WHILE many complain Shenzhen is too modern and a city where it's hard to find even a touch of traditional Chinese culture, one person is trying to reverse that image with a touch of Chinese opera.

Every Saturday evening, a photo studio named Opera Life, which is located at the second floor of an arts and craft product building in Huafa Road, Futian District, is a hot scene where good-looking young people sing and dance to Chinese operas with an older woman just like professionals. The operas include Beijing Opera, Shaoxing opera, Henan opera and Huangmei opera.

The studio is packed with traditional Chinese opera costumes, including headwear for men and women, and some beautifully decorated portraits in full costumes adorn the wall which reveal a bit of the life and exquisite taste of its owner.

Su Wencai, a retiree in her late 50s who once worked as a Chu opera actress in Wuhan, Hubei Province, is the owner.

Su was in show business since age 11 when she joined a Chu opera troupe in Wuhan. However, at 27 she was forced to leave the stage with all her performance photos burned to work as a clerk during the "cultural revolution."

Wanting to be active after retirement and yearning to fulfill her long-burgeoning dream to be involved in opera again, Su decided to open a photo studio that offered a variety of costumes for opera fans in Shenzhen.

She used all her savings ¡ª as much as 200,000 yuan --- and opened the studio three months ago.

Su said she chose Shenzhen because the weather was mild and, most of all, Shenzhen had no professional opera troupes.

"There's a vacancy in the city and I want to fill it," she said.

Opera Life has become an opera party venue for young fans, many of whom are highly educated. Some even join the party from outside the city.

A woman named Xiaoqiu is a fan of Shaoxing opera and a frequent Saturday visitor to Opera Life.

Xiaoqiu opened a small factory in Shunde, Guangdong Province after she graduated from university. She said she became fascinated with Shaoxing opera when she was a junior high student.

Xiaoqiu enjoyed playing Jia Baoyu, a leading role in a Shaoxing opera masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansions, with a young man named Raorao who came from Guangzhou.

Raorao holds master's degree and works in an academic institute in Guangzhou. Both of them fell in love with opera through the Internet.

A woman surnamed Jiang is a white-collar worker for a well-known Shenzhen company. She became enamored of both Huangmei and Shaoxing operas after watching the opera films, Zhuiyu and Tianxianpei in high school.

She began collecting Shaoxing opera records and now she has not only a variety of the recordings, but also many costumes for female roles.

Jiang said that opera has become an essential part of her life and that Opera Life sometimes serves as a spiritual home for her. "I feel delighted and relaxed here," she said.

However, Su had a dilemma: Her studio's income fell short of expenditure during the past months. As she thought about moving the studio elsewhere, some studio frequenters begged her to stay and she complied.

Su said she ran the studio not for money, but to build a platform for traditional opera fans to communicate.

At the request of fans, Su also began to teach about opera history and performance for free.

"I don't regret my choice and I plan to teach fans the types of opera, which, in my expectation, could become a staged show some day in the near future," she said.

Editor: Wings