As always, today's evening performance begins at 7:30. It opens with a Fortune God dance.

"The Fortune god dance is a traditional opening that would have been used to begin any performance during the old times. And Tianqiao Le teahouse carries on this tradition. Business people believe this operatic dance of the fortune god, dressed in full costume, will bring good fortune to both businesses and audience members alike."

After this auspicious opening, the audiences are treated to a variety of performances —the Chinese style wrestling and acrobatics, a famous Peking opera aria "Concubine Yang Gets Drunk," sung by a female artist in a gorgeous opera consume, and also the Shuanghuang, a two-man act, where one guy speaks or sings while hiding behind the other guy who does the acting. Overall the performances here tend to be humorous; that is, except for the opera, which can only be described as elegant. This variety of art forms has a history as old as Tianqiao itself.

During an intermission, we're surprised by a group of people wearing cheongsam who walk up to us with a large basket of vegetables on each side of their shoulder poles. Each sings something different. They turned out to be vegetable peddlers. The notes of their songs actually describe the variety, freshness and price of each of their products. A century ago, people in the Tianqiao area sold their vegetables this way. It sounds like it must have been fun for both vegetable vendors and buyers.

I really had a good time watching the variety of performances featured at Tianqiao Le. Obviously, I'm not the only one who enjoyed the show. Zhou Guorong is a young man from Shanghai. This is his first time he has ever been to this kind of teahouse.

"I'd say this place has a strong Beijing local flavor, or rather, characterizes the folk culture that is particularly Beijing. There's the yo-heave-hi of vegetable peddlers around you, along with tea and snacks, all while you watch Peking opera and other programs on stage. All this is typical old Beijing flavor."

And foreigners love it too.

"My name is Takisoya. I work for Sunyo Company, based in Yokohama city. We're reporting on Chinese culture and trendy spots in China. Actually, this theatre is very famous in Japan. Many people are interested in Chinese culture."

By the way, there's another attraction that I must mention here. That is, Tianqiao Le is also a kind of Mecca for crosstalk fans. Every week, from Thursday to Saturday, the teahouse holds cross-talk evening specials. With 20 Yuan, that's less than three dollars, you can enjoy a whole evening's worth of fun and humor, sometimes with the hottest crosstalk performer around, Guo Degang, who rose from anonymity to stardom in this very teahouse. But I must mention that if you want to spend an evening with Guo Degang, you need to book early, because tickets to witness his crosstalk are the most sought after of all Tianqiao Let's performances.

It seems Zhang Fuyan is right when he says his teahouse provides foreigners with a cultural feast, while it lets domestic customers come back to Old Tianqiao.

Tianqiao Le teahouse
Location: Jia No.1 Beiweilu, Xuanwu District
Tel: 010-63040617