Ma Ji, one of most famous Chinese crosstalk performers, died of
heart disease at the age of 72 in a hospital in Beijing Wednesday
morning.
Ma Ji was born in Beijing in 1934 and studied the art of
crosstalk from the late master artist Hou Baolin. Most of his
crosstalk performances shed light on the daily life of ordinary
people in the capital.
Not content with reiterating the techniques he learnt from his
master, Ma Ji went on to develop a whole new genre of crosstalk
dedicated to praising Chinese people's new lives and heroic deeds
in the early period of the People's Republic of China.
The China Crosstalk website lauded him as the country's top
crosstalk performer who had made the greatest contribution to his
art in 2000.
He also received a Life Achievement award at the China Quyi
Peony Awards in August, the highest honor in the country's cultural
and arts world.
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(CRI December 20, 2006)
