Ma Shizeng

Also known as Zi Bolu · Hao Jingcan

Ma Shizeng, courtesy name Bolu, came from Shunde in Guangdong. He began training in Cantonese opera in Guangzhou in 1917 and then performed in Southeast Asia. Back in Hong Kong in 1923, he played the clown-lead in Bitter Phoenix, Pitied Oriole and developed a singing style of his own, the Ma style, also called the beggar style. He formed the Daluotian troupe in 1925, performed in San Francisco from 1931, and on returning to Hong Kong in 1933 founded the Taiping troupe, whose contest with Xue Juexian's company was known as the Xue-Ma rivalry. He moved to Guangzhou in 1955, became head of the Guangdong Cantonese Opera Academy in 1958, staged Guan Hanqing and Searching the Study, and died in Beijing in 1964.