Shaanxi Opera 秦腔 Qínqiāng

One day, as we were climbing a mountain near our house in Baoji, we heard a peculiar singing on the trail ahead. This was one of those times I realized I was very far from home. I had never heard that type of singing before. The melody, the voice quality, the words of course—all quite distant from any song I had ever heard. We caught up to the woman, and asked her what she was singing. It was 秦腔 (Qínqiāng), she said, the local style of Chinese opera. She sang for us as we climbed the mountain.

If you've never heard Chinese opera, it's hard to describe what Qinqiang sounds like, so here's a recording Brandon took of some people playing outside the Baoji train station. There are usually several stringed instruments and various percussion accompanying them. It is often very dramatic. It is also performed on stage, in full costume (sorry, the picture above is actually of 昆剧 Kunju, another style of Chinese opera we saw in Shanghai). People usually agree that Qínqiāng is louder than most other types of Chinese opera, and even some locals sometimes say it's noisy. Indeed, the singing could be considered to be a sort of yelling, but so could Western opera, each having very different ways of projecting a big sound from the human voice. Sometimes, it sounds like screaming. It takes some getting used to.

The local following tends to be among older and middle-aged people. Our apartment complex's guard 阿姨 Āyí (Aunty) listens to it all the time in her guard shack, often singing along. Brandon enjoys watching the Qínqiāng marathons on TV. It sometimes airs on several stations at the same time. He also sings along. I like it when there are people playing on the street, at the train station, or on the mountain. Sometimes people hire a band for funerals, which are sometimes held outside in the front yard. Many young people say they like Chinese pop music better, just as many youngsters in the West feel about Western opera, but I think that Qínqiāng has real character and deserves appreciation.