In ancient China, there was a miniature circus, commonly known as "teaching insect play",
Its Master
Horns are lower animals such as frogs, turtles, goldfish, ants, and even fleas. This miniature circus has appeared as early as the Eastern Jin Dynasty. As the years go by, these little tricks are no longer common.
The most common show in ant drama is ant fighting.
Network illustration
The artist planted two flags on the ground, and then placed a bamboo pipe under each flag with trained ants inside. At the beginning of the show, the artist flicked the mouth of the bamboo pipe, and two teams of ants climbed out of the bamboo pipe and lined up in turn. At this time, the artist waved the yellow flag, and the two teams of ants immediately began to pounce and bite. After a fierce battle, the defeated group of ants collapsed and fled into the bamboo pipe in a hurry, while the winning team triumphantly "returned to the dynasty" and climbed into the bamboo pipe in an orderly manner.
The most common program of frog plays is "Toad Teaching".
During the performance, the artist placed a small wooden pier on the ground, and then shouted "School is started" to the wooden box, and a large toad jumped out of the wooden box and sat on the wooden pier. The artist shouted again: "The teachers are coming, why don't the students come out?" At this moment, several small toads jumped out of the wooden box. The artist then spoke: "It's time for the teacher to teach the students to read!" So the big toad "croaked" a sound, the little toads also "croaked" a sound, the big toad called twice, and the little toad also called twice. In this way, the toad "teachers and students" shouted and answered, sang and harmonized, which was really interesting. At the end of the class, the little toads will jump to the "teacher" one by one and nod and bow, thanking the "teacher" for his teachings.
The main program of the turtle play is "Turtle Stacked Tower". According to Tao Zongyi's "Record of Quitting Farming"
Zai: "Yu is in Hangzhou, commonly a bird, seven turtles, seven sizes and so on. When the drum is beaten and the trumpet is commanded, the first class of the great one first reaches the heart of several hearts, and the second class of the large one ascends his back, until the seventh class of the small person ascends the back of the sixth, and the vertical body stretches its tail upwards, like a small tower, and adjusts it to the 'turtle stacked tower'. This is a record of what Tao Zongyi saw with his own eyes, which proves that the miniature circus "Turtle Stacking Tower" was already very popular in the Yuan Dynasty.
The main programs of the rat drama are "Rat Swing", "Mouse Pushing and Grinding", "Rat Holding Medicine" and so on. Wang Zhaoyun's book "Huhai Search" has a record: "In Shandong, I saw a person selling medicine, two rats in the cage, people asked for medicine, and the name of the rat was called: 'So-and-so took ginseng for me!'" The rat jumped out of the cage and wrapped the ginseng paper. And he exclaimed, 'So-and-so took the yellow lian for me!' And so it goes, and there is nothing wrong with it. ”
Flea opera in the Qing Dynasty already had magnifying glasses and telescopes, and flea opera also appeared, and the often performed program was called "flea group characters". During the performance, the artist spread a piece of fur on the table, and then laid a white paper in the middle of the skin, and then the artist lit the cigarette in his mouth, and the fleas slowly crawled out of the skin, jumped to the white paper, and quickly arranged into Chinese characters such as "one", "person", "ten", "mountain" and so on, in an orderly and very neat manner. After the group of words was completed, the artist stopped smoking, and the fleas slowly crawled back into the fur.