Dancing fairy's double identity

Dressed in a fairy-like dress, Yu Fei often enchants audiences with graceful dancing and singing until he reveals his gender. Some in the audience are stunned, and some are disappointed.

Born in a small village in Henan province, Yu, 29, tells of a childhood weighed down by poverty but lightened by lullabies. He dropped out of drama school when he was 15 because his parents could not afford the fees. That was when he became a vagabond, as a waiter, an auditor at a dancing college and then a street artist.

With his basic skills in opera, he came up with a way to entertain as a combination of a Peking Opera actor and a countertenor, developing his career as a cross-dressing performer.

To achieve this he not only continued with voice training but also kept to a strict diet for nine years to keep trim.

The world is now more tolerant of different art forms, he says, and he no longer struggles to fight the stigma attached to men playing female roles, as in his early years as a cross-dressing actor.

He receives more invitations to perform and has just successfully held his first solo concert in Zhoukou, Henan province.

1. Yu Fei performs Drunken Concubine in Zhengzhou, Henan province. 2. Preparing to perform in his favorite blue. 3 & 4. He needs to soak his hands in hot water every day to keep them supple. 5. Yu designs his own costumes. 6. Waiting for a taxi after a late-night performance. 7. Yu and his wife play with their nine-month-old son. Photos by Liu Dongjie / for China Daily

(China Daily Africa Weekly 10/31/2014 page4)