Peking Opera by the book

A full year of formal documentation of traditional Chinese opera has passed. Researchers are still studying and translating material from PalaceMuseum archives, Chen Nan reports.

Early last year, when Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum, suggested establishing a center for researching Chinese traditional opera to Sun Ping and invited her to be in charge of the project, the veteran Peking Opera artist and scholar was very excited.

"The Palace Museum holds more than 30,000 artifacts, including scripts, books, costumes, musical instruments and paintings about traditional Chinese operas, which is a huge treasure," Sun says.