Oral stunt is one of Chinese folk art forms. Performer uses mouth to imitate all kinds of sounds vividly, such as tweeter, steam whistle of train and bug buzz. It is an excellent Chinese traditional art. Many ancient Chinese literature works describes wonderful performances of oral stunt masters.
Zhu started learning Chinese folk art from his father Zhu Dongfang (朱东方), a well-known folk art performer in Shanghai, since he was only 6. Although his mother was quite against him learning folk art, Zhu Wenhao never gave up his interests in this. He spent almost three years on mastering oral stunts.
He is best at imitating sounds of birds and animals. In addition, sounds of a working loom, a cannon shooting planes and runaway dogs after a battle can be played by him as if you were personally on the scene. Surprisingly, his wonderful performance is played with the help of a 4cm Chinese chives leaf in his mouth. According to Zhu, this leaf can make his imitation much more vivid.
Recent years, as the development of other entertainment forms, public interests in folk arts starts fading away. He has no chance to perform oral stunt on stage now. What's worse, nobody wants to learn this traditional art form any more. Hence, looking for a successor to carry on his oral stunt is haunting him everyday. However, none of the potential successors he found could insist on learning, for lacking patience or gift.
Now Zhu usually goes to perform oral stunt only for fun in Green Lake Park and search for children who are suitable for learning oral stunt.
He is quite desperate right now, for he's not sure if he can find a good successor to keep this Chinese traditional art form during his lifetime. "If not, the day when I pass away will be the doomsday of oral stunt", Zhu said. (Editors: Annie, Lynn)
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