is publishing an adaptation of Lao She's "Teahouse" as "Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away, a Play." He published "The Chinese Spymaster," the first of a planned three volume series, and "The Ingenious Judge Dee" in 2013

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      Book preview

      Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away, a Play - Hock G. Tjoa

      PREFACE

      This is the story of Shopkeeper Wang and the friends, the regulars, and the transients who visit the Yutai (Abundant Peace) Teahouse, a Beijing neighborhood institution, during the tumultuous decades of the early twentieth century. The setting is intimate and the atmosphere, action, and themes, Dickensian. It is as if someone wrote about life in the American Colonies during the second half of the eighteenth century from the point of view of the working class. We would see the toll house clerks, the tradesmen, the longshoremen, and other regulars at a neighborhood tavern in, say, Philadelphia—as opposed to those frequented by the Virginia aristocracy or by the (bourgeois) Sons of Liberty.

      Lao She’s Mandarin original (published in 1957) inspired this play but the original comprised three acts, set over fifty years with nearly seventy characters. I have adapted it into two acts set about twenty-five years apart with a cast of twenty. I have tried, however, to reproduce as much as possible the characters and actions that Lao She created for a world of those living at the bottom edge of civility and into which corruption and exploitation roughly intrude. This is a world of the working class caught up in the spin-cycle of world historical change. In a different era, the Shopkeeper and his friends might have made more of their lives.

      The original was written in what is said to have been a distinct Beijing dialect and its dialogue captured even the coarse language of soldiers and deserters. I have not transposed this into any modern-day inner-city dialect. Nor have I attempted to translate it into the English of the late 1950s, choosing instead standard modern English.

      Act I (set in 1923) shows the Teahouse as it achieves a modest success in surviving for over twenty-five years since its founding by the Shopkeeper’s father. Political chaos and economic uncertainty raged outside the walls of the Teahouse. China under the Manchu Qing dynasty was singularly unprepared for its confrontation with the West. This became nakedly obvious with the Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century. But China’s Era of Humiliation continued through the Second Act of this play.

      The fall of the Qing dynasty and the foundation of the Chinese Republic in 1911 did not clarify the national debate or improve the nation’s preparedness. Warlords and foreign interests contributed equally to the social and political chaos. The Shopkeeper strenuously tries to keep some normalcy within the walls of the Teahouse. We meet an assortment of regulars, as well as those that prey on them, and in particular Kang Shunzi a woman now in her late 30s. She had been sold about twenty-five years ago by her desperate family to be a concubine to a Eunuch.

      In Act II (set in 1948), the Teahouse has visibly succumbed to the deterioration of the economic and political conditions in China. During that year, inflation reached 3,000 percent. Some of the characters in the play are now replaced by their respective offspring who continue in similar pursuits. The Shopkeeper and two or three others are still active, including the woman Kang whose adopted son, off stage, left to join the Communists, while the Nationalists still retain control of Beijing. Foreigners— Americans, Russians and Japanese lurk in the background. The play takes on a more political tone which does not obscure the human drama of making the right choices and making ends meet.

      Each Act consists of five scenes and there is an Intermission between the two Acts.

      The world beyond China was also a very troubled place. In 1923 (Act I), a crippled and humiliated Germany dealt with soaring inflation by revaluing its currency: It dropped twelve zeroes from the face value of the Mark. This wrenching adjustment no doubt contributed to political unrest. Adolf Hitler led one such act of civil disturbance (the Beer Hall Putsch). In Japan, an earthquake of magnitude 9.9 leveled one-third of Tokyo, but did not diminish the Japanese Will to Power and readiness to wage total war. That same year, the Russian Soviet sent advisors to China.

      In 1948, China’s ruling Nationalist Party, propped up by arms and gold from the United States, was oblivious of its impending demise and elected a legislature of seven hundred and fifty-nine representatives. In India, Gandhi was assassinated and in Yugoslavia, Marshall Tito declared independence from Stalin’s Russia, while in the Middle East, the state of Israel was born.

      The Chinese, like many other cultures, did not use first names. What Americans consider a sign of friendship and intimacy is considered, alas, a gross liberty. The Chinese prefer to use nicknames (Pockface), occupations (Shopkeeper), or whatever, in combination with the family name. First names are used only when addressing small children. Further, a family term is often added to indicate relative status: Uncle or Aunty indicates that the person (even if younger) is accorded the respect that goes with belonging to the same generation as one’s parents. Brother or Sister indicates generational equality and the respect and loyalty entailed among siblings. Sometimes, Elder is used instead of Uncle/Aunty, indicating the generational difference in the relationship but not giving it a family connection, most likely because it would be an impolite presumption on the part of a social inferior.

      The Shopkeeper addresses his son, Wang Dashuan, as Number One because he had two sons, the second had only recently disappeared during WWII. Someone like Kang Shunzi is Sister to the Shopkeeper, Aunty to his son and daughter-in-law, and Granny to his granddaughter. The Shopkeeper may address her by any of these given the presence of others. Finally, Old so and so is a way to address those to whom, for whatever reason, none of the previous factors apply. It is used in the names of the two soldiers who are customers of Pockface Lu in Act I.

      Heaven is high and the Emperor is far away was a familiar saying in the provinces of China, especially in those to the South. It reflects the sense that human ideals are quite remote from our mundane reality. It suggests that Fate has made human lives into the flotsam

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