Month: February 2019

This performance was by Li Yang, a member of the National Peking Opera Troupe. Peking Opera is also known as Beijing Opera and is a regional style of traditional Chinese opera. It is said that one good second of Peking Opera requires 10 years of training. This was true of Li Yang who left his home at seven years old to train in an opera school. Since then his whole life has been dedicated to practicing and performing Beijing Opera.

Before the performance began, we heard a history and background of Chinese opera, with an emphasis on Beijing Opera, which was given by Professor David Rolston. It’s a very interesting subject and I encourage you to do some research before watching a Chinese Opera. At least to learn about the main characters that will be performing and a summary of the plot. The face painting is important in Chinese opera because it can be very difficult to understand what is being said, even for native Chinese speakers. So the face paint tells a lot about the character. The color of the face paint is very important: red indicates loyalty, black indicates integrity, purple and pink indicate honesty, white indicates conceit and trickery, yellow indicates an aggressive nature, etc.

Li Yang performed two different songs for us, each song from a different character and therefore with different face paint.  The first character was Cao Cao which is an evil character from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the second character was Li Kui, from Water Margin,  which is one of the four great classical Chinese novels. He performed each song twice, the first time without any face paint and the second time with the full face paint. Li Yang paints his face himself. Actors in the U.S. don’t do their own makeup, but in Chinese Opera they do because this allows actors to create their own distinguishing features to their face paint.

I actually enjoyed watching Li Yang perform the songs without any face paint more because I could see the expressions on his face more clearly. I thought his facial expressions were comical, especially when he would fully open his eyes and dart around his eyeballs. I really enjoyed watching his movements while he sang which reminded me of Tai-chi.

The songs he performed for us usually have an orchestra accompaniment. Li Yang would mimic the sounds of the orchestra with his voice while he performed. It was very interesting to hear, the best way to describe it is with “tutt tutt tut, putt putt put” sounds.

Afterwards, they had a raffle. I wanted to win the grand prize of getting my face painted by Li Yang, but instead, I got a bottle opener in the shape of a painted face. Which was still nice.

I attached three images below, the first two images are of Cao Cao, the second image is Li Kui.

The film On the Basis of Sex, a celebration of the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is inspiring, educational and thoroughly enjoyable.

The movie opens with a crowd of what appears to be all men – first year law students – parading in to be addressed by the school’s dean, all to the fitting tune “10,000 Men of Harvard.” Then, in the sea of feet clad in men’s dress shoes, the camera focuses on a high-heeled pair marching in their midst – the feet of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones), one of only nine women in her Harvard Law School class.

In the dean’s address to the students, he speaks of the students using only male pronouns, and it becomes clear that he does not believe that a woman has any place at Harvard Law School. Then, if there was any doubt in viewers’ minds about this fact, at a supposed welcome dinner for the nine women, the dean asks them to “report who [they] are, and why [they] are occupying a place that could have gone to a man.” To suppressed snickers from the other female students, Ruth Bader Ginsburg reports that her “husband is in the second-year class,” and she is at Harvard “to learn more about his work, so [she] can be a more patient and understanding wife.”

In contrast to this, it becomes apparent throughout the movie that Justice Ginsburg’s marriage to her husband Martin Ginsburg, portrayed by Armie Hammer, was profoundly modern for the time period. He was a tax lawyer, and unconditionally supportive of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s professional aspirations. In fact, he was the one who found her the court case that would become the climax of the movie.

The court case, which involved Charles Moritz, a man caring for his mother who was denied a caregiver’s tax deduction because he was not female, would ultimately be taken to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. In my opinion, though still enjoyable, the actual courtroom scenes were probably among the movie’s weakest, because the way they were portrayed seemed rather cliché. Ruth Bader Ginsburg stumbled severely during the oral argument, and then appeared to save the case in her rebuttal. In fact, Justice Ginsburg herself recalls that “[she] didn’t stumble at the outset.” However, enthusiasts of United States government and politics will certainly appreciate the numerous references to landmark Supreme Court cases sprinkled throughout the movie (I know I did).

Overall, it’s hard to condense a life into 120 minutes, and in my opinion, On the Basis of Sex did an excellent job. I am personally surprised that the movie only has a 72% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While it may be true that the film offers a glorified, simplified version of Justice Ginsburg’s earlier years, we are, after all, looking back on history through a lens colored by the knowledge that the film’s heroine would become a leading litigator for gender equality, and then a member of the nation’s highest Court. The movie is not a comprehensive biography, nor do I think it was intended to be one. If the movie leaves the audience more curious than when they came, then in many ways, I think that is a victory.

I, for one, could not stop smiling for at least half the movie (“Is that an answer, Mrs. Ginsburg, or a filibuster?”), and watching On the Basis of Sex has only increased my curiosity and desire to learn more about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The film is currently showing at the Michigan Theater.