Kouji - History

History

Although Kouji is believed by many to have origins in the animal calls used by hunters in tribal society, there are unfortunately no historical accounts of its transition from such a context into a performance art. The first historical account of Kouji ever recorded was over 2,300 years ago in Shandong province during the warring states period. In the year 298 BC there was a Qin prime minister named Mengchang who was a student of Confucius, and accumulated over 3,000 followers. Mengchang found himself in a difficult situation when the Qin ruler began to believe that Mengchang could be spying on him for the neighboring state in which he was raised, and Mengchang was jailed. Mengchang tried to win his freedom by sending away for some very special garments to give the Qin ruler’s wife in an attempt to win her over, and thus gain his freedom. Complications arose however when the garments were seized by the guards and locked away. It was at this point that Mengchang used his followers’ Kouji skills to steal back the clothes by luring the guards away by mimicking the barking of dogs. When the clothes were retrieved, they were successfully passed on to the ruler’s wife who was deeply touched and sent immediately for the release of Mengchang. By the time that the Qin ruler discovered what had happened, Mengchang and his followers had already began to flee. When they had reached a nearby mountain pass which was their gateway to freedom, the Qin guards were hot on their trail. They needed to get through the mountains immediately, but it was still night time and the gatekeepers were not permitted to open the pass until the roosters’ crows signaled that the morning had come. Yet again, one of Mengchang’s followers used his Kouji skills to mimic a rooster and trigger all of the local roosters to crow. This signaled that morning had come and allowed the gatekeepers to open the pass for Mengchang’s successful escape.

Although this historical record of Kouji from the warring states period was the first ever to be documented, more documentation followed as time passed. In fact, another student of Confucius named Gongchang Zhi who actually married one of the great thinker’s daughters, was himself known to be a performer of Kouji noted for his bird call mimicry during the same period.

It was during the Tang and Song dynasties that Kouji’s development as an art form began to experience slightly more attention from the Chinese state. During these dynasties Kouji was one of the most popular forms of entertainment amongst the common people. As is Chinese political tradition to offer support and resources as a method of incorporation into the state, the government realized the power and importance of Kouji for the Chinese people and began to aid the development of the art form. In order to promote Kouji and train those who practiced it, a society of vocal mimicry was set up by the government.

During this period of Kouji’s history in the Song dynasty, truly legendary Kouji masters began to gain fame which has survived up until today. During the rule of Hui Zong there was a Kouji master who was nicknamed Liu Baiqin (Baiqin meaning hundreds of species of birds) because he was phenomenal at mimicking bird songs. His level of mastery was so high that his abilities were not limited only to performance; Liu was also able to communicate with birds in trees. The most famous female Kouji Master of all time Wen Banian, also made a name for herself during this same time period by performing her renowned mimicry of fruit peddlers’ cries. With government support and popular demand combined, Kouji found itself in a favorable position as far as nurturing new talents.

The following years were marked by the arrival of celebrated masters of Kouji who advanced the art form by building off of the work of their predecessors. During the Ming Dynasty, the most famous Kouji Master was Fang Zhailang who is best known for his ability to imitate the dialects of different regions. Gou Maoer, who lived and performed during the early period of the Qing Dynasty, made his name by creating and performing such pieces as “slaughtering pigs” and “pigs fighting for food”. These are amongst the performances that have been passed down through the generations and can still be seen today. Later on in the Qing dynasty during the reign of Emperor Guangxu there was a very eminent Kouji master who was famous for his mimicry of a song bird called the Hwamei (Melodious Laughingthrush), and therefore was nicknamed Hwamei Yang. Amongst his great performances was “two birds fighting over food”, which is now on the verge of extinction.

It can be said that Kouji entered into a new phase of its history beginning in the 1930s when a Shanghai Kouji Master by the name of Yin Shilin implemented radical alterations in the way that Kouji was performed. Traditionally the Kouji master would sit at a big square table surrounded with a screen called an “eight Immortals” table, which had a fan and a piece of wood on it. With the assistance of these tools, the performer would execute various vocal mimicry acts to entertain the audience who could only hear but not see their performance. The tools were important because they could make up for certain sounds that human speech organs are incapable of producing. Also, the screen allowed the performer to not think about facial expressions and gestures, and concentrate strictly on the sounds that they were making. After the 1930s when the screen and tools were taken away from the stage however, the audience could not only hear the vocal mimicry, but see the artists’ facial expressions and gestures as well. It was at this point in history that Kouji went from being called “drama behind a screen” to Kouji, meaning “vocal skill” or “skill of mouth” . Thus through a combination of imitation of sounds and stage performance, Kouji came to be what some might call a more engaging entertainment experience for the audience.

After the formation of the People’s Republic of China, Kouji began to reach new audiences around the globe. Kouji masters such as the above mentioned Yin Shilin and his disciple Zhou Zhicheng (the creators of such performances as “the powerful army of one million crossing the Yangtze River” and “Coastal Front”), traveled abroad extensively to perform Kouji. Largely by touring with acrobat troupes, performers began to gain Kouji an international reputation as “an amazing oriental art”. Kouji Master Sun Tai, while in Poland even won a gold medal at the Warsaw International Acrobatics Competition for his performances. Since the Internationalization of Kouji, its relationship with the global community has expanded beyond entertainment for common people into use for Chinese diplomacy. Kouji master Niu Yuliang who currently resides in Beijing, has traveled to over 30 countries and performed for the likes of the King of Cambodia and the former US President George Bush Sr.