Chinese Opera Myths and Facts: Prologue

Chinese opera is one of the treasures of the Chinese traditional culture, and through Chinese opera, one can not only immense themselves in the fine traditional folk musical and dramatic culture of the Chinese, but also take a peep into the history of the Chinese civilisation.

However, having said that, I have to put on a disclaimer: do not believe everything that happen on stage. Of course, I'm not referring to actors not really crying on stage or two stage lovers may not be real couples off stage. What I'm referring to is that whatever story that is happening on stage should and must not be taken as historical facts. Many so-called "historical plays", or shows featuring real historical figures actually deviate greatly from actual historical records, but many of them have been generally accepted as fact already.

In this series of posts, I shall touch on some of these historically-inaccurate plays, and try to restore the "truth" behind them.