Talk:Beijing opera

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Just a thought: Why is this called Beijing Opera? The traditional English name is "Peking Opera", not "Beijing Opera", and the Chinese name is "Jingju". "Beijing Opera" is just a mindless, mechanical replacement of "Peking" by "Beijing" without actually taking you any closer to the original Chinese. It seems to me that, like Peking Duck, the old form should be retained....

Bathrobe 02:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

In Chinese "Jingju" is short for "bei jing xi ju". "Xiju" means drama in the traditional Chinese sense which combines acting, singing, music, and dance. "Beijing Opera" seems like a near enough translation of "Jingju". You could use "Jingju" and be 100% correct but not many people would be familiar with the term. LDHan 18:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to admit "Beijing Opera" is not ideal, although I think the problem is "Opera", not "Beijing". "Jingju" is not really used in the west, but if it is used more it could replace "Beijing Opera", after all "kabuki" and "noh" are refered to by those names in the west. LDHan 14:13, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I have created a redirect from Jingju to Beijing opera since I was actually searching for Jingju when I found this page. I agree that called Jingju "Beijing opera" is akin to calling Hula "Hawaiian Ballet" or calling Kabuki "Japanese Clowning." If I could go further, "Beijing opera" (or, rather, Peking opera) was a name chosen by Westerners who didn't really understand what they were seeing. I'm not sure calling something by an inaccurate name just because its always been called that is a wise academic choice, but I also recognize that we would be making it difficult, perhaps, for people to find the information on Beijing opera if we listed it under jingju... unless, of course, "Beijing opera" redirected to Jingju... R. Kevin Doyle 19:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)