Suiyuanle

Also known as Born Si Ruixuan

Suiyuanle, born Si Ruixuan, was a bannerman of late-Qing Beijing who began as an amateur singer of bajiaogu; his dates are unknown. Histories of the form say that around 1880 he wrote his own lyrics and sang them to his own sanxian in teahouses, billing himself as Suiyuanle, one-man danxian bajiaogu, and that from then on danxian spread as a genre of its own, followed by masters such as De Shoushan, Quan Yueru and Rong Jianchen. His lyrics were plain and he changed them at every performance; a story tells that a princely household asked him for Lifting the Curtain and Cutting Cloth, and he cleaned up its coarse lines while keeping the laughs.