I happen to be in the right place at the right time… a lot.  So when the organizer of TUSA asked for one male and one female model for our Chinese Opera elective class in a facebook post, luck struck again, and I was the first girl to comment on her post.  Thus, I secured the position, and got to become a bride from the Qing Dynasty for a day.

 Jessica Miller’s photo.

And let’s be real, what girl hasn’t always kind of wanted to be a model?  Dressing up, doing your hair and make up… that was usually the best part about high school dances— the dance itself was a bonus.

Our presenters started by talking about the differences in gestures on stage for male and female characters.  Females act very dainty and feminine with small motions, while males have large, sweeping motions.

Female:

Male:

They also said it takes six years to master one part!  In Chinese opera, people focus on one character and dedicate their career to mastering a single role.  Once you have a part, that’s the part you play until you retire from acting.  Even if your part is to play an 20-year-old girl and you’re 60, with make up, you’re still able to play the part.  They said that with good make up, you shouldn’t be able to tell whether a male or a female is playing each character.

They described how Chinese opera is very representative, symbolic.  As in, things on stage will stand in for other objects.  For instance, a character standing on a table would mean that he is standing on a mountain.  And two characters carrying flags with wheels on them would mean they are traveling in a vehicle.

Before this, they showed us some weapons.

At some point Stephen put on a super long beard:

Then came the time where we got to put on make up!  They handed out mirrors and brushes to everyone in the class.

And after that, they called me up on stage.  I was to be the one that everyone copied off of.  So lucky!!

She started by rubbing a peach colored cream all over my face.  Including my eyelids, and my lips.

And when I say rubbed in… I mean rubbed in.

It was weird not having any color in my face anymore.

And then the class followed suit…

Then she painted red around my eyes.

She mixed together a pink color and blended the eye make up with the rest of my face.  The translator kept saying to put it on gently, but she had no problem forcefully pressing her palms against my face.  Squint and pretend you’re okay with it!

Then she slapped white powder all over my face.  It was the opposite of delicate.

After that, she put black eye liner around my eyes and over my eyebrows.

 

And then drew tiny, red lips over mine.  The name for this kind of lips includes the word for cherry in it, yīng táo (櫻桃).

And soon enough, my make up was finished.  It was time to wrap my head.  She started by tying a thick band around my face so that it pulled upward on my skin.  Then she put tape over it, to fix it in place.

She glued a piece of black hair to each side of my face to make it appear skinnier.  Then she put in jeweled bobby pins to secure long black hair to the back of my head, and bangs to the front.

   

Next I slipped on my robe.  I’m definitely making it sound easier than it was…

And then they attached the headdress to my head, somehow.  The whole thing was very heavy, and with the bands and tape tugging upward on my face, it started to get uncomfortable after about 20 minutes.  But it was so worth it!

 

I felt famous with so many people taking photos of me and with me.  It was nice pretending to be super popular, when really, it was just that I was wearing the professional’s make up and a bride’s outfit.  I felt like a true model though!  I can check that off my bucket list.

After me, everyone got to try on different outfits and head pieces.  Everyone looked so bizarre in their face paint and costumes.  It was hard to even recognize a lot of my classmates!  We all had a great time playing dress up, Chinese opera style.  In the second photo below, Adam is wearing an general’s outfit.

It took me back to the days of dressing up like fairies and princesses, except for this wasn’t fictional.  Qing Dynasty brides actually existed, and this is what they wore.  I would hate to have all of that gear sitting on my head on my wedding day!  Mad respect to Qing Dynasty brides.

I wish school were more like today, where you got to put yourself in the shoes of history.  It brings ancient times to life in vivid color.  There were so many things I learned today about Chinese opera that I could have never learned in a book.  I will never forget it either.  As people flashed cameras at me in the lecture hall of NCKU, I pictured myself and my Qing Dynasty husband, on our wedding day, about to go through with a traditional ceremony before spending the rest of time together, until death do us part.  How different my life would be…

(A huge thank you to the people who dressed me up!  Such a cool experience!!)