The Pearl Pagoda

Introduction

A long Suzhou tanci classic, reshaped in the late Qing by Ma Rufei from a printed text of the Qianlong era

The Pearl Pagoda is one of the classic long narratives of Suzhou tanci, named with The Three Smiles, The Jade Dragonfly and The Gold-Painted Phoenix among the form's representative works. Its hero Fang Qing, from a family fallen on hard times, goes to his aunt for a loan and is turned away with scorn, while his cousin Chen Cui'e takes pity on him and secretly gives him the family's pearl pagoda. Fang later comes first in the examinations, returns to the Chen house disguised as a Daoist singer, mocks his aunt in song and at last marries Cui'e. According to the scholar A Ying, the version told by the late-Qing master Ma Rufei, who lived from about 1817 to 1881, was based on a printed text by Zhou Shushi from the Qianlong era, with sung passages of Ma's own added. Ma refined the work so carefully that later critics praised it as thoroughly polished, and his singing style became known as the Ma tune, the first of more than ten later schools of tanci singing. Suzhou pingtan entered the first national list of intangible cultural heritage in 2006.