THE THREE KINGDOMS
Main Piece:
Everywhere. Even before learning about it in class it’s in video games, TV series – there’s a TV series about it new every year, every 4 years a new movie about it, all over Asia, Japan, Korea, etc.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms – embellished story of true events that happened way back when China was warring states. This is the coolest story of China’s cyclical warring period. Very epic and a romance, and brotherhood, and betrayal, poor person becomes king.
Very exciting story, that’s why everyone likes it, much like Game of Thrones.
Background Information:
Why do they know this piece?
Used to play a game called Dynasty Warriors – you choose a kingdom to represent and you go through the storyline. You fight as these warriors and these characters are copied from the novels, their mannerisms, personalities, etc., very popular because they have very defining characteristics – such as the brute, the cunning spy, etc.
Later learned about the story in high school – everyone has to learn it in China – in excerpts – examples of the Three Kingdoms are used in everything, much like Confucious.
Where/Who did they learn it from?
School / Video Games / everywhere in the culture.
What does it mean for them?
Makes him very proud to be Chinese because it is a very badass story and very inspiring, so much cool things happened, and the decisions and courses of actions are all still accurate and reflect the emotions of the characters….overall very inspiring and just a damn good epic.
Context of Performance:
Sitting inside friend’s room just talking.
Thoughts:
Similar like the Chinese folklore of the Monkey King, I also learned about the Three Kingdoms from a video game – although it took me a very long time (probably more than 8 or 10 years) to realize that there is actually a history, a real history to the game – that all of this is based on a very real historical account of what actually happened in the past.
Again, it is interesting to see how even at childhood, we can have indirect contact with folklore through say, video games (which are based on on the cultural need to pass down folklore/culture, but from a more monetary need to sell/an intent based more on capitalism or the market system), which can lead to kids like me playing these games and getting into the folklore but in a vacuum like setting…I didn’t learn more about this and it’s real-ness until the internet where I had the freedom to research it for myself.
Also you can find another version/annotation here: