Fast Clappertale

Fast Clappertale, or Kuaiban and kuaishu, are highly rhythmic and rhymed, though not sung, stories told to the beat of bamboo or metal clappers manipulated by the teller himself. These stories are told by one or two performers primarily, though group kuaiban do exist, and the performers are virtually all male. The genre is extremely well-received in China today, partly because of the usually humorous nature of the stories, but also because this genre is particularly suited to heroic and rally-rousing themes.  Indeed, kuaishu were used with great success during the anti-Japanese campaigns in the 1930s. On stage in Northern China today, kuaiban are always an important part of the variety show, constituting at least one or two of the usual seven or eight pieces performed in an evening.  Kuaishu have the additional attractive quality of being among the quickest of the quyi genres (xiangsheng is the other) to reflect current events, one could say  almost simultaneously with their occurrence.  Although various geographical locations have their local kuaiban, and Wang Jue lists twenty-one different varieties, it is the one from Shandong, in Northeastern China, that is the most popular throughout the country.  As might be expected, furthermore, one of the three number one ranking performers nationwide is Gao Yuanjun, the Shandong clappertale artist mentioned earlier.