点击下载音频

Chinese opera singers face a bleak future in Thailand

The music of traditional Chinese opera-a unique sound recognizable all over the world. But this particular clip did not come out of China.

It was performed by Thai singers.

For centuries, Chinese opera has been a staple of cultural life for Thailand's Chinese community.

This distinctive-and some would say-achingly beautiful music has, however, an uncertain future in its adopted country.
With Thailand in the throes of its worst recession in decades, Chinese opera singers have seen their wages slashed by nearly 50 percent. Actors are now forced to compete for jobs in a shrinking number of performances.

Hong Torng Ngern, a professional Chinese opera singer in Bangkok, was noticeably anguished when detailing her troubles.

"Life is so hard. I have no money to send back home. When my family asks for a certain amount of money, I can't afford to give it to them. I give a lot less than before. When they ask for $60 or $90, I can't afford it. I can only give them $15, and sometimes I can't give them anything at all."

She is not alone.

According to government statistics, Thailand's unemployment rate is expected to surge to 3 percent later this year. Nearly a million Thais have already lost their jobs, and experts say the situation will only worsen. Thailand's financial woes are attributed to a confluence of factors both international-such as the global economic crisis and the H1N1 epidemic-and domestic, including the political upheaval in 2008. These pressures may very well stifle the sound of Chinese opera in Thailand, where this music has a long tradition. Thousands of Chinese migrants began arriving in Thailand in the 1800s, and today, 14 percent of the country's population claims Chinese ethnicity in their ancestry.