Wang Baochuan

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The other night, I was listening to Lala Xu's "身骑白马" and I felt like I'd heard part of it somewhere else.  This led to some research which didn't really bring anything up in English except how to pronounce a famous line or two in Hokkien (which is really stupid without any translation or explanation).  In the end, there's not really that much to show for my efforts except for a short plot summary.

Here's Lala's song:

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And here's Hsiao Hungjen's "王寶釧苦守寒窯十八年" for comparison:



I couldn't find the full MV of Hsiao Hungjen's song on YouTube, so I'm using YouKu so you can see the written lyrics to some extent.  Part of both songs is in Hokkien.  Here are the Hokkien lyrics from Lala's song:

我身骑白马 走三关
我改换素衣唷 回中原
放下西凉 没人管
我一心只想 王宝钏

Part of this is exactly the same as the opera part in Hungjen's song.  According to Baidu Baike, 王宝钏 (Wang Baochuan) was a woman in the late Tang dynasty who didn't listen to her parents and married a poor man.  Her parents sent her out of their home and 薛平贵 (Xue Pinggui), her husband, joined the army.  Wang Baochuan waited for him for 18 years (hence the name of Hungjen's song).  He returned as a high official and they were reunited, but only for 18 days before dying.

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This last video reminds me more of some kind of glam rock than opera, but it seems to be the theme from one of the Hokkien movies based on the story.