Ma Ji, one of most famous Chinese crosstalk performers, died of heart disease at the age of 72 in a hospital in Beijing Wednesday morning.

Ma Ji was born in Beijing in 1934 and studied the art of crosstalk from the late master artist Hou Baolin. Most of his crosstalk performances shed light on the daily life of ordinary people in the capital.

Not content with reiterating the techniques he learnt from his master, Ma Ji went on to develop a whole new genre of crosstalk dedicated to praising Chinese people's new lives and heroic deeds in the early period of the People's Republic of China.

The China Crosstalk website lauded him as the country's top crosstalk performer who had made the greatest contribution to his art in 2000.

He also received a Life Achievement award at the China Quyi Peony Awards in August, the highest honor in the country's cultural and arts world.
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(CRI December 20, 2006)