''Shajiabang'' (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

: 沙家浜, also ''Shachiapang''); first produced under the title ''Sparks Amid the Reeds'', is a Chinese revolutionary opera and one of the eight "model plays" permitted during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

Production

It was first produced as a Shanghai opera entitled ''Sparks amid the Reeds'' (芦荡火种) or ''Emerald Water and Red Flags'' in 1958 by the Hu Opera Troupe. In October 1963, the First Peking Opera Company adapted it as a Peking opera.

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

saw it in 1964 and asked that the title be changed, as sparks would not set wet reeds alight, so it was named after its setting, the town of

Shajiabang Shajiabang ( Chinese: ) is a town in Changshu, Suzhou, China; a tourist village located adjacent to Yangcheng Lake in Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal provi ...

("sands family creek"). Jiang Qing (Mao's wife, a leading figure in the Cultural Revolution), insisted that the role of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

political commissar be expanded. The dance routines were also revised, the opera not reaching its final form until 1970.

Wang Zengqi Wang Zengqi (; 1920 – 1997) was a contemporary Chinese writer. He is famous for his short stories and essays. He is regarded as a successor of Beijing School Writers. Biography Wang was born in a landowner family in 1920 in Gaoyou, Jiangsu provi ...

also contributed to it.

Synopsis

Set during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

("War of Resistance", early 1940s) in Japanese-ruled territory west of

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

. Shajiabang is a town by

Yangcheng Lake Yangcheng Lake () is a freshwater lake about northeast of the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, and ranges in depth from . The lake is -long from north to south, with an average width of from east to west. It is the most famous area of origin ...

. Sister Aqing runs a

teahouse A teahouse (mainly Asia) or tearoom (also tea room) is an establishment which primarily serves tea and other light refreshments. A tea room may be a room set aside in a hotel especially for serving afternoon tea, or may be an establishment whic ...

visited by officers of a Chinese collaborationist group; unbeknownst to them, she is a member of the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...

, and is helping wounded soldiers of the New Fourth Army who are hiding in the marshes.

Legacy

''Shajiabang'' was made into a film in 1971 by the Changchun Film Studio, and the score has also been performed as a "revolutionary symphony." An exhibition hall of Shajiabang's revolutionary history was opened in 1988, and expanded in 2006.

References

External links

* {{Cultural Revolution, state=collapsed Revolutionary operas Jiangsu in fiction Works about the Second Sino-Japanese War Chinese plays adapted into films