This evening, we were treated to two excerpts of Chinese opera, a selection from the Cantonese opera “The Scholar and the Maid” and a Beijing style martial arts opera, “The Monkey King.” “The Scholar and the Maid” tells the story of a young girl from a nunnery who decides that she needs to follow her heart and pursues the scholar Pan, her one true love. It’s a comedic play, with the facial expressions and tones of the music telling the story. “The Monkey King” excerpt was the section where the Monkey King fights twelve fighters. This was interesting for about ten minutes, but not much longer than that. Give me a smart, well-performed comedy any time.
Overall, I have been struck by the very clear differences between China and India. The roads in Beijing are very good, no potholes and traffic moves most of the day, albeit slowly at times. There are virtually no homeless people in the city, and very few beggars even. There is some truly amazing architecture here as well, partly for the Summer Olympics in 2008, but also it seems for regular commercial buildings. In all, from an initial view perspective, Beijing is much more developed looking than New Delhi.
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