Hong Kong backlash over soothsayer’s opera about Mao
香港风水师创作粤剧《毛泽东》
香港翻译公司：李居明自掏腰包、自编剧本支持粤剧事业，但身为风水师的他承认，没想到新作《毛泽东》会招致香港市民谴责。
Feng shui master Li Kui-ming believes he is pretty good at predicting the future, and the Chinese tycoons who pay up for his private consultations surely agree.
风水大师李居明认为自己颇善于预测未来，那些付钱请他指点迷津的中国富豪想必也同意。香港翻译公司。
But the soothsayer, who also runs a Cantonese opera house, says he had no idea that his plan to stage a show about the life and love affairs of Mao Zedong, the founding father of Communist China, would spark an angry backlash from Hong Kongers.
李居明还经营着一间粤剧戏院，他计划将中共创始人毛泽东的生平和风流轶事搬上舞台，但这位玄学家表示，自己完全没料到这个想法会招致香港人愤怒反对。
“When I started writing the opera a year ago, the situation was not as sensitive as it is now,” says Mr Li. “But things have changed and suddenly it made my production famous.”
李居明说：“我一年前开始写这部戏剧时，形势没有现在这样敏感。但事情起了变化，让我的作品也突然出名了。”
Fears of growing interference by Beijing have sent relations between the mainland and semi-autonomous Hong Kong to their lowest ebb since the handover of the former British colony in 1997. So when Mr Li recently put up promotional posters featuring a cherubic image of Mao, it prompted condemnations from residents and an opposition politician who accused him of putting the “red star over Hong Kong”.
北京方面日益增多的干预引起香港人担忧，令内地与半自治的香港之间的关系降到自1997年香港回归中国以来的最低潮。因此李居明近期贴出的宣传海报——画面上印着一幅和善的毛泽东形象——引起了香港市民的谴责，一位反对派政治人士还指责李居明要让“红星照耀香港”。香港翻译公司。
Mao’s reputation has been revived in modern mainland China, where the newly affluent visit theme parks and historical sites that glorify him, while avoiding the death, destruction and desolation that he wrought upon the nation.
毛泽东的声望在当今中国大陆再度复苏，内地的新贵们参观美化毛泽东的主题公园和历史遗迹，同时避而不谈他给国家带来的死难、破坏和苍凉。
Mr Li’s production runs the risk of being in equally bad taste, akin to Springtime for Hitler, the bawdy, Nazi-themed musical designed to be a flop, which was part of Mel Brooks’ 1968 satirical film The Producers.
李居明这部粤剧也有品味糟糕之虞，就像《希特勒的春天》(Springtime for Hitler)一样。这段低级的纳粹主题音乐剧是梅尔•布鲁克斯(Mel Brooks) 1968年的讽刺电影《制片人》(The Producers)的一部分，在片中是故意为了失败而制作的。
The 61-year-old feng shui master refuses to divulge the plot of his opera but promises glimpses into everything from Mao’s love life to his ablution habits. The show will also feature a “surprise” ending after he comes back from the dead to talk to Chiang Kai-shek, his losing adversary in the civil war that ended in 1949.
这位61岁的风水大师拒绝透露该剧情节，但承诺该剧让观众窥见毛泽东的一切，从他的感情生活到沐浴习惯。该剧还安排了一个“出人意料的”结局：毛泽东死而复活，与在1949年结束的内战中败在他手下的对手蒋介石交谈。香港翻译公司。
Mr Li says he read more than 150 books about Mao and watched countless documentaries while researching his script, absorbing so much information that he started “dreaming that I was a Red Guard”.
李居明说自己在为创作剧本而作研究时，读了150多本关于毛泽东的书，看了无数部纪录片，吸收了大量信息，以致他开始“梦见我是个红卫兵”。
Wearing a snake-shaped golden ring and a Buddhist vest meant to bring luck, the impresario hopes the initial five-night run of Mao, which begins on China’s national day, October 1, will do well enough to generate interest abroad. He has previously written 24 Cantonese operas, some of which he toured in Singapore and Japan.
李居明手上戴着一枚蛇形金戒指，身披一件意在带来好运的僧袍。《毛泽东》将于10月1日中国国庆节开始上演，李居明希望首轮5晚演出能获得足够赞誉，引起海外兴趣。李居明此前编写过24出粤剧，其中几出曾在新加坡和日本巡演。
But he says high costs and an ever-shrinking audience mean he never makes any profit from the shows he produces at the historic, 1,000-seat Sunbeam Theatre, which he saved from closure in 2012 when he took on the HK$1m ($129,000) a month lease.
但他表示，高昂的制作成本和不断萎缩的观众群意味着，他从未从自己制作的粤剧中获得任何盈利。这些粤剧的演出地点是历史悠久、有1000个座位的新光戏院(Sunbeam Theatre)，2012年，李居明以每月100万港元（合12.9万美元）的租金挽救了这家面临倒闭的剧院。香港翻译公司。
“I can earn much money from feng shui,” he says, referring to wealthy clients such as Pan Sutong, a Chinese billionaire whom he advises on everything from architecture to the names of his prized horses. “But doing opera can only lose money. It’s our great culture in Hong Kong but only old ladies come to see it.”
李居明说：“我能从风水赚很多钱。”他提到了那些富豪客户，比如亿万富翁潘苏通，他从建筑物的风水到珍爱马匹的名字都会向李居明请教。“但做粤剧只会赔钱。这是本港的伟大文化，可是只有老太太才看。”
Mrs Wu, a 75-year-old who regularly attends the Cantonese opera, says she is intrigued by the Mao show “because I want to know what happened a few decades ago, especially the part about the Red Guards”.
75岁的吴老太经常看粤剧，她说自己对这部《毛泽东》很感兴趣，“因为我想知道几十年前发生了什么事，特别是红卫兵那部分。”
Mr Li says that if there are enough equally curious Hong Kongers, and not too many fights breaking out in the theatre, he will produce a Mao sequel and perhaps another opera about later Communist leaders.
李居明说，如果香港人能够具有同样足够的好奇，戏院里也没有爆发太多争斗的话，他会制作《毛泽东》的续集，可能还会制作关于之后中共领导人的戏剧。香港翻译公司。
What about Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom critics accuse of building a cult of personality to rival that of Mao?
制作一部关于中国国家主席习近平的戏剧怎么样？其批评者指责他所建立的个人崇拜可与毛泽东匹敌。
Mr Xi has cracked down hard on his critics, including five Hong Kong booksellers who were abducted by Chinese security agents last year after they published works that questioned him.
习近平对批评者打击严厉，其中包括去年被中国安全部门人员从香港带走的5名书商，此前他们曾出版质疑习近平的书籍。
That incident has shaken Hong Kong, where Beijing guaranteed freedom of speech for 50 years after 1997, and Mr Li is wary of upsetting Mr Xi.
这一事件动摇了香港，北京方面曾保证香港在1997年后会有50年的言论自由。李居明也唯恐惹习近平不快。
Shaking his head, he says: “Oh no, we cannot touch him.”
他摇头说：“那不行，我们不能碰他。”
Additional reporting by Gloria Cheung
Gloria Cheung补充报道
