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Prof. Pai Hsien-yung organized four talks on campus of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), between 14 and 19 March, in which he brought the audience into a glamourous world which merges Chinese Literature with various art presentations, including drama, movie and Kunqu. At the age of 78, Prof. Pai seems to have endless energy when talking about his life-long pursuit to an audience.

Pai and literature

As the Wei Lun Professor of Humanities of CUHK, Prof. Pai is a world renowned writer. Writing with compassion and pity, Prof. Pai once said “I write to transform the unspeakable pain of the human soul into words”. His novels have been frequently adapted for TV dramas, movies and theatres. In Prof. Pai’s first talk, the audience was invited to watch a video of the theatre performance Crystal Boys, which was adapted from his novel of the same name, before listening to his explanation of how he transferred the characters from his book to the stage.

Pai and Kunqu

After watching a classic Kunqu performance at the age of 10, Kunqu was lodged in little Pai’s heart. When he retired, Prof. Pai, who describes himself as “a volunteer for Kunqu”, started his mission to rejuvenate this 600-year old Chinese classic of the performing arts. He successfully produced a Youthful Rendition of the ‘Peony Pavilion’, a Kunqu performance which was welcomed by audiences around the world and drew the attention of the younger generation. In addition, he opened courses in Kunqu for universities in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In CUHK, Prof. Pai not only opened a course under the Faculty of Arts to introduce the beauty of Kunqu , he also took up the role as the Honorary Director for the Kunqu Research and Promotion Project. In the last two of his talks, Prof. Pai invited professional performers from the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theatre of Jiangsu Province to stage demonstration performances to give the audience a lively and impressive introduction to Kunqu classics.

The I•CARE Book Festival, which was hosted throughout March, also organized a screening of the film Hsien-Yung Pai to tell the life story of Prof. Pai, who was invited to join the after-screening discussion. The film, which took three years of production and over 1,000 hours of filming, recorded Prof. Pai’s passion for Chinese Literature and Kunqu. It helped the audience to understand his determined and profound love for the beauty of Chinese classical culture.