Teaching Liang Zhu in America 在美国教梁祝

"Liang Zhu," short for "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai," also known as "Butterfly Lovers," is a classic Chinese love story. Zhu Yingtai, the girl who disguised herself as a young man so she could go to school, met the boy Liang Shanbo. They studied together for three years. Liang Shanbo never realized that Zhu Yingtai was a girl, while Zhu had deeply fallen in love with her school mate. 

Three years later, one day, Zhu Yingtai received a letter from home telling her that her father is dying. Unwilling to leave her dear friend Liang Shanbo, she invited Liang to come to her home and meet her 9th sister. The two friends traveled together for 18 miles, until they finally parted in tears. Liang promised to pay Zhu a visit on the seventh day of the seventh month at her home.

When Liang did travel to Zhu's home, however, he discovered there would be no 9th sister, only his beautiful friend Zhu Yingtai. However, Zhu Yingtai burst into tears when she saw Liang Shanbo. Devoted and passionate about each other they were, Zhu Yingtai’s father had already arranged a marriage for her with another man, like every Chinese family arranged marriages for their daughters. Extremely depressed, Liang returned home. He could not sleep, could not eat, and soon died with a broken heart.

On the day Zhu was to be married to her arranged husband, a whirlwind prevented the wedding procession just as they passed Liang Shanbo’s tomb. Zhu broke away from her attendants and collapsed in front of Liang’s tomb, crying remorsefully. Suddenly, the thunder stroke, heavy rain poured down, and Liang’s tomb split apart. Zhu Yingtai dived into the open tomb to join her lover. What happened next? The sun reappeared, and a rainbow spread across the sky. A pair of butterflies emerged from the tomb, free and cheerful. Together, they danced around the tomb for a little while, and then slowly flew away. Liang and Zhu have lived on. Their love has triumphed over odds and death.

I love the "Liang Zhu" story so much. It represents one of the most beautiful strings of Chinese culture. I want to introduce it to my students. My initial attempt, however, was not successful. I first tried to introduce "Liang Zhu" to some of my Chinese students last year when we were studying a chapter about dating. As I told the story in Chinese, I tried my best to stay within their vocabulary, draw illustrations on the board, speak dramatically, and act some parts. But nobody seemed to appreciate the story. I was not sure if they did not understand the story, or just did not find it particularly moving. Perhaps that was a predominantly boys' class, and high school boys did not want to look cheesy in front of each other. Or perhaps they were too young to comprehend classic, lofty love. Whatever reason it might be, I felt rather pitiful of myself. I was definitely playing a zither in front of a cow - as a Chinese idiom would describe it, meaning that I had the wrong audience and therefore wasted my efforts.

But I wouldn't give up so easily.  If the students are learning Romeo and Juliet in their English class, they should be able to appreciate "Liang Zhu." I decided to try again this year, to a new group of Chinese students who are studying the same chapter about dating. And I decided that I would make some major changes to the way I tell the story. First, I drew on the SmartBoard, using more colors for my illustrations, and enjoyed the advantage of moving images around. The students seemed more engaged as my illustrations became more appealing. And after all, SmartBoard is still a pretty cool thing. The second change I made was to tell the story slowly. Not only did I try to use only the words they know, I made sure to explain the words they may not understand in English. In fact, I told the story over two days, and was so satisfied that on the second day, the students could retell the first part of the story that they just heard the previous day with rich details and in Chinese. After that, they followed carefully till the end of the whole story, responding actively to each detail, and amazed at the lovers rebirth as butterflies, as they should.

Excited I was to see their favorable response, I decided to share the music of Liang Zhu with them as well. I myself have been moved by the music of Liang Zhu since I was little, and the power of the music had its effort on me again when the classroom was filled with that beautiful melody. To my delightful surprise, the students loved the music that they requested that we listen to the whole symphony piece, and we did for almost half an hour. It was truly a surprise that these teenagers could be so absorbed by a piece of Chinese music, and some even looked as if they were deeply in thought. They responded wonderfully to the music just as they responded wonderfully to the story. Some kept asking which part of the music movement corresponded to which part of the story. One of the students even compared Zhu Yingtai's dive into Liang's tomb with Juliet's death with Romeo. Not less surprisingly was how they responded to the end of "Liang Zhu" with remarkable optimism, something I did not think before, that they thought turning into butterflies was a happy ending for the devoted lovers. It was nice to think that way, wasn't it, so not all great love stories end in tragedy.

I was overjoyed. It was so blissful to share the beauty of Liang Zhu with my American students.

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This is the Liang Zhu symphony I used in the class, absolutely beautiful:

Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto 1st 梁祝小提琴協奏曲：第一樂章

Butterfly Lovers violin Concerto 2nd 梁祝小提琴協奏曲：第二樂章

Butterfly Lovers violin Concerto 3rd 梁祝小提琴協奏曲：第三樂章

作曲：陳綱、何占豪 
Composed by Chen Gang, He Zhan-hao in 1959
小提琴：呂思清Violin by Lu Si-Qing
The winner of the International Paganini Violin Competition in 1987

譚利華指揮北京中央樂團