183 Beijing Operas - Lou Ashu - Number 186

Lou Ashu

Beijing Opera - "Fifteen Strings of Cash"

Lou Ashu, or Lou the Rat, with a symbolic wicked-clown face is one of the central characters in "Fifteen Strings of Cash," an opera based in a story in "Common Sayings to Alert the World." Common Sayings is a collection of stories by Feng Menglong (1574-1646), a scholar and playwright of the late Ming. He also wrote "General Sayings to Warn the World" and "Wise Sayings to Instruct the World." The stories in them are written like scripts used by storytellers in the old days. It is a style called hauben (story copy) first used in the Tang dynasty when people told or sang stories from the Buddhist scriptures. It developed and acquired a definite form during the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties and became very popular during the Ming. A whole range of subjects are covered by the stories: love, oppression, struggle, friendship, perfidy, daily life.

Fifteen String of Cash tells about a good-for-nothing gambler, Lou Ashu. He robs a butcher of 15 strings of cash, murders his victim, and tries to put the blame on the victim's daughter and a passer-by Xiong Youlan. The magistrate of Wuxi sentences the daughter and passer-by to death. but Perfect Kuang Zhong suspects something is wrong. He reexamines the case, finds out the truth, and brings the Rat to justice.