THE JOURNEY OF ZHAJOUN MITEM

More than two thousand years ago, the Great Han Empire defeated the Hun rebels in the Western Regions, and the Hun Chieftain Huhanye asked for a peace treaty through an intermarriage with a Han Princess. Han Emperor Yuan wished for a long-term stability between Han and Hun. It happened that he saw an attractive maid Zhaojun, a versatile court musician, whom he took as an ideal person to be disguised as a princess and married to the far Northern prairie. A plague ravaged the Hun region, Chieftain Huhanye passed away when Zhaojun was giving birth to her son. Zhaojun wrote a petition to Han Emperor Cheng, asking a permission of return. Han Emperor Cheng, however, replied her that she must follow the customs of the Hun and remarry to another chieftain Fuzhulei. Zhaojun overwhelmed with sorrow and perplexed by a dilemma. Peaceful days ended years later, when the Hun royal court was in a chaotic disorder and several murders took place, resulting in the deaths of both the son and the daughter of Emperor Zhaojun. The Han and the Hun was on the verge of war again. What should Zhaojun, the "shepherd" who married to the desert, do under such a tough situation? The play deals with a perpetual topic of peace and stability. It gives an insight on how people should strive for peace and harmonious co-existence among different peoples, both in the old days, and in the world communities today. The performance is a Qinqiang opera, the oldest form of opera in China, from Shanxi Province, starred by Hui Minli, the winner of the highest award in Chinese theatre performance—the "Plum-Blossom Award", and the president of Xi'an Yisu Theatre.