Ch'i Ju-shan (23 December 1876-18 March 1962), playwright, scholar, and impresario for Mei Lan-fang (q.v.), was the first Chinese scholar in the twentieth century to do extensive practical research on traditional Chinese drama. He helped to restore it to a place of honor in China.
A native of Kaoyang, Chihli (Hopei), Ch'i Ju-shan was born into an affluent north China family with a literary background. Both his great-grandfather, Ch'i Cheng-hsun (T. Chu-ch'i), and his father, Ch'i Ling-ch'en (T. Ch'i-t'ing), held the chin-shih degree. Ch'i Ling-ch'en passed the examinations in 1894. He was a protege of both Li Hung-tsao (ECCP, I, 471-72) and Weng T'ung-ho (ECCP, II, 860-61). Ch'i Ling-ch'en also served as private tutor to Li Hung-tsao's son, Li Shih-tseng (q.v.), with whom his own sons were to be closely associated in the Chinese anarchist movement in Paris.
Ch'i Ju-shan received an education in the Chinese classics and at the age of 18 took the preliminary examination for the sheng-yuan degree; since he did not take the final examination, he did not obtain that degree. The following year, in 1895, he entered the T'ungwen kuan [institute of foreign languages], founded in Peking at the suggestion of Tseng Chi-tse (ECCP, II, 746-47). There Ch'i Jushan, preceded by his brother Ch'i Chu-shan, studied German and French for five years until the institute was closed at the time of the Boxer Uprising.
After a short visit home, Ch'i Ju-shan returned to Peking in time to see the attack on the Legation Quarter by Boxer troops in the summer of 1900. His mother was killed in Peking during the Boxer Uprising. Because of his fluency in the German language, Ch'i served briefly on the staff of Li Hung-chang (ECCP, I, 464-71) during the Boxer treaty negotiations. When the allied forces entered Peking, his knowledge of foreign languages led to his entering into business to act as a supplier to the foreign commissariat.
Between 1908 and 1913 Ch'i Ju-shan made three trips to Paris; he was closely associated with the Chinese anarchist group then based there. A prominent leader of that group was Li Shih-tseng, a relative and a former student of Ch'i Ju-shan's father. Ch'i's elder brother, Ch'i Chu-shan, managed the bean curd factory which Li had established in Paris to help finance the group's political schemes. The groups which Ch'i Ju-shan escorted to France in 1908 and 1911 were composed of Chinese going to work in this factory, which manufactured bean products as well as the traditional curd. In 1912, as a second phase of the movement, the Liu-fa chien-hsueh hui [society for frugal study in France] was founded in Peking by Li Shihtseng, Wang Ching-wei (qq.v.), and others. A preparatory school, la Societe Rationelle des Etudiants en France, was also established at Peking, with Ch'i Ju-shan in charge. French, Chinese, and mathematics were taught. At the end of six months an examination was held, and successful candidates were sent to France. Ch'i Ju-shan was delegated to accompany the first group of students which went to France in 1913 under the work-study program.
Although these trips abroad were brief, Ch'i Ju-shan managed to see a good deal of European dramatic entertainment. Ch'i's family from his great-grandfather's time had been interested in the traditional Chinese theater, and Ch'i Ju-shan had developed this interest in his childhood. Direct exposure to Western theater stimulated his desire to improve the status of the traditional Chinese theater, which was then confined between a too rigid conservatism and an indifference which characterized the feelings of many younger Chinese intellectuals toward the traditional art forms.
In 1913, after his return from Paris, Ch'i gave a lecture on foreign drama before a benefit society organized by the Chinese theatrical profession. The lecture was attended by Mei Lan-fang (q.v.), who in that year made his debut in Shanghai. In 1914 Ch'i Ju-shan _ regularly attended the Peking theater where Mei Lan-fang was performing. After closely studying the actor's technique day after day, Ch'i sent one or two suggestions by mail to Mei's home. These suggestions eventually were adopted by Mei, who was impressed with his unknown adviser's knowledge. This unilateral procedure continued for several months until Mei invited Ch'i Ju-shan to meet him. That meeting was the beginning of a fruitful artistic partnership which lasted for more than 20 years.
In 1915 theater audiences in China had begun to look for novelty and new treatments in their stage entertainment. Ch'i, at the request of Mei Lan-fang and other colleagues, set to work and devised a new play, which was based on an ancient legend. For this play, Ctiang-o pen-yueh [Ch'ang-o flies to the moon], traditional stage costumes were abandoned for authentic period models, based on Ch'i's researches, and old dance forms were used. It was an immediate success and for a number of years was one of the more popular plays in Mei's repertoire.
