Although he has the face of a bashful farmer, He Qingkui is currently one of the most popular playwrights in China, having brought the life and laughter of Northeastern farming to both stage and screen. Indeed, his name on a cast list has become something of a guarantee for a play's popularity and comic elements.
Although untranslatable for any other language, these famous lines spoken in a strong Northeastern dialect, almost always inspire broad smiles among a Chinese audience, most of whom will be able to instantly attribute this joke to  He Qingkui. At 57, playwright He is now the most popular rustic comedy playwright in the country. People love his witty, intimate style of humor, and his rural characters, who are generally heavy accented and unfashionably attired, but still practical, witty and full of curiosity towards urban life. For his part, He Qingkui does not merely write to amuse an audience, but actually has a genuine love for farmers and country life. In fact, he even claims that his plays are designed to bring new ideas to China's farming community.
"China has a large rural population and a large surplus of rural labor. While the government tries to help them by setting up new towns and creating job opportunities, I want to help them by giving them some modern concepts in my plays. These concepts can replace their traditional ways of thinking so that they can truly find a suitable way to build a prosperous life."
Himself born into a farming family in China's northeast, He Qingkui scarcely attended school as a child. Instead, like so many others, he spent his youthful days helping his father with farming and fishing. Then as a young man, he gradually fell in love with Er Ren Zhuan, a local folk performance art known for being straightforward, intrepid and even boorish at times. Basically speaking, Er Ren Zhuan is like a short comedy piece, with singing and dancing from a male/female pair of performers. Enchanted by this art, He Qingkui soon became an expert Er Ren Zhuan performer, and toured from village to village for five years. Later, he began to write new Er Ren Zhuan operas for his performing repertoire, a development which marked the beginning of his playwriting. In 1990, he became a professional playwright, with the experience accumulated in Er Ren Zhuan giving him endless resources and confidence. In He's own words, his own stage experience tells him exactly when and where an audience will laugh, making his transition from actor to writer relatively smooth.
"Pay A New Year's Call" was the short drama piece that brought He Qingkui national acclaim in 1998, with rural comedian Zhao Benshan proving a perfect partner. Since then, their other collaborations, such as "Tell It Straight", "Hourly Household Worker" and "Selling Crutch" have appeared on every Spring Festival Gala, the main television event for China's Spring Festival. Additionally, all of these pieces were short comic dramas, a genre which occupies a special place in He's heart.
"Short drama pieces are like the dumplings that we eat during Spring Festival. They are delicious dumplings for the soul, while every actor and every drama is a different filling, so that everyone can experience the different tastes of life".
He Qingkui also has a deep unshakable love for China's northeastern culture, which is a mixture of Manchu, Mongolian and Han cultures. Accordingly, he wanted to shape this into a known commodity, which could be appreciated and loved by the whole country. So in every one of his works, be it short comic drama, or TV series, he intentionally adds some unique northeastern elements, of which the best examples are those thick local dialects. |
