"Hi, Da wan'er cha, 2 fen for one bowl," hawks an old man, accompanying his cries by knocking two small bronze tea cups lightly together.

His voice rises and falls in rhythmic tunes. And the humorous words he chants aloud often stir up audiences' laughter.

Wearing a long gown, a sleeveless jacket and a felt hat, the typical costume of males in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Zhang Zhenyuan, 69, is one of Beijing's folk artists. He demonstrates this traditional way of life in Beijing at a building material market in Beijing's eastern suburb.

Older Beijing residents are quite familiar with da wan'er cha, or tea served in a big china bowl and covered by a piece of glass.

It was a cheap and popular drink to have at the street tea-stall in the past.

Today's market managers have opened spacious tea-stalls, selling customers da wan'er cha. A single bowl, like before, costs you merely 2 fen (less than a cent).

Zhang also uses other kinds of yells to attract more customers.

Lifelong interest

Zhang was born in a poor family in downtown Beijing. Most of his male relatives earned a living as street vendors.

He resided and grew up in the Dongxiaoshi District, home of one of three most prosperous morning fairs of this ancient capital.

His childhood was filled with sweet memories of delicious Beijing style snacks, as well as a variety of yelling goods, whose names frequently echo in his mind nowadays.

Zhang sometimes ran away from school to stroll around the temple fairs at Tianqiao, a similar downtown market where street vendors and folk artists were once common.

It was an amazing world for him.

"Can you imagine that? On the bustling street, peddlers quickly swung their rattle-drums, while sightless fortune-tellers stroke his gong every step advanced. I couldn't afford the peep show, but quite enjoyed its operator's funny hawking," he recalled.

"And you hardly felt hungry. Distinctive hawking would lead you to refreshment and drink stands."

Zhang was always so lost in acrobatic shows and xiangsheng, or crosstalk performances, that he was inevitably punished for being home late.

Yet enthusiasm for folk art, and especially the hawking of wares, was deeply rooted in his heart. He further developed that lifetime fondness in his following years as a hooper.

"I dropped out of school because of poverty. I learnt from my father how to hoop a barrel, and started my business at 12," he said.

Zhang peddled around streets and hutong, in order to make closer contacts with other counterparts. Looking and learning he was able to master diverse ways of calling aloud wares and craftsmanship.

However, his interests in the art of yelling were commercially strangled, as the peddling business declined after New China was founded in 1949.

Antique street commerce and culture died away, as several downtown markets and fairs gradually disappeared.

Over the next four decades Zhang Zhenyuan seldom heard as many varied ways of hawking wares as before.

Yet he never gave up his dream of keeping complete audio records of the street yelling art.

His opportunity appeared when the country entered the period of reforms and opening up in 1980s.

Zhang recalled his childhood impressions of peddlers crying out their goods in different ways. He practised at home and performed to his grandchildren.

Zhang even quit smoking and alcoholic drinking to protect his throat.

He retired from the Goods and Materials Bureau of Beijing Municipality in 1990.

He has been dedicating all his energy and time to the renaissance of the folk art of yelling about wares ever since.

During the past 20 years, Zhang has visited dozens of elders in their 80s who were once peddlers, and perfected at least 180 popular hawking pieces.

"Hawking wares is not just about shouting as loudly as you can. Every number features distinguished lyrics and tones in accordance with what peddlers call aloud for. So that it can stand out at the noisy market to immediately catch passers-by's attention," Zhang said.

"Most importantly, every word should be correctly pronounced in a sweet and mellow voice, and its original Beijing flavours should be well preserved."

Diverse styles

Peddlers' yelling differed not only according to what they sell, but also across regions.

Vendors of bingtang hulu, or haws on a stick covered with a layer of crystal sugar, in downtown areas, characterized their yelling with a high and long tune.

Other sellers around the northern Dong'an market normally hawked the details of how to produce this popular snack, in a soft and delighting tone.

"Some from other provinces meanwhile retained a hometown accent, and gave their yelling distinctive regional flavours," Zhang said.

Hawking wares turned to be both a good treat for ears and a useful reminder of coming seasons and festivals.

"When a vendor peddled for Chinese dates in silent hutong, we knew it was autumn. And yelling the porridge and all kinds of beans informed people of the Laba Festival (which falls on the eighth day of the twelfth Chinese lunar month)," Zhang said.

He has also collected 17 items of percussion instrument to accompany his yelling performance in Panjiayuan, a noted market of curios and antiques in downtown Beijing. He will proudly show them to home visitors.

"They appear crude, but still sound perfect," he said and took out a gong tied with two wooden clappers.

"Few people nowadays have a clear idea of how to sound the night watches in the past."

He knocked twice on the smaller clapper typical in northern China, and once on the gong.

"Tiangan wuzao (it is getting dry)," he yelled in a slow, lasting tune.

Then he rapped twice on the other southern style clapper, and again once on the gong.

"Xiaoxin huozhu (be cautious against fires)."

"Night watchmen used both two kinds of clappers to make residents from across the country understand and be alarmed," Zhang explained.

Last year, Zhang took part in the Tianqiao association of elderly folk artists in Beijing, organized by the Tianqiao community.

He often gives performance with other folk counterparts in parks and TV programmes to audiences both from home and abroad.

He enriches conventional peddling shows by combining hawking and other traditional musical forms, including Peking Opera and sanxian, a three-string plucked instrument.

But what he really cares about is how to better preserve the art of yelling.

"Young people ask me to teach them hawking skills after enjoying my performance. But they behave so impatiently when I start by introducing the historical backgrounds and people's living style at that time. How can you approach to the essence of this art without knowing how it originally came out?" he said.

Zhang is now working on a comprehensive introduction to all the peddling pieces he has collected. And he continues with his audio recordings.

(China Daily 09/09/2005 page14)