Chinese Teahouse Tales

Tea Tales

Chinese Teahouses have been the venue of long, leisurely listening for over four hundred years. Some of the classics are Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Outlaws of the Marshes, Lady White Snake, Journey West and Dream of the Red Chamber. Imagine sipping tea and munching melon seeds and listening for two hours each afternoon as your heart is filled with adventure, romance, laughter and the occasional shiver for a month or two. This fascinating way of life was the subject of my thesis for my Master's Degree in History.



OUTLAWS OF THE MARSHES
It happened at the crumbling close of the Song Dynasty that 108 gallant and generous men and women were forced to flee from the corrupt authorities. One by one, they gave up their intolerable lives to live in the mountainous marshes of Shandong Province. Their martial skills and Taoist magic and sheer cleverness made the rebel's stronghold a thorn in the side of officialdom. The story of these gallants was written in the fourteenth century and has been enjoyed in every performance medium since then. Though it takes over 90 hours to tell the complete cycle, everyone in China is familiar with the story. Luckily, every episode is worth hearing on its own.