Are you sitting comfortably? Let Huang tell you a story …
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Huang Zhenliang was enjoying the “Green Peony,” a traditional storytelling program, with his grandfather during Spring Festival in 1979 at a local storytelling house. Without warning, the performer collapsed on stage and couldn’t continue. He’d suffered a stroke.
The house owner asked 17-year-old Huang for help in continuing to tell stories for the audience.
Although Huang was keen on listening to storytelling and had memorized most of stories, this was the first time he had stood on stage to tell a story after all. Lacking experience, he rushed into it, completing the story in three days rather than the 10 days, or most of the Spring Festival, that senior artists would take.
So it was a surprise when famous storytelling artist Wang Xiliang, after watching the performance of this young man, asked: “Little boy, are you willing to learn storytelling with me? I’d like to teach you.”
Huang was on the top of the world when hearing Wang’s invitation. He quit high school and followed Wang in studying storytelling. Nobody could have imagined then that he would become outstanding in this field and the winner of a series of awards.
After two years’ study, Huang was telling his own stories in a variety of storytelling houses in the Yangtze River Delta region.
That was in 1981.
“I remember that my father earned 80 yuan (US$45 then) a month in Shanghai, but I could get 1,000 yuan by telling stories,” said Huang. As a result, he thought he could make it his lifelong career.
However, with the deepening of China’s opening-up, people’s cultural life became more diversified. In the following five years, while some residents watched TV series, others went to the dance hall. Nobody seemed interested in Huang’s storytelling. Huang had no income anymore.
“One industry was beaten by other new industries. We can’t change it,” Huang said. He went back to his hometown of Jiading where he met his dialect coach Shen Yunjuan who was also vice curator of Jiading culture center.
Shen invited him to tell stories there.
In Jiading, storytelling was popular in the 1980s, and almost every month the center would hold several performances. Huang’s stories were popular, and he often took part in competitions.
When the opening-up policy began, Huang told stories about overseas Chinese investing in their hometowns.
Then Jiading entered an era of great development, and many residents had to leave where they were living and move into new houses. Huang went to the relocation places to get more ideas. Some residents didn’t want to leave their homes because their ancestors had lived there from generation to generation. They loved their land.
Huang used this opportunity, looking for more elements to talk about. He created a series of stories such as “Relocation Issue,” “Living in New House” and “Sign Contracts.”
“I can’t say all of the residents understand the relocation policy after my storytelling, but some of them started thinking about the advantages of this policy,” said Huang. “The storytelling strikes a chord in their hearts.”
Huang said his stories are attracting audiences because they are real. “When creating stories, I will base them on true stories, so the stories sound real. It is my principle,” Huang said.
In the age of easy access to information, Huang found it harder to tell stories because people could use their computers.
In order to solve this problem, Huang visited Wang Rugang, Shanghai’s famous performing artist, trying to enhance his storytelling skill. Wang told him that if he wanted residents to clap their hands, he had to use his brain, extract information, keep reverse thinking and give the audience some surprises when creating and telling stories.
Huang wrote an attractive story about a dishonest man stealing a lottery ticket. He performed it again on stage in 2008, but in a version he had revised. This story helped Huang win the China Art Festival Galaxy Prize in 2013, which was also the first time a Jiading artist had won the prize.
When 69-year-old Zhu Lianfen rushed to a theater at Nanyuan Ercun around 9am, the theater was full of laughter. Zhu found a seat and sat down, keeping laughing even though she hadn’t heard the previous story clearly.
“I like watching Huang talking stories,” said Zhu. “The stories are interesting, and these are the stories of our own.”
Almost every story Huang tells is based on true stories from everyday life. When Huang prepared the story of Liu Chenghou, a community volunteer, he visited Liu twice. For the first visit, they just chatted. Then Liu paid a second visit, following Liu to his workshop from his house.
“I wanted to know what he did all day and where he put tools in the workshop,” said Huang. Details were of great importance to this story. The story would be performed at Malu Town where Liu lives, so Huang cared about the reality.
Residents’ ideas are also important. One story is about a taxi driver finding 50,000 yuan cash in a bag. Huang talked about this story many times, and reactions were good.
One day, Huang went to the taxi company continuing to tell this story. Then one driver said according to the policy, if they found the bag, they should take it to the company, instead of opening it by themselves.
After the performance was over, Huang invited some of the audience to talk for a while and asked some advice about the problem.
“It is easy!” said one audience. “You can say this man didn’t zip the bag, but money inside dropped out on the seat.” Huang was amazed at the answer and adapted part of the story.
This story also won the Galaxy Award in 2010.
Now, other than telling stories, Huang cultivates those who have gifts to expand the team of storytellers. He is also the leader of the 10-year Huangdu County Storytelling Group.
He believes more people will get involved in storytelling in the future.
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