Zhang Xiurong has just finished what she considers an extremely difficult class in higher mathematics. Now, on this Thursday evening, she has a choice: head for the library to do some reading, or head to the university auditorium for a show. Given the headiness of the preceding class at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, there is little surprise at which direction she takes, and soon she is with nearly 800 students waiting for a show to start.
If you're thinking she is about to let her hair down with a bit of light entertainment, you'd be wrong, for ahead of her and her fellow students is entertainment of a much more high-brow tilt: performances by Peking Opera actors and musicians of the Beijing Peking Opera Company.
Ms Zhang's interest in Peking Opera has been fuelled not only by her grandfather, 83, but by the 1993 film Farewell My Concubine, which tells the story of two male Peking Opera artists in mid-20th century China. It won the Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.
"In the film the young Peking Opera actors are subjected to rigorous training and harsh physical punishment, and I am curious to know what Peking Opera performers are like in real life," Ms Zhang said.
Peking Opera, known in Chinese as jingju, combines singing, dancing, martial arts and acrobatics, and is more than 200 years old. It was once enjoyed by royal families and the masses alike, and catered to audiences of all ages. These days jingju, which Unesco included as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010, struggles to survive.
However, the Chinese government is determined to ensure the art does not die, and to that end has a campaign to get younger people interested in it. A joint initiative of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance has been bringing Peking Opera to schools for the past 11 years. Peking Opera artists, from the established actors to those just starting out to perform, give lectures to students of all ages.
In the auditorium of the University of International Business and Economics, the lights dim, the curtains part and a young man wearing long whiskers, a black robe and thick-soled boots walks slowly towards centre stage to the beating of drums and small cymbals played by a band of seven musicians sitting in a corner of the stage. "He's so handsome," Ms Zhang whispers to a classmate sitting beside her.
As the actor utters the lines from Ji Gu Ma Cao, a classic Peking Opera piece adapted from one of the stories of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a 14th-century novel by Luo Guanzhong, the auditorium falls silent. The actor sings in a firm voice, using a wide vocal range, his long sleeves billowing in the air. He receives applause here and there, which finally erupts into prolonged applause as he concludes his short performance.
After Liu's performance, three other young Peking Opera performers display different roles, dan (female), jing (painted-face male) and chou (comic male), talking about them later.
"I did have to look at the subtitles on the screen, but I enjoyed the raw emotion they delivered on stage," said Ms Zhang, who filmed the performances and circulated the recording through the microblogging service Sina Weibo.
About 500 students from five colleges in the capital, including Beijing Dance Academy and the Central Conservatory of Music, heard the lecture.
Yuan, 51, born in Yichang, Hubei province, started learning Peking Opera when she was 10. She is one of the winners of the Plum Blossom Prize, the highest theatre award in China.
However, because most Peking Opera pieces are adapted from Chinese folk tales and historic events, the genre is not just a great performing art but also reflects traditional Chinese virtues and values, she said.
Since 2003, Sun Ping, dean of the School of Art and Research at Beijing Foreign Studies University, has proposed making Peking Opera part of the country's primary and secondary school curriculums. Sun, who is in her 50s and is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, has led studies and overseas promotions of Peking Opera at Beijing Foreign Studies University and Renmin University of China.
She also wrote a 10-volume series, The English Translation Series of 100 Peking Opera Classics, published by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
"Our country has performed greatly in various ways, including culturally," she said in an earlier interview. "But for culture, more top-level policy design to facilitate the survival of Peking Opera is needed.