Thursday, August 24, 2000

Love of Chinese opera came from different perspectives

Contributed photo

Jin Cai Xu was a professional Chinese opera singer at the forefront of Shanghai’s Yue opera during the 1940s.

At a very early age, Jenny Lin realized what her own mother discovered at 13. Nothing spoke to her soul quite like Chinese opera.
   But her mother, Jin Cai Xu, would have none of it. Xu, who in her youth had been an exceptionally talented professional Chinese opera singer with one of Shanghai's most renowned opera companies, recalled her own bittersweet career and was determined that her daughter never would have to experience such sorrow.
   For Xu, Chinese opera started out as nothing more than a means of survival.
   After her father's death, Xu, daughter of a poor peasant family from a little village in southern China, found herself in desperate circumstances. With education an unattainable goal, Xu opted for the only alternative at the time to a life of servitude. Her career choice, however, was considered low status and instead of being a servant girl for a wealthy family, she was in many ways a servant indebted to her opera teacher.

George Gongora/Caller-Times

Jin Cai Xu's daughter, Jenny Lin, is performing at a local benefit on Saturday for the Asian Cultures Museum and the Philippine Society for the Performing Arts.

   Xu survived the years of hardship traveling village to village singing and dancing, her vocal talents eventually earning her a place at the forefront of Shanghai's Yue opera during the 1940s. It proved a personally rewarding career, until 1966, when she became a victim of the Cultural Revolution, a time when no traditional opera was performed. For three years, Xu was kept in a re-education camp, forced daily to confess her "crime of capitalism" and barred from seeing her family.
   Xu eventually returned to her profession, this time teaching up-and-coming opera singers. But she forbid her own daughter to take to the stage, instead steering her toward academics. Dissuaded from developing an interest in the performing arts, Lin chose studies in microbiology at China's Ximan University, followed by graduate studies in Louisville, Ky, where she met her husband.
   When Lin earned her second master's degree in 1999, however, the academic milestone didn't propel her further into work as a research associate. Oddly enough, it redirected her to her first love - opera.
   Lin now dreams of becoming a Chinese and Italian opera singer, and for the past year has been taking vocal lessons from Flicka Rahn, a professor of voice at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. This Saturday, she performs at a local benefit for the Asian Cultures Museum and the Philippine Society for the Performing Arts.
   "I am very lucky," said Lin, 40. "This is my inheritance, my talent, my passion and my choice. When I sing it, I can shut out the world. And I am as happy as I can be.
   "And my 77-year-old mother? She realizes she was the one that gave me this passion for music. Even though she knows opera has more power over me than she does, she is very happy for me and proud of me. I am lucky."