Shanghai Mei 上海妹

Shanghai Mei 上海妹(1909 - September 16, 1954), formerly known as Yan Sizhuang, was a native of Zhongshan County, Guangdong Province. She was born in Singapore and is a Cantonese opera actress. The Shanghai Mei's father is a famous actor, Prince You, her husband is Chou Sheng Ban Ri'an半日安, and her brother is Yan Xia, a class official. She was weak and slender, had lung disease, had a hoarse voice, and a narrow vocal range, neither high nor low. She definitely couldn't sing like a beautiful lady like Degu Orioles, but with her skills and unique singing voice, she became a famous actress and was the most popular actress at that time. The stage partners of young student Xue Juexian and Ma Shizeng. Shanghai Mei is good at playing gentle and virtuous tragic characters. Her performance is delicate, her enunciation is clear, and her self-created reverse line and medium tone, which is called "mei accent", are gentle and resentful. The Shanghai Mei was born in a Liyuan family, and she learned from her father at an early age. Her father was a well-known young student in the Cantonese class, and his stage name was Tai Ziyou (also called Doll You). The Shanghai Mei has been living with the theater troupe since she was 3 years old. She sat by the stage watching plays all day long, and the artists in her class were willing to teach her how to act. She loved to learn every trade, and she seemed to be good at it. People in the industry said she was born to make a living in the theater industry. She also studied under the male artist Yu Qiu Yao and the female artist Xing Xingqun. She started performing on the stage at the age of 6 and has been performing in various places in Singapore, Malaysia and Southeast Asia since she was a child. In the early 1930s, the ban on male and female Cantonese opera classes in Hong Kong was lifted. Shanghai Mei and Tan Lanqing joined the Taiping Theater Company organized by Ma Shitsang, performing plays such as "Dragon City Flying General" and "National Beauty". Later, she was appreciated by Tang Xueqing, who recruited Shanghai Mei and Ban Ri'an to join the Jue Xiansheng Theater Company, and performed with Xue Juexian. Later, she became the only positive female actor in the theater company. Her performances include "Hu Bu Gui", "Yu Li Soul", and "A Beautiful Smile" , "A Promising Miles Ahead", "Wang Zhaojun", "Blue Robe with Cinnamon Fragrance", "Xi Shi", "Drinking Arsenic with a Smile", etc. Among them, "Hu Bugui" co-starred by Shanghai Mei, Xue Juexian and Ban Ri'an was very popular and was praised by the audience. It is called "Original Hu Bugui". Hong Kong fell to the Japanese occupation on Christmas Day in 1941. The following year, after the Shanghai Mei and Ban Ri'an stopped performing at the Meiji Theater Company, they finally had the opportunity to leave Hong Kong and go to the neutral Macau at that time. They successively organized or joined performances by Guohua, Guoshou Nian, Singapore and Malaysia, and Haojing Theater Troupes . Soon after, the couple left Macau and returned to the mainland, where they established the Greater China Theater Company with Lui Yulang and Lui Yansheng, the second junior students of Jue Xian Sing, mainly performing Xue School plays. After the peace, the couple returned to Hong Kong and performed in theater troupes such as New Sing, Kak Sin Sing, Kak Wah, Kam Tim Wah, and Lai Chun Hua. Her last Cantonese opera stage performance was "Seven Stars with the Moon" for Lai Chun Hua in October 1953. (Dream of Red Mansions), she fell ill from the beginning until her death at the age of 45.