On October 15, 2023, the Chinese Embassy in the United States hosted a “Discover Beijing Opera” Cultural Event at the Embassy’s Public Diplomacy Center. The event was co-organized by DC’s Beauty of Beijing Opera Ltd(DCBBO) and Things to Do DC. Minister Jing Quan attended the event. Nearly 100 people from all walks of life in the United States participated.

Before the event started, the staff of DCBBO showed the guests the make-up process of a “guifei” (noble consort) as well as various props and costumes in Beijing Opera .

During the event, the staff first introduced the history, performance feature and aesthetic value of Beijing Opera. Then they brought the audience performances of “Battle at the Hu Village”, “Empty City Strategy”, “Monkey King” and “Drunken Beauty”, through which they showed the audience characters such as “Dan”, “Sheng”, “Wu Sheng” and “Tsing Yi” as well as basic skills such as singing, reciting, acting, and martial arts. The Beijing Opera band played musical instruments such as Jinghu and small gong. Under the guidance of the staff, the audience went on stage to experience the horse riding, male role walking, combating, playing small gong and acting with water sleeves in Beijing Opera.

During the experience session, guests tried on Beijing Opera costumes and took photos.