Audience gets into character

Two years ago, the Dian Opera Museum in Niujiezhuang, on the eastern outskirts of Kunming, Yunnan province, stood behind tightly shut gates, with dust gathering in its corners.

This summer, the museum has become one of Kunming's most talked-about cultural tourism spots, playfully dubbed a "visa-on-arrival" destination by visitors online. Behind its unexpected revival is the persistence of a family that has spent five generations preserving Dian Opera.

With a history stretching back hundreds of years, Dian Opera, also known as Yunnan Opera, is the province's representative local opera genre. It was inscribed on the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative List in 2008.

Niujiezhuang is widely regarded in Kunming as the "cradle of Dian Opera". It is also where 26-year-old Zhang Ke grew up.

"When I was little, no one in the family was home from the first to the eighth day of the Chinese New Year — my grandfather, father and aunt all went to villages to perform Dian Opera," Zhang recalls.

At the time, watching and learning Dian Opera was a popular pastime in local villages.

In 2009, Zhang's grandfather, Zhang Yong, founded Yunnan's first private Dian Opera Museum on the former site of the old Niujiezhuang opera stage. In 2014, it was designated as a provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection and Inheritance Base.

The museum housed century-old opera costumes, props and musical scores. It also regularly staged Dian Opera performances and invited professional performers to teach traditional techniques. But as times changed, audiences dwindled.

"Fewer and fewer people came to learn or watch the opera. Even though my grandfather and aunt kept organizing performances and activities, the museum gradually ran into operational difficulties," Zhang Ke says.

In early 2026, Zhang Ke and her elder brother began looking for a new way forward, combining traditional opera with the booming travel photography trend. The siblings taught themselves new-media operations and photography, and began promoting Dian Opera-themed portrait sessions online.

In June, as the short drama Enemy and TV series The Protagonist sparked renewed interest in traditional Chinese opera, the siblings invited models to shoot opera-inspired videos using a similar aesthetic. They casually added the hashtag "Kunming 'visa-on-arrival' experience".

"Many netizens left comments saying they had always wanted to take opera-style portraits, but never knew where to find such services," Zhang Ke says. Soon, tourists and online influencers from across China began arriving at the museum. Short videos of their visits drew hundreds of thousands of interactions, turning Dian Opera into one of Yunnan's most talked-about cultural experiences this summer.

Zhang Ke then mobilized the family to form a six-person customer service team, responding to more than 1,000 inquiries a day. Portrait sessions are now fully booked through October.

The museum has also relaxed one of its long-standing rules: Opera costumes were once considered "objects to be viewed, not touched". Now visitors can wear them as part of the experience.

Packages start at 480 yuan ($71.6) and include traditional opera makeup, an introduction to role types, costume fitting and a photo session on the historic opera stage.

"For young people, this experience is far more engaging than simply sitting in a theater and watching a show," says Zhang Chunli, director of the Dian Opera Museum.

"At first we all worried that young people wouldn't like Dian Opera, but my grandfather never doubted it," Zhang Ke says. "Facts have proved he was right — people of different generations will fall in love with traditional culture in their own unique ways."