College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Chinese storytelling

Melodic sound part of Chinese language professor's storytelling art.
Listening to Eric Shepherd speak Chinese, one hears a melodic sound.

"Chinese is a tonal language," said the assistant professor of world languages and cultures. "There’s a rise and fall to it. That’s the most difficult aspect for students learning Chinese."

The soft-spoken Ohio native has mastered the sing-songy, rhythm and rhyme of the language. That helped his popularity in China doing Shandong kuaishu – traditional storytelling.

Shandong is a northeast China province where Confucius was born. Kuaishu translates to "fast tale." The long narratives are punctuated by vivid gestures and expressions and the cadenced clicking of ban,
two small flat pieces of brass held in one hand for rhythm keeping.

Shepherd has performed for crowds from 12 to 35,000, part of popular Chinese variety shows featuring many acts. He could have been a celebrity in the province of some 90 million people. Instead he chose academics.

Shepherd was studying political science at Ohio State University when he took his first Chinese course. Only fulfilling his language requirement for graduation, he knew nothing of the language or culture. He had not even been to a Chinese restaurant.

Shepherd also was a page at the Ohio state capitol. Knowing a few Chinese words, such as "hello" and "goodbye," he often escorted Chinese visitors. He discovered that beyond a few pleasantries, conversations between Chinese and Ohio officials were all in English.

"That’s when I decided we needed more Chinese-speaking people in the U.S.," he explained.

He immersed himself in Chinese and spent time with native speakers. Upon graduation he went to China in 1995, teaching English. In 1997 he started going for long stays establishing business internships for OSU students. The work often involved lavish and lengthy banquets with various forms of entertainment. That is how one networks in China.

"We would eat, talk and watch performers. Then eat more, talk and watch more performers," Shepherd said.

Included was Shandong kuaishu, which fascinated him. He became acquainted with entertainers and sometimes joined the acts, like the time in 2000 when he and a Chinese entertainer actually practiced their lines in the restroom minutes before performing. It turned out Shepherd was very good at storytelling.

"It went from there," he explained. "That opened up a whole new world."

Shepherd appeared on local TV shows, wrote articles for the newspaper and guest hosted a weekend TV program well liked by young people. His popularity soared because of his excellent language skills, knowledge of the culture and foreign face, which attracted audiences.

He decided to write his Ph.D. dissertation on Shandong kuaishu. To best learn it, he took a leave of absence from Ohio State and began a one-year apprenticeship under one of the masters of the art form, Wu Yanguo.

Shandong kuaishu originated more than 200 years ago. In the 1930s the Communist party began using it to promote its ideals. In the next three decades the party trained many masters, which raised their status and turned Shandong kuaishu into a national phenomenon, especially in northern China.

One of the outstanding apprentices in the 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, was Master Wu.

Shepherd was trained in a traditional method that included learning to use the brass ban and memorizing and repeating Master Wu’s stories. The work was intense. Go too long without practicing and Master Wu might yell, "Not practicing enough!"

Soon Master Wu was taking Shepherd to his performances. Later they began performing together, often doing multiple shows in a day. The apprenticeship ended in late 2005. Master Wu took no pay for his work, as is the tradition in China.

"I use the process of teaching Shandong kuaishu that Master Wu used on me every day when I teach Chinese," Shepherd said. It begins with memorizing a script, adding context to the discussion and including the all-important tones.

Shepherd omits some things from Master Wu’s training: "I don’t yell at students to practice more."