By Chen Lin
China.org.cn staff writer
chenlin@china.org.cn

She's a top actress at the National Peking Opera Theater of China; she's a member of CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference); she had already won three prizes for her excellent performance at a National Peking Opera competition when she was only 15; she's guest director of the Petofi Theater in Hungary; she was named an honorary citizen of Hungary, making her only the third foreigner to receive the honor; she performed for Dr. Henry Kissinger, George Bush and Bill Clinton. With all these accolades, she still prefers that people say she's just a professor of Peking Opera at Renmin University when they introduce her. 

She's Sun Ping, a tall, slim and beautiful lady, who always has vivid and exaggerated facial expressions and body language.

'Just' a Peking Opera educator

Yes, Sun Ping really enjoys being a teacher. "I saw my students making efforts and then being rewarded with achievements. I saw them inheriting my knowledge and making progress everyday, just like watching my own daughter growing up beside me. I really enjoy that kind of feeling."

Now she's making effort to create a Master's and a Doctorate program in Peking Opera at Renmin University. She said the application will be approved soon.

Sun Ping said Peking Opera is a treasure of Chinese culture that the people can't let perish. She recalled the situation when she was young – everybody loved Peking Opera and could sing some segments from famous plays, just like people with pop songs today.

She denied that Peking Opera is out of date and young people do not like it. She said confidently, "I'm sure they will fall in love with Peking Opera if they get chance to know what really Peking Opera is!" Sun Ping has made a lot of effort to give young people the chance to understand Peking Opera.

She was the first person who mentioned the words "National Cultural Defense." She said a country should educate people with the best parts of traditional culture and maintain the cultural root of a nation.

She's also the first person to propose that Peking Opera should be part of music classes in school. And after the Ministry of Education added Peking Opera segments to elementary school textbooks, she proposed again that they should add more traditional Peking Operas than modern ones.

She has planned an entire education system for students: elementary school students just need to know what Peking Opera is, so she just added some Peking Opera arias into the textbooks. For high school students, if they still have an interest in Peking Opera, they can take an elective course. To the college students and researchers majoring in Peking Opera, Sun Ping plans to compile a series of books.

Because Peking Opera has no written text book, it has been taught through oral instruction and in-person demonstration from its inception. Sun said this is a problem she faced when she taught students in Europe and America. Some students were very interested in Peking Opera and asked Sun for book recommendations. She had to tell them that even she herself couldn't find books in Chinese, let alone in English.

So Sun decided to compile a textbook, with an analysis of some famous Peking Operas. The book concludes with theories based on the examples. She said, "Our generation is a connecting link between the preceding and the following. We should take responsibility for passing on to our descendants what we inherit from our predecessors intact."

Compiling books is just one part of her effort. She is also ambitious enough to have Peking Opera translated into English. She said it's not easy – people need to know both Chinese and Western literature. She suggested that there is no rush to translate the arias. The translating experts should work together to first make a Peking Opera dictionary and settle on some fixed expressions. She's working with He Qixin, a well-known Chinese translation expert, on some parts of this work.

She's satisfied with some of her achievements, but sometimes she also feels disappointed with and worried about the undermining effects of fast-food culture. The students are not as diligent as her generation was and they pursue achievements impatiently. She hopes people can devote more time to enjoying or learning Peking Opera.