刘璋下山 - 陈楚蕙,曾珊凤
包公会李后 - 陈楚蕙,曾珊凤
刘明珠三审玉芝兰 - 庄雪娟,方巧玉

Infiltration Of Teochew Opera In Hostel and Examinations Hall

I stayed in Hall 3’s hostel when I was pursuing my undergraduate studies in NTU. During that time, I brought along a walkman and some Teochew cassette tapes as a key source of my recreational activities. Some popuplar teochew opera cassettes by 陈楚蕙 and 庄雪娟 including 包公会李后 (also known as 貍貓換太子), 刘璋下山, 刘明珠三审玉芝兰, 双珠凤 etc accompanied me during my days in the hostel.

My room mate is also a Teochew of the same age but he simply could not understand why I liked opera so much. During my final year, I behaved like most Singaporean students and was under stress to score well in my studies. To overcome stress, I listened repeatedly to the cassette 包公会李后.

When I was in the examinations hall for a particular paper, I could not recall my answers. All I could memorise was the lyrics of the Empress 李后 when she revealed to 包公 how she was harmed and ill-treated by the Empress 刘后 and the Eunuch (太监) 郭槐. That lasted for about 1 hour and I was seating worrying that I would not do well for that paper. I told my mum about the incident when I went home after the examinations and she laughed. But surprisingly I obtained a very good grade for that subject.

In a few days time, 中国潮剧著名青衣花旦姚璇秋已应新加坡潮阳会馆的邀请，随广东潮剧院三团到我国客串演出。 广东潮剧院三团在牛车水人民剧场演出10场重头戏. '狸猫换太子' and '包公会李后' are two of the 10 shows.

May be one day, some China teochew opera troupes will put up 刘明珠三审玉芝兰.