Farewell My Concubine: Farewell a Golden Dream

Lien Dao

Professor Carolyn Morley

EALC 253

Friday, March 3rd 2017

                     Farewell My Concubine: Farewell a Golden Dream  

        “Farewell My Concubine” (Ba Wang Bie Ji) has been a popular Chinese historical reference long before it becomes a classical Chinese opera. The reference/opera recounts the defeat of Xiang Yu (232BC-202BC), a powerful warlord in the late Qin dynasty, and Yu Ji, his favorite concubine’s suicide to prove her loyalty to him upon his downfall. In 1993, director Chen Kaige used this historical reference to create a cinematic masterpiece depicting the fall of Beijing opera during the Chinese political turmoil from the late Qing dynasty to 1977. The movie focuses on the life of two actors in the “Farewell My Concubine” opera, Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou, from their childhood to adulthood. Cheng Dieyi is probably one of the most intriguing characters in cinematic history for his identity as a male opera singer taking female roles. Dieyi’s stubborn love and loyalty to Xiaolou, his childhood friend and acting partner, underlies his inability to escape from the concubine role in the opera. The obsessive connection between Dieyi and Beijing opera identifies him as the symbol for the bygone Chinese golden heritage; they are both beautifully sensitive and vulnerable, and all they vainly long for is appreciation and protection.  

Beijing opera comes to Dieyi’s life abruptly and brutally in his early childhood as his mother’s last escape from the contemporary societal predicament. Unable to keep him in the brothel any longer, Dieyi’s mother brings him to the opera troupe to be an apprentice; however, the master refuses to take Dieyi, claiming that “This child isn’t fated to be an actor, not with that extra finger.” In order to get Dieyi into the troupe, his mother ruthlessly chops off his finger and leaves for good. Through the dark-colored costumes and sharply interrupted sound effect, Chen Kaige depicts an extremely violent and frosty mood, hinting at the invisible hand of fate that callously deforms the helpless Dieyi’s life. What he loses is not only his finger, but also his former life with no name, his original identity, and thus, his individuality. From the moment his finger is chopped off, Dieyi adopts a new identity, Douzi, and his sole purpose of existence is for Beijing opera.

        During the life as Douzi, Dieyi sacrifices his entire self for Chinese opera, marked by his struggle to sing “I’m by nature a girl, not a boy.” Despite being beaten relentlessly, Douzi keeps singing “I’m by nature a boy,” instead of “I’m by nature a girl.” He doesn’t want to betray the last piece of his original identity being a boy, taking up the female identity. However, Douzi gives in when Shitou (Xiaolou’s childhood name) accuses Douzi of destroying the troupe’s only hope, and viciously rams the tobacco pipe into Douzi’s mouth to make him speak the line correctly. The violence and the dramatic sound effect in this scene again suggests the fate’s cruel strike on Douzi. With his sensitive and vulnerable nature, Douzi unsurprisingly chooses to sacrifice his male identity to not only save Shitou, but also their last hope, the Beijing opera. Giving away all of him to Shitou and to the opera, Douzi starts to make them his existential meaning. Chen Kaige emphasizes Douzi’s identity transformation through the sudden change in his emotions before and after he makes the line “I’m by nature a girl.” In a second, the bewildered Douzi turns into a cheerful and innocent 16-year-old nun. Since this moment, Douzi unconsciously starts to undertake the female characteristics and gets more and more immersed into Chinese opera.

        As time passes, Douzi and Shitou become famous Beijing opera stars, changing their stage names to Cheng Dieyi and Xuan Xiaolou. Throughout all the years, Dieyi lives in the dream that Beijing opera will be forever glamourous, Xiaolou is always the king, and he is always the concubine. However, Xiaolou never dreams Dieyi’s dream, and thus, he brutally snaps Dieyi out of his lifelong reverie when announcing his engagement with the prostitute Juxian. Although Dieyi desperately begs Xiaolou to stay, Xiaolou ruthlessly declares, “I’m just a fake king. You really are Concubine Yu.” Dieyi needs Xiaolou, the king of Chu, to stay so that he can continue to live in that beautiful epic dream of Yu Ji, and preserve the opera, as well as to be protected by the opera stage. The image of Dieyi in his makeup with tears being held back in his eyes hauntingly describes his fragility when being neglected. Only one person, Master Yuan, seems to appreciate and praise Dieyi’s beauty: “A smile ushers in the spring. A tear does darken all the world.” However, Yuan fails to truly fathom and treasure the beauty, since he is only a transient audience with an acute awareness of the difference between the opera and reality. In Master Yuan’s garden that dark night, Dieyi eventually cries after hearing Yuan says, “Don’t! It’s real sword.” The tears come from the realization that there is only him in this world unable to divorce from the opera stage.

        Dieyi’s unswerving loyalty to the opera prevents him from compromising to the political and social changes that gradually depreciate the traditional Beijing opera’s values. He insists on the beauty of traditional opera, the ambience, and claims that the modern operas, with laboring masses theme, lacks this beauty. Meanwhile, people in Dieyi’s theater, even Xiaolou, choose to reconcile with the modern operas in order to avoid troubles from the laboring class’s rising power. As a result of his pertinacity, Dieyi’s Yu Ji role is replaced by Xiaosi, a supporter of the New Society. Although Xiaolou, has betrayed him and the traditional Beijing opera when performing with another Yu Ji, Dieyi, also Yuji, is still dignifiedly loyal to his role and to the opera. When Xiaolou comes to apologize and advises Dieyi to go with the times, Dieyi steadfastly responds, “Why does the concubine have to die?” Both of them understand that the concubine dies because she sees no future for her king, and chooses the death as a means to preserve the glorious image of her king. Dieyi implies that he rather stops acting, than staying on the stage and observe the Beijing opera deteriorating. Therefore, when burning all of his opera costumes, Dieyi let his female roles commit suicide to protect the traditional ambience of Beijing opera.