Singing, Dancing, Clowning Through Life

IN the heart of Kuala Lumpur, on the fringes of bustling Bukit Bintang, lives an opera star in a little white 1950s-style terrace house. Dwarfed by multi-storey apartment buildings, the home of Madam Choy Him Heong is bursting with the paraphernalia and clutter of her ancient art.
The matriarch of Cantonese opera here has been retired for a year, but the spry 70-year-old's passion remains undimmed.
The Yuet Kohk (opera songs) is her life.
For 63 years, she has sung, danced, declaimed, kicked and clowned to atonal octave-bending melodies, accompanied by a seeming cacophony of clashing cymbals, piercingly high-pitched reeds and whiny string instruments that give the art its nickname "tong tong chiang".
And age if anything agrees very well with this bustling septuagenarian's regal mien, as she reminisces about her colourful life.
"I started in supporting roles when I was seven," she says. At 13, she was the darling of the troupe and at 17, she had grown into a stunning beauty.
Madam Choy says she "pak thor" (dated) a lot in her younger days. Her craft had taken her around much of Malaysia and Asia, and brought her in contact with many young eligible men.
"Those days, I was very pretty," she says pointing to her 17-year-old self in a picture frame.
"I worked in Penang, then Sabah and Sarawak. After that I came back to KL and later went to Hong Kong. I was in a few films there, and I also travelled to Bangkok and Vietnam to promote the shows and perform," she says with simple relish.
That is a considerable amount of travel for a young girl in the 1950s, even with a mother in tow.
Any success on the personal front? No, she says, as none of the dates was "husband material".
"I pak thor with this famous Hong Kong opera actor. Our personalities not compatible, so we parted loh," she says.
"He can't walk and can't talk now," Madam Choy adds about her Mr Almost-Right.
She recites names of Hong Kong opera stars who she says were in their heyday then. "I acted in the movies with them," she says proudly.
After becoming fa tarn, she mastered mun mo saung, the scholar-warrior male roles. But in the late 1970s, she stopped playing leading roles, and set about learning the technically more challenging comic ones, or chow saung.
Her surroundings are testament to her devotion. Glue, paper and synthetic hair occupy the coffee table in her cement-floored living room.
Close to hand is a metal carrying case containing the grease paint that trademarks each performer.
Boxes of props and costumes are stacked casually around the house and in its walled compound. The Jalan Berangan house looks more like a contractor's place of business, in fact.
She takes a few minutes out from the interview to sing a snatch of verse for a caller on her handphone.
"He asked if I know any old Chinese songs he can use for his show," she explains, with a happy grin.
Even now, she still takes on minor roles in various productions. And she shares her crowded home with members of the troupe.
She doesn't look 70 years old. Her eyes are sharp, her gestures as graceful and her mezzo soprano voice as firm as any contemporary fa tarn, the main female vocalist in Cantonese opera.
"Aiyaa ... sudah tua," she smiles. "I am old."
She had cataracts removed from both eyes recently, and a nerve infection two years ago has numbed the left side of her face, she says.
"So when I smile, it's a bit tilted. When I don't smile, you won't see it."
Her hands move gracefully over the picture frame, wiping off the day's collection of dust.
She and her two sisters are the last in the family business. Of the three, only one sister is married and has children.
Single and childless, Madam Choy appears to worry that Kenny, one of her sister's three kids, might not give the same commitment to the Yim Yeong Thin Cantonese Opera troupe she inherited from her father.
"He is very successful, working at a bank. Very high post some more. Usually he is our fa tarn. Probably he will inherit the company.
"But I have a lot of students, I have taught a lot of people here and even in Singapore. I used to go to Singapore to teach.
"Now I don't, I'm old. I just go visit and drink tea."
She pauses, her eyes glisten as she looks out the door of her house, perhaps wondering how much time is left in her art.
"People losing interest in Cantonese opera," she says, running a finger over another old and dusty photo frame, which holds a picture of her in full opera regalia.
"Only people my age know how to appreciate the opera. But they are old, too. They can't sit too long, they can't hear. They depend on their children or grandchildren to take them to see the opera. Even when they come, they cannot stay long.
"So, we don't get the old crowds."
Chinese operas combine several different performance arts - part ballet, part-acrobatics and part-historical play.
In Cantonese, opera is Tai Hei, the Great Show.
Many of its stories are adaptations of beloved Chinese classics, tragedies and folklore that carry lessons about filial piety, loyalty and patriotism. Because the Tai Hei is also partly rooted in rituals to mark festival days, it also portrays activities of the deities.
Six main roles usually feature - the male and female protagonists; supporting male and female characters; the clown or the villain; and a warrior. A full-scale performance, with different acts and scenes, used to last about four hours.
Interest here has gradually been reduced to a small group of hard-core fans. There is a revival in Hong Kong and China though, with new actors being drawn to make it their full-time profession.
One recent development has been the staging of performances in English.
This has attracted not just young Chinese who cannot speak their dialects or Mandarin, but also tourists and enthusiasts from other cultures.
Here, many troupes have part-time members for whom opera is a labour of love, and who hold other full-time jobs.
Still, there are signs of life yet - organisations are staging operas in English and Malay, and there are opportunities to perform at least well-loved scenes from different operas when full-scale productions are not feasible.
"At least now, people can understand when they come and watch the operas. Foreigners especially like us because of our costumes and makeup but they don't understand what the entire show is about," Madam Choy says.
These days, she is in the business of keeping her craft alive. With shows too few to count, she spends her time teaching. "I teach them how to sing and perform."
She points to a wui goon, the hall of a clan association opposite her house.
"Sometimes the students will drive me to other places to train.
Sometimes people call to ask me to recommend songs to sing at competitions. I teach them and rent them the costumes to wear.
"If they win, they split the prize money, or they will give me a few hundred ringgit."
Celebrations of the Chinese New Year are business opportunities for Madam Choy as well. She recalls a departmental store having rented her costumes for a display. Companies also look for advice and ideas on advertising and promotion, and other functions. Her phone rings intermittently with such calls during the interview.
For the uninitiated, it is the distinctive mask-like visages that come to mind when thinking of Chinese opera.
Indeed, the process of applying the grease paint is part of the ritual of getting into character.
"You must put the white colour first, and must put a lot for it to work.
If very dark under the eyes, must put even more," Madam Choy says, examining this writer's face.
After the white grease forms a thick coat, is the red applied on the cheeks and blended to a pinkish shade towards the hairline and jaw.
"The female face is different from the male face. See how the nose and the eyes are done. The males' noses are sharper and the eyes more defined."
Only then are the eyebrows and sideburns drawn in black. It takes about 40 minutes to paint a male character's face, but more than an hour for a female role.
Madam Choy buys the grease paints, headgear and hair-pieces from China.
"You cannot get these here," she says, opening up the steel case that contains the fat tubes of make-up, as well as dozens of fine-headed pins.
She then starts bringing out the various caps that the characters wear.
Her latest purchase is a black cap for the Choy Sun, the God of Fortune.
"I bought these in China. I have a lot of costumes, bought in China."
But the elaborately decorated lai fook or robes are not all from there. Hung on a rail in a riot of colours is one embroidered with numerous symbols of Chinese coins.
"I designed that one, the Choy Sun's robe. Beautiful or not?"