‘We long for young members’: group seeks to keep Cantonese opera alive

SANDAKAN – While former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad may link eating with chopsticks to the local Chinese retaining China’s identity, here in Sandakan, there is the last Chinese opera group in Sabah striving to remain relevant.

The Ping Min Amateur Dramatic Club, with only about a dozen of performers, is probably the last group that is still actively performing the Cantonese opera, one of the major categories of Chinese opera.

Its performance director, Dr Sin Sun Moi, 73, said that almost all her seniors in the group have passed away, leaving her and other members who are now aged 60 to 80.

“We have now replaced our seniors, but we don’t have juniors to teach. We long for young members because after we leave this world, who is going to continue Cantonese opera here?

“It is difficult to attract young people to join as they see Chinese opera as old-fashioned and outdated. A lot of them are influenced by the Western culture and would prefer singing pop songs and dance hip-hop,” she told The Vibes.

Sin, who is a local doctor in a private clinic here, said she joined the club when she was 30 years old.

“My father was a disc record seller, so I grew up listening to classic Chinese songs including the Chinese opera. I felt like I had 'musical cells' in me; I was very quick on catching the rhythms and tunes when it comes to Chinese opera songs.

“When I heard that there was a club that specialised in singing and performing Chinese opera, I was very excited to sign up. I would go to the club to practice singing twice a week.

“I performed for the very first time two years after I joined the club (1981) and it was a dream come true; I will never forget the moment,” she said.

High-pitched singers take the stage

An opera performance could go longer than half an hour, but Sin said that the club would often make it shorter to avoid the audience from getting bored.

“No matter how much we want to maintain the flow of a script, we know that people here may not appreciate a 30-minute performance of the same person singing the same tune with the same action.

"So we would go for scripts that are shorter (15 to 30 minutes) and require fewer performers (two to five persons per script) as we lack the talents to go on stage,” she said.

The performers would take about a month to practice one script, and they would perform about two to five scripts for a single event.

“We do our own makeup which takes about an hour before we can go on stage. We reuse our old costumes for years as we are unable to change new ones due to lack of funds,” she said, adding that her makeup skills were taught by her seniors.

Due to the lack of male performers, the group would often use female performers to perform a male character, especially so when the performer has a male voice.

For someone who is not familiar with the opera, it is difficult to tell the gender of the performer acting a male character. They would also sing with a high-pitched voice; female characters sing in even higher notes.

“When I perform, I feel like I am in another world as I am deep into my character. I am proud to say that after performing for 37 years, I have always had quiet audiences. When the crowd is quiet during a performance, it means that they are truly enjoying and observing the show,” Sin said.

History of Chinese opera in Sandakan

As Sandakan became the capital of North Borneo (Sabah) in 1884, Hong Kong was one of Sandakan’s main trading partners. Many traders from Hong Kong eventually settled in Sandakan, giving the town its nickname the “Little Hong Kong”.

In 1927, the Ping Min Amateur Dramatic Club was set up under the British’s governance. The club was active until the Japanese occupied the town in 1942.

The club members had acted pushing for a donation drive for war victims, which had caused the Japanese to ban the club. However, the club was revived after the war ended in 1946.

Today, the 94-year-old Ping Min Amateur Dramatic Club remains active despite stopping performance for the last two years due to the pandemic.

The club has been raising funds through its annual dinner, a highly anticipated event by its fans. And they would perform all night while their guests enjoy their dinner.

They have also been invited to various events in different places to perform – Tawau, Lahad Datu, Kota Kinabalu, and Labuan – and were invited for a cultural exchange programme in Penang in 2015.

The last two Chinese opera clubs in Sabah including in Tawau and Kota Kinabalu have either stopped their activities or have shifted to modern arts (performance).

A glimpse of hope for the dying art

Sin and her friends’ prayers were answered one day when 21-year-old Teriesa Mok Siew Man walked into the Ping Min Amateur Dramatic Club’s premises at Sandakan town here, expressing interest to join the club.

Mok, a modern dance teacher, said she has always been interested in Chinese tradition and performing arts. She started her journey in Chinese opera in 2019.

“When I joined, I was the youngest member of the club. My friend’s father asked me to join, and as a dance teacher, I appreciate performing arts and I was very keen to learn more.

“The seniors in the club then told me that I was a natural. They gave me a CD for me to practice my singing. Within several months, I was already up on stage performing for the first time,” she said.

Mok said she felt sad that the Chinese opera performances in Sandakan now use a recorded song for its background music, instead of live music played with traditional instruments.

“I saw that the traditional instruments such as Erhu and Guzheng were kept in a cabinet at the club for the show. I was told that the people who knew how to play them have passed away.

“If young people like me do not continue this tradition, soon, even the costumes will be kept in the cabinet for show and there will no longer be any Chinese opera performance in Sabah,” she said.

Mok, 23, is now the mother of a five-month-old girl.

She said she hopes that her daughter will be open to learning Chinese opera in the future.

If there are more like youths like Mok, perhaps the dying Chinese opera art in Sabah may have a glimpse of hope to continue living. – The Vibes, December 26, 2021