272 Beijing Opera Performers - Liu Lujing - Number 128

Liu Lujing

Beijing Opera - "A Visit to the Grave"

Liu Lujing with a civilian clown face plays a leading character in "A Visit to the Grave." a traditional list-opera. Liu Lujing, a scholar of Shandong province, has gone to the capital to take part in the imperial exams. He is away for so long that his wife thinks he is dead. On the Qingming festival one year she goes to their family graveyard to make offerings to her "dead" husband. At that very moment he reappears. He has not died, he has passed the exams with honors, been given a government post, and is now home to worship at his ancestral graves. Seeing a woman weeping at a grave who looks like his wife, he goes up to her and examines her closely but dare not recognize her. After questioning her carefully, he is at last convinced that she is indeed his own wife. Overjoyed, the woman takes off her mourning clothes and accompanies her husband to his new post.