Lu Ruitong’s schedule was a tight one on December 17, 2023. She had set five alarms between 2:40 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. to make sure she would be able to obtain a ticket—not for a pop concert, but for a trendy Chinese opera.
“I’d never been so nervous about getting a ticket,” the 23-year-old opera lover told Beijing Review, adding that she has been attending Chinese operas, including Peking Opera, Huangmei Opera (originating from central China’s Hubei Province), Kunqu Opera (originating from Jiangsu Province in east China) and, in this case, Shaoxing Opera (originating from east China’s Zhejiang Province), at least twice a month for more than 10 consecutive years.
The extremely hard-to-catch performance was called (), performed by Zhejiang Xiaobaihua,, literally “livestream rooms,” these Douyin studios are online spaces that allow content creators to interact with audiences in real time.
