Beijing opera or Peking opera is a kind of Chinese opera which arose in the mid-19th century and was extremely popular in the Qing Dynasty court. It is widely regarded as one of the cultural treasures of China. Beijing and Tianjin are respected as the base cities of Peking opera in the north while Shanghai is the base in the south.
Sheng (, Male role) Dan (, Female role) Jing (, Painted face male role) Chou (, Clown role)
The three roles other than the second role represent male characters.
There is an explanation about why the roles take the names above. It is said that they were chosen to have opposite meanings. Sheng in Chinese may mean "strange" or "rare", but the chief male role is a well known character. Dan, which means "morning" or "masculine", is contrary to the feminine nature of the characters. Jing means "clean", but in fact the paintings on their faces make the characters look unclean but colorful. And Chou in Chinese sometimes represents the animal "ox", which, in some senses, is slow and silent - in contrast, the Chou characters are usually quick and talkative.
