Mei Lanfang, zihua hua, the first of the "four famous dans" of Peking Opera.
Mei Lanfang has two wives, Wang Minghua and Fu Zhifang, and a "outer chamber" Meng Xiaodong.
Wang Minghua
1. Wife Wang Minghua
Wang Minghua is Mei Lanfang's original wife, two years older than Mei Lanfang. Wang Minghua is a family of Peking Opera, and his father is Shunfu, the King of Danjiao. In 1910, Mei Lanfang was 17 years old, his mother died, and after his mother had completed a hundred days of filial piety, he married Wang Minghua.
Wang Minghua is also Mei Lanfang's "agent" and "stylist", and she is responsible for specific affairs during Mei Lanfang's performance in Japan. She once prepared a wig for Mei Lanfang to perform, and as long as she wore it, she could immediately transform into a costumed woman. This hairstyle can't even be made by a master who combs his hair.
Wang Minghua successively gave birth to Mei Lanfang's son "Dayong" and daughter "Fifty". In order to accompany Mei Lanfang to perform in various places, she underwent sterilization. Unfortunately, two children died of measles.
Wang Minghua's tuberculosis could not be cured for a long time, and his body was very weak. In order to recuperate, he went to Tianjin, and in 1929, Wang Minghua died of illness in Tianjin.
When Wang Minghua was buried, Mei Baochen, who was born by Fuzhi Fang, performed the ceremony of filial piety and was buried at the foot of Xiangshan Mountain.
On August 8, 1961, Mei Lanfang died of illness in Beijing. Fu Zhifang demanded that Mei Lanfang and Wang Minghua be taken. Under the arrangement of Premier Zhou, respecting the wishes of the family, the two were buried together.
Fu Zhifang
2. Ping's wife Fu Zhifang
Fu Zhifang is Mei Lanfang's sister,but the two rarely meet.
Fu Zhifang is a flag bearer, his father died very early, and he and his mother are dependent on each other, relying on her mother's small crafts such as making toothpicks to maintain her life, and she often sells and sings on the overpass.
At this time, although Mei Lanfang had a family, her second son died early, and his wife Wang Minghua lost her fertility. Because the eldest uncle has no children, Mei Lanfang "has two rooms at the same time", and in order to pass on the mei family, Mei Lanfang asked the Fu family for relatives. Fu Mu insisted that Fu Zhifang should have the name of a wife and sit on an equal footing with Wang Minghua. With Wang Minghua's consent, in the name of "JianQi", in the winter of 1921, Mei Lanfang married Fu Zhifang as a "peaceful wife".
Fu Zhifang gave birth to a total of five sons, four daughters and nine children for Mei Lanfang, of which only four children grew up to adulthood, and the other five died prematurely.
The third son, Mei Baochen, was an architect. Born in 1925, he graduated from the School of Science and Engineering of Shanghai Aurora University, majoring in civil engineering, senior engineer of Beijing Architectural Design Institute, he worked as a Peking Opera violinist, but finally did not inherit mei Lanfang's mantle and engaged in artistic work.
The fourth son, Mei Shaowu, whose original name was Mei Baozhen, was a translator. Born in 1928, he was admitted to Zhijiang University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, in 1946, to study engineering. In 1947, Mei Shaowu was admitted to the Spanish Department of Yenching University, where he studied English, French and German. After graduation, he worked in the Beijing Library. In the 1970s, he studied at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. Later, he was transferred to the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Nor did he inherit his father's mantle.
The third daughter Mei Baoyue, an old actress in Peking Opera. Born in 1930, she began peking opera in 1943 under the guidance of Fu Zhifang's sister Li Guifen, and in 1946 she first performed "Shilang Visiting Mother" with Mei Baojiu at the Empress Theatre in Shanghai. In 1953, he was assigned to the Chinese Opera School as a Chinese language teacher, and later studied under Wang Shaolou. In 1954, he was transferred to the Peking Opera House in China and began a 45-year life as an actor. In 1958, he was transferred to the Mei Opera Troupe to work with his brother Mei Baojiu around his father Mei Lanfang, and accompanied his father to tour all over the country. After Mei Lanfang's death in 1961, she and her brother Mei Baojiu inherited the operation of the Mei Opera Troupe. In 1983, he and Mei Baojiu led the Mei Opera Troupe to visit Japan. He retired in 1987.
Mei Baojiu in her infancy
The fifth son, Mei Baojiu, truly inherited the mantle of his father Mei Lanfang, a national first-class actor in China, the head of Mei Lanfang's Peking Opera Troupe, and the inheritor of national intangible cultural heritage. He is the younger son of Mei Lanfang, the ninth child, the only descendant of Mei Lanfang's family who inherits the art of Mei Pai, and the only son who studies drama. Mei Baojiu was awarded the Asian Outstanding Artist Award by the Lincoln American Center for the Arts in New York in 1989, the Master of Art Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award by the World Artists Association in 2009, the National Art Sponsorship Award in 2010, and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Huading Awards in 2015. In 2016, Mei Baojiu passed away at the age of 82.
Among the four children who grew up in Mei Lanfang, the fourth Mei Baochen was an engineer, the fifth Mei Shaowu was a translator, and only the old seven Mei Baoyue and the old nine Mei Baojiu were by their father's side and performed with their father. But Mei Baoyue sang old students, and only Mei Baojiu Gongdan did it.
Meng Xiaodong
Third, the outer chamber Meng Xiaodong
Meng Xiaodong is also born in the Peking Opera family, she learned to sing laosheng from her uncle at the age of nine, is a famous female old student actor of Peking Opera, and has the reputation of Lao Sheng Emperor (Winter Emperor). Shi Chengyu Shuyan was the only female disciple of Yumen and was recognized as the main descendant of the "Yu Sect".
In 1925, Mei Lanfang and Meng Xiaodong co-starred in "Dragon Play Phoenix". In 1927, Meng Xiaodong married Mei Lanfang in the name of "ConcurrentLy", and according to the laws and folklore of the time, Meng Xiaodong did not have the status of a flat wife, only an "outer chamber", and was legally regarded as a concubine.
However, the Mei family has not recognized the relationship between Meng Xiaodong and Mei Lanfang, and when Mei Lanfang's aunt died, Fu Zhifang refused Meng Xiaodong to wear filial piety as a daughter-in-law for the deceased. In 1931, the two officially broke up. Under the mediation of Lawyer Zheng Yuxiu hired by Meng Xiaodong and Du Yuesheng, Mei Lanfang paid Meng Xiaodong 40,000 yuan in alimony.
In September 1933, Meng Xiaodong published a notice in the Tianjin Ta Kung Pao, declaring that he had disassociated himself from Mei Lanfang and subsequently became Du Yuesheng's mistress.
Mei Lanfang and Meng Xiaodong have no children. However, in the later years of Meng Xiaodong, it was revealed that she had a daughter in Beiping, and soon after she was born, because she was in conflict with Mei Lanfang, she did not like it, so she gave it away.