In the years that followed, Ch'i Ju-shan wrote or adapted for Mei more than 20 plays, most of them based on historical and legendary sources. Although written specially for Mei, many of them became regular features of the Peking stage repertoire. Among Ch'i's more famous creations for Mei Lan-fang were Tai-yu tsang-hua [Tai-yu buries the blossoms], based on an incident in the Hung-lou-meng {Dream of the Red Chamber) ; T'ien-nü san-hua [heavenly maiden scattering flowers], based on Buddhist mythology; Lo Shen [the goddess of the river Lo] ; and Hsi Shih [the West Lake beauty].
Ch'i Ju-shan was indefatigable in his researches into the drama, and his encyclopedic knowledge of stage practice enabled him to tackle his playwriting problems from several points of view, including the actor's. In the course of his career he interviewed hundreds of actors, musicians, and stage hands on whose performances and descriptions he made copious notes. He tested his information and theories in the theater and spent much time closely watching all kinds of plays and players. He read many Chinese works dealing with ritual and music and studied paintings and prints for costume information.
Mei Lan-fang, whose reputation grew rapidly, relied on Ch'i Ju-shan, who became intent on extending his distinguished associate's reputation beyond China. He was helped in this ambition by Li Shih-tseng, who persuaded a group of prominent bankers headed by Feng Keng-kuang of Peking to finance a tour in the United States for Mei and his troupe. Ch'i Ju-shan immediately became a driving force behind the preparations for the tour, selecting the repertoire, and writing explanatory material for use by the audiences.
In January 1930 he accompanied Mei and his party, 29 in all, to the United States. They made a highly successful debut in New York, and afterwards toured the principal American cities and Honolulu, Hawaü, returning to China in September. In recognition of his achievements Mei was awarded honorary degrees by both the University of Southern California and Pomona College while he was in the United States, and it was said that Ch'i was disappointed at not being recognized for his part in the tour. The long professional partnership between Ch'i and Mei ended in 1931, when, after the Japanese attack in Manchuria, the actor decided to move from Peking to make his home in Shanghai. When Mei Lan-fang was invited to the Soviet Union in 1935, Ch'i Ju-shan did not accompany him, although he was again responsible for the program arrangements for the visit.
During the 1930's Ch'i devoted most of his time to collating his vast collection of material relating to the theater. He published the results of his researches in a series of books, many of which became standard works. One of the better known series was the "Hsi-chu ts'ungk'an" [library of dramatic plays], published in 1933 in four volumes: Hsi-pan [theatrical troupe], Mei Lan-fang yu-mei chi [Mei Lan-fang's tour of the United States], Mei Lan-fang i-shu ipan [a general introduction to the art of Mei Lan-fang], and P'i-huang yin-yün [the tones and rhymes of the Peking opera]. About 1931 Ch'i, with the help of friends, established the Kuo-chu hsueh-hui [traditional Chinese theater association] and the Kuo-chu ch'uan-hsi-so [Chinese theater school] at Peiping. The Kuo-chu hsuehhui later established a theatrical museum, which preserved valuable historical materials of the Chinese theater. It also published most of Ch'i Ju-shan's writings on the theater. When the Japanese entered Peiping in 1937, Ch'i Ju-shan retired. He jealously guarded his theatrical museum and research center. After 1945 he continued to work in his museum. The deteriorating political situation in China hindered and finally ended his theatrical plans. In December 1948 he left for Shanghai and from there went to Taiwan, where he remained until his death in 1962.
In Taiwan, Ch'i Ju-shan occupied himself with such theatrical activity as went on under the National Government in its island refuge. He wrote and published several books on the Chinese theater, as well as historical accounts of traditional Chinese social customs; he also contributed articles on the drama to newspapers and magazines. He became the director of a dramatic training school founded in 1956. In that year his memoirs, Ch'i Ju-shan hui-i lu [reminiscences of Ch'i Ju-shan], were published to commemorate his eightieth birthday. Ch'i Ju-shan's exile in Taiwan was in many respects a lonely one. Although Li Shih-tseng, his friend of 50 years, was often in Taiwan, most of the important personalities of the Chinese theater had stayed on the mainland. Although he was a prolific writer, Ch'i was at his best when surrounded by theater people and connoisseurs; it was then, in conversation, that his erudition achieved its most significant expression. Ch'i was a force in the movement which in the earlier years of the twentieth century sought to restore the traditional theater of China to an honored place. That he succeeded was, in great part, because of the able interpretation of his ideas and theories by Mei Lan-fang. Nevertheless, his own thorough research and inexhaustible knowledge brought both new and forgotten knowledge to the traditional stage, which acquired a national and international status unknown before. A portion of his book collection, now housed in the Harvard-Yenching Library at Cambridge, Massachusetts, contained 72 Ming and early Ch'ing editions, including both stories and dramas. Ch'i Ju-shan's wife and five daughters remained on the mainland when he left in 1948. He had two sons. The elder studied in Germany, where he married. The younger son, Ch'i Ying, became a marine engineer in Taiwan.
