No embroidered silk costumes. No colorful make-up. No traditional stage. With only the CD background music, a middle school music teacher in Beijing is demonstrating to her class a solo vocal piece from Peking Opera-of the leading male role, who should wear a beard.

Several boys chuckle while the No.35 Middle School teacher, Tang Min, makes fists with her slim fingers as she gives a male salute in Peking opera style to the audience.

"This piece depicts Qin Qiong, a military officer, who was wronged and banished far away from home. But he was still grateful for his superior's past guidance, and was worried about not being able to look after his old mother..," Looking at the boys seriously, Tang told the story behind the famous arias -- "When the Son is away, the Mother Will Pray".

Moved by the leading role's loyalty and filial piety, the boys stop chuckling, and begin to imitate the "male salute" after Tang.

"Peking Opera is a charming art that carries forward traditional Chinese culture and morals. Even if my students could not perform it, at least they could appreciate it with due respect," says Tang after the class.

The 200-year-old Beijing opera combines instrumental music, vocal performances, mime, dance and acrobatics from ancient Chinese operas. While it has long been regarded as a cultural treasure of China, in recent years audience numbers have been decreasing and due to lack of funding, the fate of Peking Opera has been in question.

Last year, the Ministry of Education started a pilot program in 10 provinces to introduce Peking Opera to primary and secondary school students. The program teaches 15 arias, with the aim of promoting and revitalizing traditional Chinese culture.

The program was challenged by some critics, with the qualification of teachers brought under hot debate.

"Peking Opera is not the specialty of most music teachers, including me. In fact, I didn't even have any interest in it. Every time I saw Peking Opera on the TV, I would turn to another channel at once."

In March 2008, more than 100 music teachers from primary and secondary schools across the country went to Shenyang City, and studied Peking Opera for three days from professional Peking Opera actors. Tang was the only music teacher in her school to go to the training, and this was her first time studying Peking Opera.

"The schedule was really tense -- learning 15 arias in three days, with different music and performing styles," Tang says, "But a miraculous door has opened for me -- I began to read books about Peking Opera, browse information about it on the Internet, and now I could not even move from my TV when Peking Opera is on I am eager to tell my students all about this infectious art!"

Chen Jiayi, 15, is one of the students who could sing the arias in a whole piece after Tang's class. "My grandma love Peking Opera very much, and she invited a 'Shifu' to teach me when I was very young," she says. However, the little girl quit after a few months because it was "too toilsome" to practice basic Peking Opera skills such as leg pressing.

"It's much better to learn Peking Opera in our music class. It's more relaxing, colloquial, and we could learn more historical and cultural knowledge," says Chen.

"I am happy to see that while my daughter learned Peking Opera, she grew an interest in ancient prose. I didn't know she like any traditional things before," says Chen Si, the father of a pupil from No.2 Experimental Primary School in Beijing," I appreciate my daughters' music teacher."

"Although teachers like Tang may not produce professional Peking Opera actors, they could pass on this cultural heritage of China, and nurture children's sense of national identity," says Wang Ankui, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Arts.

Wang Jun, head of the Art Education Office of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, said Beijing is to invest 800,000 yuan (about US$117,000) in the city's new teaching texts on Peking Opera, which are expected to be released in September.

"The aim of the books is to enlarge teachers' knowledge about the ancient art, and provide a teaching model for them to refer to," says Wang, "no matter what the pilot program will end with, Beijing will persist in introducing Peking Opera to the classrooms of primary and secondary schools."

Earlier this month, Tang led a class of students to the National Center for the Performing Arts to take part in this year's Youth Arts Week.

"I have never imagined this -- when the "Son is away, the Mother Will Pray was on the stage", the students all sing to it, some with intoxicated looks on their little face -- they used to fall asleep during such performances," says Tang, "at that time, my tears fell: I knew I had accomplished an important mission for a teacher."

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2009)