Opera in Beijing: China is seeing a revival of a popular form of theater.(destination: CHINA)

My friend Gahffar leaned over my shoulder and pointed to the actors up on stage.

"See that guy," he said, as an actor playing a Chinese colonel dressed in a bright yellow costume walked on stage. "He's the bad guy, and he's mad."

We were sitting in the audience at the Changan Theater in Beijing.

The words coming from the stage were loud and unintelligible to me, but then they were in Chinese and seemed to be shrieked at a very high decibel level.

Ghaffar leaned over again and said, "Now watch what the other guy does. He's the hero."

This is the way to watch a typical performance of the Beijing opera, with someone who knows it well …