This book is one of the bilingual series to help you enjoy contemporary Chinese literature and other writings in their authentic, unadulterated flavor and to understand the Chinese society, culture, history, and the contemporary life of the Chinese people as you learn the language and hone your reading skills. The author was only a child when he first entered a Chinese theater. Very often he merely stood beside the stage and stared with wide-open eyes at what was going on. Since then he has been through many changes, however, first impressions are not easy to erase. These fragments of opera stories that he has collected in this volume have preserved to a great extent those indelible earliest impressions. Because of this, friends who come into contact with this great, exotic and realistic art for the first time may find these writings candid and sincere but not presumptuous.