Gift of the cross talk gab

When a budding Peking Opera actor was told he lacked the voice to have any future in the art, he looked back on his childhood years as he sought to use his voice in a different way

It seems that Ma Zhiming was born with xiangsheng surging through his veins.

"It was so natural to me that it was just like breathing," says Ma, 74, whose father was Ma Sanli (1914-2003), one of the most famous exponents of the art, a traditional form of performing comedy. Xiangsheng, literally face and talk, is generally known as crosstalk.