Last night, I was watching the first episode of the Ding Hei directed 2017 Chinese television series Nothing Gold Can Stay 那年花开月正圆 starring Sun Li. The story of a widow, Zhou Ying who took over the reins of the family business after her husband passed away is supposedly based on the life of a real person who lived in the late Qing dynasty, Widow An Wu 安吴寡妇, the god-daughter of Empress Dowager Cixi; the former was described to be a legend in her own right. Sun Li played the role of the streetwise Zhou Ying rather well. In the opening scene, she is seen performing some kung tricks to a big crowd in the streets with her father to earn some money. I remember street performances like this in little towns with a Chinese population in Malaysia by traditional Chinese medicine peddlers in the late 60s or 70s. The peddlers would perform some tricks, introduce their products and then sell them to interested parties. In Hokkien, we call it ba hi but I don't think there are such street performances nowadays; at least I haven't seen it for a long time.
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