Chen Shimei

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Chen.
Chen Shimei
Traditional Chinese 陳世美
Simplified Chinese 陈世美

Chen Shimei is a Chinese opera character and a byword in China for a heartless and unfaithful man.

History

An illustration from a 1594 copy of the novel Legal Cases of A Hundred Families Judged by Dragon-Design Bao (包龍圖判百家公案) depicting Chen Shimei in a banquet listening to his abandoned wife Lady Qin disguised as a pipa player.

“Illustrated Edition of Bao Zheng’s Trials of A Hundred Legal Cases” (“Bao Zheng’s Cases” in short) published in 1595 had already had the story of Chen Shimei whose children’s names were as the same as they are in the traditional opera.

Chinese Opera

The story of Beijing opera “Chen Shimei’s Beheading Case”：

In Song Dynasty, Chen Shimei placed first in the imperial examination and was awarded to be the son-in-law of the Emperor. However, when his original wife Qin Xianglian came to the capital with their children to look for him, Chen Shimei not only claimed not knowing them, but ordered his bodyguard Han Qi to kill them. However, when Qin Xianglian cried and told the truth, Han Qi could not kill them but killed himself in Sanguantang. Qin Xianglian went to Bao Zheng to sue Chen Shimei. Bao Zheng planned to have Qin confront Chen. Chen took himself as the Emperor’s relative for granted and refused to tell the truth. When Bao Zheng was going to behead him, the Queen Mother and the Princess came to stop him. But Bao Zheng ignored it and beheaded Chen Shimei.

After the foundation of PRC, Changchun Film Studio produced colourful opera film “Qin Xianglian” in 1964 to preserve the stage craft of Beijing opera performing artists such as Junqiu Zhang, Lianliang Ma, Duokui Li and Shengrong Qiu.

References

See also